Friday, February 5th to March 5th, 2016
Traces & Trajectories highlights the overarching accomplishments of the Rocket Grants program, and how their artists’ practices speak to issues and concerns in our community.
The Rocket Grant program and its recipients’ community-based practices have acted as a catalyst in Kansas City. The various projects sometimes shift perspectives of the artists’ trajectories, illuminating subtler aspects for their audience. Other times they offer an examination of topics some might consider challenging or provocative. The aim of this exhibition is to survey how these projects have made, and continue to make, an impact on the city as a whole.
Featuring:
Blanket Undercover, Nedra Bonds, Darryl Chamberlain, Amber Hansen, Judith G. Levy, Dave Loewenstein, PLUG projects, and Don Wilkison
Rocket Talks, Lecture Series:
Saturday, February 6, 1pm // Judith G. Levy and Jessica Borusky
Saturday, February 6, 3pm // David Loewenstein
Saturday, February 11, 7pm // Nedra Bonds & Michael Toombs
Saturday, February 25, 6pm // Plug Projects Critique Night
For photos of the event, check out our flickr.
At 1 PM on Saturday, February 6th, artists Judith G. Levy and Jessica Borusky will host their Rocket Talk, Elaborations: A conversation about persona and place.
Judith G. Levy and Jessica Borusky will host a conversation with one another about the role of persona and place in their work. They will show projected images as they discuss how they individually explore narrative, locale, provocation, humor, memory, objects and queer theory to create multi-disciplinary work that investigates assumptions, omissions, and ideology in formal presentations of history and culture. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the conversation.
WHO: Judith G. Levy and Jessica Borusky
WHAT: Rocket Talk – Elaborations: A conversation about persona and place
WHERE: La Esquina, 1000 W 25th Street Kansas City, MO 64108
WHEN: Saturday, February 6th 1 PM
At 3 PM on Saturday, February 6th, artist Dave Loewenstein will host his Rocket Talk, A discussion about the arts and creative placemaking.
Give Take Give, Dave Loewenstein’s Rocket Grant supported the project from 2013, focused on the improvised gift economy and social space that emerged within and around a local dumpster near his home in Lawrence, KS. The project was propelled by a new wave of upscale development that was encroaching into the beloved working-class neighborhood of East Lawrence. Three years down the road and the pressure of development pushing gentrification has reached a fever pitch, bolstered by a new planning strategy known popularly as Creative Placemaking. This has become the rallying cry, economic argument, seduction, and defense for a host of new initiatives to increase “vibrancy” in places deemed unvibrant. In response to a new multi-million dollar Placemaking initiative announced in 2015, some East Lawrence neighbors launched the East 9th Street Placekeepers with a website (eastninth.net) that looks deeply at Placemaking projects across the country. Here in the gallery on February 6th from 3-5:30 pm, a group of invited artists, planners, neighbors and others will engage in a facilitated dialogue about the role of artists in this new development paradigm. Visitors are welcome to come to listen.
WHO: Dave Loewenstein
WHAT: Rocket Talk – A discussion about the arts and creative placemaking
WHERE: La Esquina, 1000 W 25th Street, Kansas City, MO 64108
When: Saturday, February 6th 3 PM
