Blog – Art in Odd Places

The Art in Odd Places festival has started! Its opening event last Friday was jam packed as our curators and artists kick off the beginning of a 10 day festival. Check back with us again to see pictures from the event.

For now let’s get to know Green Map System, a non profit group empowering people towards a sustainable future. Their work recognizes “green living” sites along 14th street by using a specially prepared marker system. They will help us paint a “greener” picture of 14th street during the festival. Markers will all over the 14th street, but don’t forget to join them on 10/10/10 @ the 14th street Y to see their findings and help create new icons markers.

Aiop: Tell us about your group

(photo courtesy of Wendy Brawer)

GMS: Green Map System is the eco-cultural nonprofit behind a worldwide sustainability mapping movement. In over 700 cities in 55 countries, visual representations of the community’s progress toward sustainability are being created using collaboratively designed universal Green Map® Icons and adaptable and interactive mapmaking resources. Each Green Map highlights local culture, nature, social and green living resources to help people get involved and make their home place a better, greener and healthier place to live. NYC’s Green Map is the original edition that sparked the global movement – find out more at GreenMap.org.

Aiop: How did you hear about Art in Odd Places?

GMS: From our neighbors at the Laundromat Project

Aiop: What made you decide to submit a proposal for the Festival?

GMS: Organizing our contribution to Art in Odd Places took place collaboratively. QueensNY Green Mapmaker, Carlos Martinez (formerly a staff member at our global office) is a photographer and has taken part in the Laundromat Project. He started generating ideas right away, and said “This is the perfect venue to test green site markers that will allow urban explorers to identify green sites in the real world”. I agreed – let’s take a chance and reach a new audience!

Then Boram Park, our intern from South Korea, scouted 14th Street – there were lots of green sites we had not mapped before! She took photos of each and then, together with Té Baybute, our designer, we planned a way to involve our global network and achieve something we had discussed many times – a test of concept for a marker system that would help people on the street connect with surprisingly green sites and spaces, without the need for our mobile website, iPhone app or even a printed Green Map.

Green Mapmakers from 9 countries are currently designing markers for the 20+ sites we will highlight, from 1st Ave to the Hudson River. We hope festival-goers – and everyone else – will explore the street and find each marker then click http://GreenMap.org/testmark and vote for their favorite design. This mobile website will be available starting 10/1/10. Find background info now at http://GreenMap.org/aiop

And thanks to Petrushka Bazin and Yaelle Amir, we will hold a culminating event on the last day of Art in Odd Places at the 14th Street Y. It’s 10/10/10, which is 350.org’s Global Work Party, so we are hosting an community climate icon design studio from 1-4 pm that day.

We hope everyone interested in sustainability and a healthier future for all will contribute a few powerful concepts and sketches that extend our set of award- winning Green Map Icons. As seen at http://GreenMap.org/icons, they are used on hundreds of locally created Green Maps, so having fresh input regarding symbols for climate impacts and adaptation will be terrific! So, come to AIOP, and our 10/10/10

event and find out more, share ideas, vote on the green site marker designs, enjoy refreshments donated by Angelica Kitchen and others, and take home a Green Map.

Aiop: How is the preparation coming along for your piece this October? 

GMS: Pretty good! we have a blog up at http://GreenMap.org/aiop – it’s linked to the marker design polling site which will go live on 10/1/10. It’s mirrored at http://facebook.com/greenmap – Tweets @greenmap to come!

And as mentioned, we have Green Mapmakers taking part by designing green site markers, including Andre Guilherme, Brazil – Cindy Kohtala & Kavita Gonsalves, Finland – Gautam Naido, India – Elanto Wijoyono, Indonesia – Ana Mestre, Portugal – Philip Todres, South Africa – Boram Park, South Korea – Yelu & Jen Pei Wang, Taiwan – Té Baybute, Massachusetts – Rick Loduha & Barbara Hardy, Michigan – Jenna Giambalvo, New Jersey and Wendy Brawer, New York.

Green Map System Team (photo courtesy of Wendy Brawer)

Aiop:What’s your favorite spot on 14th street?

GMS: There are many – and because of the special Green Map markers we are creating, these

spots will also be apparent to festival-goers.

Aiop: Do you have a hidden talent you would like to share?
GMS: We know how to ‘think global & map local’ !

Aiop: Any message to the people who will be in 14th street during the festival? 

GMS: There are ways to make more sustainable choices all around us. Take a chance to become part of the solution, today & every day. Find out more at http://OpenGreenMap.org/nyc

Aiop:What should people expect from your project during the festival?

GMS: Spot our markers, and learn about the green attributes of each spot. Then, rate the markers’ design! Give us your ideas for new climate-change related icons at our 10/10/10 Global Work Party: Green Map Icon Design Studio @ 14th Street Y (1-4pm)!

Aiop: What’s your lucky number? 

GMS: 101010

Aiop: Write a fortune that would appear in a fortune cookie

GMS:Find new directions to a sustainable future with Green Map!

Aiop: What’s the strangest encounter that you’ve had as pedestrian living in New York 

GMS:Loving the city as a Green Mapmaker means being alert for new approaches to a climate-savvy socially just economy, wildlife appreciation and special places – so whether we are on foot, on a bike or getting around another way, we are constantly experiencing fresh perspectives… it’s not really so strange, but the city is full of

surprising jewels to cherish!

Aiop: What do you hope to bring to the festival? 

GMS: The chance that festival-goers will gain a sense of sustainability

Aiop: Where is Green Map System located?

GMS: Green Map ‘lives” in the East Village – we sometimes say ‘on a small island nation halfway between the US and Europe’ or in the Hudson River Valley Bioregion, North Western Hemisphere

Memento is latin for “remember”. It is also known, less formally, as “keepsakes” or “souvenirs”: something to invoke a memory. It is not surprising the word “memento” is very similar with the word “moment”: both denotes a specific frame of time. For Nicole Seisler and Liene Bosque, Art in Odd Places 2010 artists, capturing a specific tangible “moment”, often of things seldom noticed, is the goal. With wet clay on their arms, both artists will take a chance to make art by creating great impressions of 14th street. Their impressions of “mementos of moments” (mOmento, anyone?) will definitely give new meaning to the term “first impressions last”,

Let’s take a moment and get to know them.

Aiop: Tell us about you
N&L: We met in a class called ‘Walking the City’ in our first semester in Graduate school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). It became quite clear that our interests overlap in many ways and we started working together in December 2009. Being new to Chicago (Liene is from Brazil and Nicole moved here from Boston), working together was a way for us to explore the city and embrace our desires to make work on the streets of Chicago.

Photo courtesy of Nicole and Liene

Aiop: How did you hear about Art in Odd Places?
N&L: Liene heard about the festival from the Nancy Gildart, Director of Career Services at SAIC.

Aiop: What made you decide to submit a proposal for the Festival?
N&L: Art in Odd Places (an excellent name, by the way) offers us a chance to explore NYC and make art outside of the realm of galleries and traditional ‘art’ spaces. Our work involves the mapping of cities and we are also excited about engaging audiences that might not traditionally seek out an ‘art experience.’

Photo courtesy of Nicole and Liene

Aiop: How is the preparation coming along for your piece this October?
N&L: We have been spending a lot of time in the welding shop lately. The cart we previously made for this project is large, heavy, and welded together in one piece. In order to make our project mobile, we are currently building a new modular cart that will fit into a suitcase. We are also figuring out how to make the clay component of this project mobile. If anyone reading this works in an NYC ceramics facility, we could use your help, so please get in touch with us! A lot of preparation has gone into this project, including scoping out 14th street earlier this summer. AiOP will be the first time that we take City Souvenirs to New York.

Photo courtesy of Nicole and Liene

Photo courtesy of Nicole and Liene

Aiop: What’s your favorite spot on 14th street?
N&L: There are a lot of intriguing things about the mixed use of 14th Street but we keep coming back to how quirky that little Russian souvenir store is.

Aiop: Any message to the people who will be in 14th street during the festival?
N&L: If you see us passing by with our cart, please stop for a moment to talk with us and create a clay impression of 14th Street!

Participation is encouraged, so prepare to get your hands dirty and create lasting souvenirs. You can catch them starting October 8 starting 11 am heading East. Visit the www.artinoddplaces.org for more any updates.

Taking a CHANCE for sustainability: Green Map System

AiOP 2010 artists, Nicole Seisler and Liene Bosque will try to make a good impression during the festival