April 6 - 30th, 2009

Bioanthrophony

Bioanthrophony at PLAySPACE gallery combines the aural and the visual through two distinct projects, a site-specific installation by Jeremiah Moore and The Greenhorns' Land. Liberty. Sunshine. Stamina. to explore resounding themes in art and ecology. The exhibition is organized in conjunction with the Rising Tide Symposium in efforts to engage the community in, and heighten awareness of, topics in environmental ethics and the arts.

San Francisco based artist Jeremiah Moore creates environments and atmospheres with captured and processed sound from organic and manmade sources. Moore's sound works concern "the fabric of our acoustic connection to our environment" and "the texture and quality of the signal - the underlying communication buried in the obvious." For Bioanthrophony, Moore creates a site-specific installation that juxtaposes field recordings from natural and constructed environments of the Bay Area with electronicized versions of these sounds. The simultaneous audio streams within the singular space of the gallery reflect and question the dichotomous experience of the ecological and the built environment.

The collaborative installation Land. Liberty. Sunshine. Stamina. presented by The Greenhorns, provides a venue for young farmers from around the country to display their wares-- the products of their careful stewardship. From socks to smocks to seeds--this collective artwork demonstrates the culture of agriculture, and reclaims reverence for "producer" instead of onlyever championing the "consumers." On April 17th from 5pm-7pm, we will also hold a project sharing and informational session for urban and aspiring farmers with music, food and beverages.

Brooke Budner (Greenhorns illustrator), Seedling, ink on paper, 2009

PLAySPACE Gallery, CCA SF Campus
Regular Gallery Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 3–7pm; Saturday noon–2pm. The gallery is on the second floor opposite the CCA Wattis Institute and above A2 Café.

April 6 - 24th, 2009

Disposable Truths

We have all been sold the myth of disposable plastic. We throw it away but it stays with us for centuries and may ultimately irreparably altar the planet.

As beachcombers at Kehoe Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, we became aware of this dire situation ten years ago. Since then, we have collected from this one beach almost 2 tons of plastic, which has washed ashore from as far away as Asia and as close to home as the San Francisco Bay.

In order to demonstrate the ubiquity of plastic waste in our oceans, we have configured our collection of plastic material into the selected works presented here.

Beauty First has become our creed; by exciting the aesthetic sensibility, we hope to inform and inspire all to action.

When we found the first red rectangle, it was just a mysterious shape among our piles of colored shards. When we had three, we thought they might actually be something. When we had nine, they became a category. By the time we had 87, we knew they definitely had some significance but we could not figure out what. Finally, we asked a teenager who was shocked that we did not know about something that was obviously very common. How could we be so out of it as to not know about the red plastic cheese spreaders in the plastic pac of Kraft Handi-Snacks?

We are thrilled (and relieved) to be in the know. We now have some 277 in our growing collection.

All of the spreaders you see here were collected from Kehoe Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore over a ten-year period. Derelict picnickers did not leave these. They all have washed up out of the ocean, arriving from some distant destination. There is evidence that they have been at sea for a long time. Some are broken. Some are pale, bleached by the sun. Some are patterned by the growth of coral accretions.

May 9 - 17th, 2009

Natural Balance: Art & Ecology

The concept of Natural Balance is central to any sustainable system. Creation and destruction are inseparable forces that often function simultaneously. Humans play an increasingly influential role in affecting ecological systems on a local and global scale. Artists, in particular, have an important role to play in transforming human perception and mediating our understanding of the urban landscape.

The Natural Balance exhibition includes six temporary outdoor site-specific installations set within the Gothic architecture of Girona, and will take place during the annual Temps de Flors Flower Festival which attracts over 500,000 visitors to the city. The six selected artists developed their works considering the ecological impact of their materials, the impact of the project itself, as well as the capacity to be recycled or re-used after the installation is taken down.

The show is an international project, engaging artists from Europe and USA with the support of students from the University of Girona. The working process involves public participation, collaboration with local organizations and highlights the importance of international interdependence and collaboration around environmental issues.

Curated by:
Lluís Sabadell Artiga, Yolanda de Zuloaga (Hibrids 2.0), Sam Bower (greenmuseum.org) & Kim Anno

Projects by:
Harmen de Hoop
Lucrecia Troncoso & Karrie Hovey
Samantha Clark
Terry Berlier
Jeanette Ramirez
Isidro López-Aparicio

For more information, please visit the Natural Balance website.