Artists Explore Justice & Wellbeing During Recovery | New Project

Recovery Justice: Being Well
March 8 - July 16, 2021
North & South Galleries // Outdoors on Airport Ave.
18th Street Arts Center (Airport Campus)
3026 Airport Ave, Santa Monica

Online Exhibition Page: https://18thstreet.org/event/recovery-justice-being-well/

This exhibition will be open to appointments only from March 29 - July 2. Appointments are available Monday - Friday at 10 am, 1 pm, 2 pm, and 3 pm. Please visit https://yearofwondersredux.eventbrite.com to sign up for an appointment.

Each time slot can accommodate groups of up to six individuals. All visitors are expected to check-in at the front door, wear masks, and maintain a distance of 6 feet at all times from others who are not part of the same family group. Please do not come if you have any symptoms of illness.

SANTA MONICA, CA - 18th Street Arts Center is pleased to present a series of self-organized artist projects addressing wellbeing during a pandemic called Recovery Justice: Being Well. “Being Well” is what we seek together as neighbors, and recalls one of the central guiding principles of the City of Santa Monica, the notion of “wellbeing” as key to civic health. Recovery Justice: Being Well, aims to highlight the recent circumstances that have evolved during the pandemic (racial justice demonstrations and destruction, as well as social discontent and general disconnection) into a series of self-organized artist projects that merge the exterior and interior public spaces of City of Santa Monica property. 18th Street Airport Campus at Santa Monica Municipal Airport will be the site where artists reimagine the city and beyond in the midst of complex social unrest globally. Recovery Justice will recuperate through various means the digital and physical footprints left in a city that struggles to reclaim the seemingly peaceful environment it once had. Artists will develop a palette for making and sharing artworks responding to the street experience in safe, healing, and expressive modes. This porous series is a point of departure to reconcile and redefine the concept of justice.

As 18th Street Arts Center Executive Director Jan Williamson says, “This exhibition really is just the beginning step of bringing artist's voices into the conversation about what just recovery for Santa Monica looks like – for our residents, businesses, and neighborhoods. The tragedy of the pandemic has given us an opportunity to reimagine how the city supports its vulnerable residents, and an opportunity to go deeper into what wellbeing means beyond Santa Monica's image as a beach resort town. 18th Street is proud to be supporting these 15 artists who are offering a collage of images, videos, installations, and performances of a more just city.”

This collage of self-organized artist projects was organized around the common theme of Recovery Justice, facilitated as part of Sara Daleiden’s artist project and ongoing conversations nurtured through a series of online conversations with 18th Street’s artist community called “Creative Roundtables” over the past 8 months. These projects will manifest in outdoor presentations on the side of the building; sculptural, photographic, painting, and video work in the galleries; and a series of online and drive-in events in Spring of 2021. The artists’ presentations will also be represented online and via a 360 tour for virtual viewing.

Participating artists include Sara Daleiden, Nicola Goode, Susie McKay Krieser, Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, M Susan Broussard, Lionel Popkin, Yrneh Gabon Brown, Lola del Fresno, Debra Disman, Melinda Smith Altshuler, Gregg Chadwick, Luciana Abait, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Rebecca Youssef, and Dan S. Wang.

The artist projects as part of Recovery Justice: Being Well is generously supported by the City of Santa Monica’s Art of Recovery program, with additional support from Los Angeles County’s WE RISE 2021 program. Sara Daleiden’s residency and facilitation work on these projects is generously supported by the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Bailiwik is also a supporting partner on this exhibition.

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR

Sara Daleiden is a Los Angeles-based artist who facilitates civic engagement within developing landscapes, exercising arts and cultural exchange strategies. She encourages local cultures to value neighborhoods, public space, civic art, land, and racial and gender equity. Sara has expertise in working with artists and other cultural entrepreneurs for civic engagement, creative placemaking, network development, and small business development.

Her project at 18th Street Arts Center grows out of the placekeeping work that 18th Street has been engaged in over the past six years through our cultural asset mapping project (culturemapping90404.org) and the Commons Lab, which involves community voices to define the center, and connect cultural practices within their own neighborhoods. Her practice investigates the influence of location, scale, market, values, and other regional factors on the production of the arts and cultural identity. Through methodologies involving partnership mapping, network building, and the facilitation of self-organizing and advocacy, Sara aims to enhance the advocacy power of artists in influencing neighborhood development in the city. Her durational engagement with 18th Street will spin-off land-based activations with opportunities for neighbors, artists, city staff, and the broader public to participate. Sara has been collaborating with arts workers Nicola Goode, Susannah Laramee Kidd, Dorit Cypis, and Kimberli Meyer for this artist project.

ABOUT 18TH STREET ARTS CENTER

Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2018-2019, 18th Street Arts Center is one of the top 20 artist residency programs in the US, and the largest in Southern California. Conceived as a radical think tank in the shape of an artist community, 18th Street supports artists from around the globe to imagine, research, and develop significant, meaningful new artworks and share them with the public. We strive to provide artists the space and time to take risks, to foster the ideal environment for artists and the public to directly engage, and to create experiences and partnerships that foster positive social change.
Our gallery and event spaces are fully accessible, with ground level entrances with no steps. Upon requests for assistance, we will make programmatic aspects of our projects available in accessible alternative formats. You can email requests or questions at [email protected].
Additional information: 18thstreet.org

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