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Burning Man Project partners with Peralta Junction Project
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Leslie Pritchett
Tel: 415-378-4444
Email: leslie@peraltajunction.com (leslie@peraltajunction.com)
Peralta Junction to fuel community, creativity in West Oakland
Artists, social entrepreneurs transform vacant lot in pilot project
OAKLAND, September 24, 2012 — For three months this fall, a 24,000 square-foot vacant lot at the intersection of Mandela Parkway, West Grand Avenue and Peralta Street in West Oakland will be transformed into a creative community space filled with art and commerce. Each weekend from October 4 to December 15, the Peralta Junction Project will harness the strong local presence of the industrial arts and artists to create rich social and economic opportunities for an often-challenged neighborhood.
With the help of scores of participating artists and volunteers, the project team has begun to clean up and rejuvenate the space, which until recently was full of weeds and all but invisible. Talented local mural artists have transformed the long fence facing Mandela Parkway into a vibrant, interactive perimeter. Soon tents will rise, art projects will be installed, carnival lights will be illuminated and the space will come alive with art installations, creative workshops, performances, micro-retail shops featuring local artisans, Oakland-based food trucks, a tented gathering place, and pumpkins.
“We hope to create an economically sustainable, communal creative space for people who live and work in our neighborhood,” said LesliePritchett of Commonplace Productions, one of the project’s organizers. “We invite anyone and everyone to help shape and share in this evolving social project.”
Key features of the project will include:
• A series of three highly-interactive, large-scale art installations, beginning with M.T. Pocket’s Traveling Midway of Curiosities and Delights
• A Pumpkin Patch, with artist-led pumpkin carving programs
• Food Trucks, featuring some of Oakland’s finest mobile purveyors
• A Pop-Up Market, featuring the wares of local artisans
• D.I.Y. workshops and demonstrations with local arts organizations such as The Crucible
• Community Movie Night on Thursdays
• An artist-built stage featuring local performing artists
Marcus Guillard, a founder of the One Hat One Hand design-build collective and Leslie Pritchett, Director of Commonplace Productions will lend their experience as artists, administrators, and change agents in leading this group effort. A strong list of key collaborators includes The Crucible, American Steel Studios, Stageworks Productions and The Burning Man Project.
The project team is busily preparing for Grand Opening Weekend, October 6 and 7, when Peralta Junction will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and will feature performances, pumpkins and pumpkin carving, workshops, live painting demonstrations, face painting, clowns, carnies, food trucks, vendors and more!
If this pilot project is demonstrated to be viable, the project team hopes to move forward with a longer-term, five-year program at the site that includes arts-based programming, community space, and micro-retail shops and restaurants housed in artist-designed and converted shipping containers.
Details regarding participating artists, key collaborators, vendors, food trucks, and the current project event schedule are available online at www.peraltajunction.com.
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More Burning Man in Vegas: Burning Man Project Partners with Las Vegas’ Downtown Project
September 28 – 2012 San Francisco, CA – The Burning Man Project and Downtown Project are partnering to bring vibrant, interactive art and culture to downtown Las Vegas. The two organizations share a common goal of stimulating civic engagement and economic development, and will be working together to bring large-scale installations and other forms of Burning Man-style art and events to downtown Las Vegas.
“We are excited about working with Downtown Project,” said Burning Man Project Founding Board Member Marian Goodell. “Las Vegas provides a rich landscape ripe with opportunities for civic participation and public gathering, and we look forward to engaging in this collaborative effort.”
The partnership will enhance First Friday in Las Vegas by providing more opportunities for participation and interaction, strengthening the event’s civic-minded emphasis, and developing ways to keep attendees connected. The partnership would also like to provide storage, or a museum space, for art cars in Las Vegas so that they can participate in the First Friday and other public art events. In order to facilitate this process, the Burning Man Project is hiring a liaison, or “cultural attaché” that will be based in Las Vegas to work closely with Downtown Project.
The Burning Man Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to catalyze creative culture around the world. Based in San Francisco, the Burning Man Project seeks to promote the culture and principles of Burning Man, and draws on the community of artists and participants of the annual Burning Man event in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to facilitate this process.
Downtown Project was formed to help transform downtown Las Vegas into the most community-focused large city in the world by inspiring and empowering people to create a vibrant, connected urban core.
For inquiries, please contact:
• Mimi Pham, mimi@downtownproject.com
• Marian Goodell, downtownproject@burningmanproject.org
www.burningmanproject.org
www.downtownproject.com
In the Press: 7 Ways To Reinvent Your City, Burning Man Style
Image by Peretz Partensky via Shareable.net
How can the participatory economy of Burning Man be applied beyond the trash fence? The fine folks at Shareable.net recently tackled this big question in 7 Ways to Reinvent Your City, Burning Man Style, suggesting tactics like plugging into the resource grid and crowdsourcing the budget as methods of engaging the Ten Principles. They also pinpointed how the participatory nature of the event shapes the event and its people:
Black Rock City is manifested by thousands of people in the spirit of celebration. The passion of participants is unmistakable. [...] They experience — sometimes for the first time — what it’s like to be accepted completely in public, and so are willing to give their best to the city that invites the best in them. This is the way the city is made, and how it makes people.
We look forward to seeing how these people – our amazing community! – shape their world in the same way they shape the event.
Many thanks to Shareable for the post!
NEA awards BRAF Arts Our Town Grant, in Collaboration with the Burning Man Project and Fernley, NV
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 12, 2012
San Francisco, CA
The Black Rock Arts Foundation selected as National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant recipient
San Francisco, CA – The Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF) proudly accepts a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Our Town grant, in the amount $75,000. Working in collaboration with the City of Fernley Nevada and the Burning Man Project, BRAF will use the funds to develop and install big art in this small Nevada town to promote arts-led economic and civic development. The NEA has awarded Our Town grants to 80 recipients, totaling $4.995 million and reaching 44 states and the District of Columbia.
The Black Rock Arts Foundation is working with the City of Fernley to pilot an initiative called Big Art for Small Towns. Over the next two years, two pieces of large-scale sculpture will be installed in a new city-owned park in Fernley. One of the artworks will be an existing piece of sculpture, selected by the Fernley community for temporary display in the park. The second artwork will be an original piece created by local residents working with a competitively selected lead artist to reflect Fernley’s character, heritage, and culture. Programming includes a series of public lectures, workshops, and youth learning opportunities focused on the community-building benefits of public art. Big Art for Small Towns is a component of the Black Rock Arts Foundation’s Civic Arts Program, which seeks to share the cultural and economic benefit of public art with rural towns in Nevada and beyond.
“Cities and towns are transformed when you bring the arts – both literally and figuratively – into the center of them,” said NEA Chairman Landesman. “From Teller, Alaska to Miami, Florida, communities are pursuing creative placemaking, making their neighborhoods more vibrant and robust by investing in the performing, visual, and literary arts. I am proud to be partnering with these 80 communities and their respective arts, civic, and elected leaders.”
“We are proud to have been recognized by the NEA’s Our Town program, and believe that this innovative project will help bring the community together and stimulate much-needed economic growth in Fernley. If this program is as successful as we anticipate, we hope to replicate it in other small towns in Nevada and across rural America,” said BRAF Executive Director Tomas McCabe.
Through Our Town, the NEA supports creative placemaking projects that help transform communities into lively, beautiful, and sustainable places with the arts at their core. The grantee projects will improve quality of life, encourage creative activity, create community identity and a sense of place, and help revitalize local economies.
The NEA received 317 applications for Our Town. With only 80 grants emerging from the 317 applications, or a success rate of 25 percent, competition was strong, a testament to the artistic excellence and merit of the Black Rock Art Foundation’s Big Art for Small Towns program.
For a complete listing of projects recommended for Our Town grant support, please visit the NEA website at arts.gov.
The Black Rock Arts Foundation supports and promotes community, interactive art and civic participation. For more information on the Black Rock Arts Foundation, please visitblackrockarts.org.
CONTACT:
Tomas McCabe, Executive Director
Black Rock Arts Foundation
(415) 626-1248
tomas@blackrockarts.org
Central Market Arts Groups Named as Finalists for Creative Placemaking Grants
San Francisco, CA, January 24, 2012: “Central Market Arts Activation,” a collaboration between the Burning Man Project, Black Rock Arts Foundation, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts and the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development has been named as a finalist for support from ArtPlace, an unprecedented private-public collaboration of nine of the nation’s top foundations, eight federal agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts, and six of the nation’s largest banks. ArtPlace supports creative placemaking with grants and loans, research and advocacy. Central Market Arts Acitivation joins 128 other projects in 68 cities working to transform their communities by driving vibrancy through investments in the arts.
The selected projects represent the best of the more than 2,000 applications from across the country. Finalists were chosen for their potential to have a transformative impact on community vibrancy. Proposed projects run the gamut from temporary art spaces to permanent performance venues, from music festivals to art walks and from streetscaping to artist residencies.
“We hope to amplify the momentum of San Francisco’s Central Market Economic Development Strategy through community collaboration toward unique arts activation and programming in the district,” says Harley K. Dubois, Founding Board Member of the Burning Man Project. “The established capacity and accomplishments of the partners as well as the momentum and focus in the district will continue to develop the culture of creativity that exists in Central Market.”
ArtPlace expects to distribute $15 million in 2012. This year’s grant recipients will be announced in May. Last year, 34 organizations received a total of $11.5 million.
The full list of finalists can be found at http://www.artplaceamerica.org/2012finalists
Participating foundations include Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Ford Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Rasmuson Foundation, The Robina Foundation and an anonymous donor. In addition to the NEA, federal partners are the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Education and Transportation, along with leadership from the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Domestic Policy Council. ArtPlace is also supported by a $12 million loan fund capitalized by six major financial institutions and managed by the Nonprofit Finance Fund. Participating institutions are Bank of America, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Chase, MetLife and Morgan Stanley.
BURNING MAN PROJECT CONTACT:
James Hanusa: james@burningmanproject.org
ARTPLACE CONTACT:
Tim Halbur: tim@artplaceamerica.org