I will be working Parsons and Pratt students along with Melanie Crean on the project Shape of Change, which will presented at Parsons' Aronson Gallery next fall. The goal of the project is to generate conversation between students in the United States and those in Iraq. I have been doing an email interview with Melanie which will be posted on the blog.

We are interested in accommodating as many participants as are interested. Please email me.

An excerpt from "The Last Shoemaker in Québec," will be a part of Bike Box, a site specific bike tour of Brooklyn organized by Sabine Gruffat and Bill Brown. You can find information about Bike Box here.

Here's the description:
The Last Shoemaker in Québec
Audio Recording
4:54

This interview with Mathieu Néron, the last shoemaker of Ville de Québec, triggered by the GPS of a shoe boutique in Williamsburg, collapses Brooklyn's history as a leading shoemaker at the end of the 19th century with that of Québec City, which shares a similar past. During the interview, Néron discusses his education as an apprentice and the cultural loss that he has witness as an artisan working in an ever increasingly industrialized and global society.

I've posted the zine from the first Conversations at the Commons. You can download it here.

Also, we hosted our Conversations at the Commons: The Future of Education, and I'll post a zine about that one soon. Here is the description:

June 2, 8-10PM
The Commons
388 Atlantic Ave. @ Bond Street in Brooklyn
closest subway is the Hoyt/Schermerhorn stop on A, C & G but also near the Atlantic/Pacific stop (B, M, Q, R, 2, 3, 4, 5), the LIRR, the F train (Bergen stop)the B63 and B65.

Join us for a performative discussion about emergent models and imagined futures of education found in both institutional and community-based settings. During the discussion we will collaboratively develop ideas for our own “school of the future” and hear presentations from NYC Dept of Education’s Director of Sustainability - Ozgem Ornektekin, organizers of the School of the Future project, the Bushwick Unschool and a screening of “We Have to Call It School”.

• “We Have to Call It School” is a film by Peggy Hughes, narrated by celebrated education author John Holt; a documentary about the Little New School, an experimental education experiment that thrived in the 70s’ outside of Copenhagen.
• Ozgem Ornektekin is the Director of Sustainability, DOE Division of School Facilities and will talk about her recent initiatives in NYC public schools and her views on the future of education
• Jennifer Falko founder of the Bushwick Unschool, an alternative space for early childhood education will speak about unschooling as a viable education model
• Cassie Thornton and Chris Kennedy, co-organizers of the School of the Future will reflect on their process of creating an intergenerational free school in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Citizenship as practice rather than status
part of the Sixth Borough Exhibit
Governor's Island
August 14-15, 1-7PM
website

I'll be collaborating with Hong-An Truong on a tutorial that is part of Mary Walling Blackburn's Project "Radical Citizenship: The Tutorials."

AND, AND, AND - Stammering: An Interview

What defines the [multiplicity] is the AND, as something which has its place between the elements or between the sets. AND, AND, AND – stammering.

-Gilles Deleuze

In this tutorial, participants who have never had to naturalize into the United States will rehearse the process of becoming a citizen through an interview format. Those who have gone through a process of naturalization will have the option to relinquish their citizenship. Within the span of a conversation-interview, participants will help problematize the notion of allegiance and the structure of authority and power implicit in the state. Finally, this tutorial will help to underscore the ideal of responsibility to community and place, while also considering different forms of belonging through the concept of ‘nomadic citizenship.’

May 5, 8-10PM
The Commons
388 Atlantic Ave. @ Bond Street in Brooklyn
closest subway is the Hoyt/Schermerhorn stop on A, C & G but also near the Atlantic/Pacific stop (B, M, Q, R, 2, 3, 4, 5), the LIRR, the F train (Bergen stop)the B63 and B65.

What models for alternative education already exist? How can the teaching of practical skills be related to social justice? We will present historic models of alternative education to examine how artist-run schools fit into that framework. In particular, we will explore Montessori and Waldorf methods, the Free School Movement, Democratic Education, Progressive Education, and Craft Revival. Marit Dewhurst will discuss the strategies of Paulo Freire and the Highlander Folk School. We will collaborate on a zine about the history of education based on our own experiences in school.

The Greenhouse Tricycle is in an amazing show about bike advocacy at the Aldrich Museum. It is called Bike Rides: The Exhibition and is co-curated by David Byrne along with Aldrich curators Richard Klein and Mónica Ramírez–Montagut. They collaborated with a local organic farmer and to grow all kinds of winter greens inside. The visitors are watering and tending to the plants and hopefully eating them too. It runs from September 26, 2009, to January 17, 2010, and they've published a nice catalog to go with it.

The show features the work of:

Lance Armstrong, Bamboo Bike Studio (Justin Aguinaldo, Sean Murray, and Marty Odin), Guy Ben–Ner, Jonathan Brand, David Byrne, Cai Guo–Qiang, Cannondale Bicycle Corporation. David Gelfman, Subodh Gupta, Bari Kumar, Jarbas Lopes, Miguel Luciano, Mexican Pride (Francisco Javier Ceballos, Rogelio and Braulio Martinez, and Vicente Olivares), PARLEE Cycles, Carolina Pedraza, Puerto Rico Schwinn Club (Martha Clavijo, “El Gallo,” and Orlando Rivera), Richard Sachs, Tom Sachs, Secret School and the K.I.D.S. (Colin McMullan [aka EMCEE C.M.] and Huong Ngo), Seven Cycles
David Sowerby and Danny MacAskill, Studio Tractor (Peter Kirkiles design + fabrication and Studio Tractor Architecture)
Rob Vandermark

I'm excited to have the Pop-Up Studio in the Return to Function show at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. It runs from May 2-August 23 and is curated by the lovely Jane Simon, and they've published a really amazing catalog to go with it.

It features the work of the following artists:

Jules De Balincourt, Davide Balula, Ralph Borland, the collaborative Claire Fontaine, François Curlet, Futurefarmers, Mark Hosking, Fabrice Hyber, Antal Lakner, Mathieu Mercier, Huong Ngo, Lucy Orta, Jorge Pardo, J. Morgan Puett, Michael Rakowitz, Alyce Santoro, Joe Scanlan, Franck Scurti, Andrea Zittel, and Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga.

Join Secret School and The K.I.D.S. (The Kindness and Imagination Development Society) for four seasons of growing, exchanging, storytelling, and snacking. Throughout the spring, we will exchange seeds, build prototypes for mobile greenhouses, and form a network of secret gardens. Over the summer, we will make books, tell stories, and invent recipes. We’ll celebrate our harvest over the fall, and hunker down together with hot cider and early growing tips over the winter. We will examine what it means to grow a network from the ground up.

Secret School and the K.I.D.S. will issue a series of books and posters that document and explore the hidden network of secret gardens that form B-lines, continuous paths of green spaces for bees, birds, and bugs to travel. Add your garden to the B-line and join us for our future exchanges (this schedule will be updated regularly, so check back often):

Secret Seed Exchange and Garden Party:
Bring seeds to exchange.
April 19, 1-3PM
120 Waterbury #2N
Brooklyn, NY 11206

Storytelling at FEAST:
May 9, 6-9PM
Church of the Messiah
129 Russell Street, Brooklyn
$10-20, no one turned away
FEAST Website

At each FEAST, participants will pay a sliding-scale entrance fee for which they will receive supper and a ballot. Diners will vote on a variety of proposed artist projects. At the end of dinner, the artist whose proposal receives the most votes will be awarded funds collected through the entrance fee to produce the project. The work will then be presented during the next FEAST.

In Collaboration with Alexander Stewart

April 3, 2009 from 6-10PM
Antena, 1765 S. Laflin St.
Chicago, IL 60608

Secret School is pleased to collaborate with Alexander Stewart to examine the importance of food in fostering social networks and the possibilities of barter exchange in decentralizing market systems. A food for art supply swap will begin the event at 6PM and last until 8PM, followed by a 90 minute program of videos that explore cultural relationships with food, including those of Patty Chang, Cecilia Ramirez-Corzo, Emcee C.M. and Ted Efremoff, Joey Frank, Andy Cahill, Liz Magic Laser and Dafna Maimon, Sophia Peer, Karen Tam, Pizza Dog, and a few other food-themed surprises. Secret School and Stewart will issue a corresponding book of recipes, essays, and anecdotes about food.

Bring a homemade dish or art supplies for entry. Arrive early for the swap, stay for the screening.

Return for open format crafting and snacking sessions, a.k.a. Crafternoons.
Noon-5PM every Saturday from April 4 - May 2. Bring snacks, crafts, and friends.

(Colin's Meat Fry Recipe courtesy of Emcee C.M.)