Art in Odd Places (AiOP) 2015: RECALL is our 11th year and while this year’s festival is all about looking back at past artists and projects, we are also taking time to catch up with some of the former AiOP staff. Without the support of these dedicated volunteers, these festivals would not have gotten off the ground. We here at AiOP are honored to have worked with these individuals over the years and are taking the time to see what they have been up to, ask how working with AiOP has impacted their lives and, above all, hope to run into them on 14th Street during this year’s festival.

François Granier.

I volunteered for a couple of months, back in summer 2012. I worked on the Model festival. I was an administrative and communication intern. Most of my work was databases and social medias (Pinterest mostly). I also worked with Ed for the creation of a blog named “Strange Makings”.
Unfortunately, as a French student, I could not spend a long time in the US and I had to be back in France before the festival started.

However, even if it was quite a short experience, I really enjoyed working for AIOP. Working with and for artists in a city where anything might to be possible was a rewarding experience.
I felt fully involved in the preparation of the festival and could meet several artists. Working with AIOP was great, because people were very open minded, always listening to new ideas. It allowed me to feel really involved for the Festival. All these consideration were (and sometimes still are) quite unusual for me who was prepared to work in a French administration where you are just part of a whole and where you are not asked to think but to do.

Thanks to the Strange Makings/Model projects, I could set up my own performance on 14th street : Ed let me do what I wanted to do, his only condition was that my performance had to be related to “Model” and my interpretation of it. So, I decided to draw a runway in the middle of the street and to ask random people to get photographed walking on it. These people had all something special (a nurse uniform, a dandy, someone on a wheelchair…), they were my “Everyday Models”. It is my fondest memory form working at AIOP.