As a child Michelle Swinehart would take a Fisher Price tape recorder, press play, then leave the room while family members would unknowingly have their conversations recorded. Although, at the time (as you can imagine), this caused some family feuding, the seed for her practice as a documentary artist was sewn.

Swinehart is currently a MFA candidate in Social Practice at Portland State University. She has a background in documentary work through New York non-profit StoryCorps and film work through studies at Ohio University. Swinehart draws from many literary sources and real world experiences to find meaning and focus for her current social practice project Ridgefield Residents.

Interviewee, Ailsa Crawford, in front of her home in Ridgefield. Her podcast interview (below) is by Michelle Swinehart.

StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind. It is a digital archive of more than 30,000 personal stories from the lives of Americans. Swinehart’s art is undeniably influenced by time spent working for this organization (from 2006-2008). While at StoryCorps she helped conduct and edit sound interviews in which pairs of people would respond to a set list of questions with sometimes funny, other times painfully sad elements from their life histories. Deciding to take these skills in the direction of art making, Swinehart has continued the practice of cataloguing human experience through shared personal stories. The heart of Swinehart’s art practice lies in listening. The body of her work is archiving and preserving life stories as a collection of cultural heritage for posterity and education.

Swinehart lives on a section of eleven acres of beautiful partly wooded land that her parents own in Ridgefield, Washington. Ridgefield (population 4,409 from the 2009 census) is like many American landscapes, part forest and farmland, part housing developments each uncomfortably vying for rites to exist. She moved there after a discussion she and her husband, Danny Percich (a professional farmer) had with her parents about wanting to start a small farm of their own. A year later she was living about half an acre down a dirt driveway from her parents’ house in a mobile home she and her husband bought on Craig’s List for $3,500. I neglected to mention, the current site of their mobile home is the exact spot that her parents’ mobile home was years ago when their house was under construction, the same spot Swinehart was born.

Ridgefield Residents is a project about coming home. It is about learning to understand a place and the people that live there. It is intrinsically a personal project. It is about living on land that straddles rural and suburb, growing her own produce, meeting her neighbors and staying close with her family. How is this an art project and not just a coming home story? It is the context. And how is the context established? Through documentation.

Ridgefield Residents will be presented in the form of images and recordings on Swinehart’s Website, RidgefieldResidents.virb.com, for all to access as well as in a diorama format, which will be exhibited in the town library in Ridgefield, Washington along with Portland State University in the summer of 2011.

Above is the podcast interview I conducted with Michelle Swinehart in her mobile home in Ridgefield on February, 21st. I had never been to Ridgefield before. It’s about a forty minute drive North of Portland. It was nice to get out of the city for a few hours. Although Ridgefield is still a confusing mix of developments and rural land, when you get on the windy side roads and come across pastures with goats, cows and gardens the environment feels more unified. On Michelle’s parents’ land there are chickens, and if you listen carefully you can hear owls up in the tall pine trees. During our walk from her parent’s house to her (in progress) mobile home, Swinehart even told me about her experiences sharing the land with a family of small foxes. Ridgefield seems like the perfect location to be making art and, simultaneously, reflecting on the process.

Arts Interviews

ARTISTS HIT THE ROAD FOR FIELD RECORDINGS OF MUSIC BY MANITOBANS

March 14, 2011

Two local artists are launching a new music collection project in Manitoba this month, called Manitoba Folkways. 

If that name evokes some memories of American folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax and the influential record label, it’s entirely on purpose. With a nod to both, project organizers Jen Delos Reyes and Kerri-Lynn Reeves will be heading to four locations in Manitoba to do field recordings of the music of the people. 

“I was interested in Alan Lomax’s approach and vision,” explains Delos Reyes of the project’s inspiration. “He elevated vernacular music to a place of reverence and made people’s music (not just the music of trained musicians) of significant cultural value. I also am motivated by the idea of how music forms identity and community. In regards to what Lomax did for American folk music, and American identity, I wondered what it would have been like had Lomax recorded in Canada and how that might of changed our sense of identity in this country.” 

They’re actively seeking people who write music about their lives and about Manitoba. But don’t let the name fool you; they’re not just looking for folkies. They’re hoping that people from all genres, from hip-hop to punk, get involved. 

The goal behind Manitoba Folkways is to create an audio portrait of Manitoba by meeting and recording the music that is being made across province today. The project is intended to be a document of peoples music and no professional music background is required to participate. This audio collection will be compiled into an album and be presented in an exhibition, sponsored by Video Pool and theManitoba Arts Council, this summer in Winnipeg. 

“I hope that people who encounter this project feel a sense of place that comes from the music created by the people who live in this province,” continues Delos Reyes. “I also hope that the idea that people’s music should be a more central part of our lives and experience of place. With such a recent emphasis on the local, I think now more than ever this quote from Lomax holds relevance, ‘Ask around home, do a little detective work, and then go out looking for songs. There’s music in your own back yard.'” 

Recording locations and dates
– B&D Music, Morden — Friday, March 18
– Golden Prairie Arts Centre, Carman — Saturday, March 19
– The Lo Pub, Winnipeg — Sunday, March 20
– Lady of the Lake, Brandon — Monday, March 21 

How to get involved
If you are interested in being recorded as part of this project please emailmb.folkways@gmail.com with the following information:
– full contact information (phone & email)
– musician / band name (if applicable)
– contact name
– brief description of your music (max. 75 words)

Conferenza Combinatoria. Participatory performance organized by Pablo Helguera at neon campobase, Bologna, Italy 2010.

Pablo Helguera has won the first edition of the International Award for Participatory Art. The Award, a biennial project promoted by the Legislative Assembly of the Region Emilia-Romagna, is dedicated to artists with an outstanding experience in participatory art projects. The three finalists of the award, chosen from a list of 18 artists nominated by curators, critics and artists from all over the world, had to develop a project idea to be realised in the city of Bologna, Italy in 2011. Helguera’s project was chosen from a short list of three proposals submitted by the winner and the other two finalists Mel Chin and Jeanne van Heeswijk. The award consists in the prize of 15,000 EUR and a budget of 30,000 EUR to create the project.

Pablo Helguera (Mexico City, 1971) is a New York based artist whose work focuses on history, pedagogy, sociolinguistics and anthropology in formats such as lectures, museum displays, performance and written fiction. His project The School of Panamerican Unrest, a nomadic think-tank, physically crossed the continent by car from Anchorage to Tierra del Fuego. He has exhibited widely and has been recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Creative Capital grant. He is the author of several books including The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style, Theatrum Anatomicum (and other performance lectures), andWhat in the World.

Helguera’s project for Bologna, called Ælia Media, consists in creating anomadic cultural journalism institute and broadcast center, as an alternative arts multimedia channel. The project will function in two capacities: one, as a training ground for currently active and aspiring cultural producers, and second, as a temporary broadcast program in a variety of media (video, radio, print and web) with a primary emphasis on user-generated content (consumer-generated media) using live participation methods as well as online social networks.

The project will derive its strategies from processes of learning, self-organization, and media production that have local roots but with a contemporary emphasis and outlook. The “Ælia Media Corporation” will try to be a cabinet of curiosities of cultural journalism, searching for the extraordinary in the ordinary, rediscovering the wealth of cultural production in Bologna, and juxtaposing opinions on specific issues, tying them with larger issues internationally. 

“The idea of the kiosk”, explains Helguera “is firstly to provide visibility of the project in the city and secondly to create a location in the form of a ‘third place’. Occasionally the kiosk will “travel” to other parts of the city to reach other communities and to draw attention to particular issues in the city”.

The award was announced by an international jury comprising Julia Draganovic, award curator, Rudolf Frieling, curator at the Media Arts Department at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Alfredo Jaar, one of the most influential artists on the international contemporary art scene, Bert Theis, artist, curator and co-founder of out-Office for Urban Transformation and Isola Art Center, Milan and Luigi Benedetti, Director General of the Legislative Assembly of the Region of Emilia-Romagna. The jury announced the winner at Arte Fiera – Bologna Art Fair and gave a preview of the winner’s participatory project, the first of its kind, to be created at Bologna in the course of 2011.

The International Award for Participatory Art is launched by the Legislative Assembly of the Emilia-Romagna Regional Government in collaboration with 
LaRete Art Projects and goodwill.
The Award is curated by Julia Draganovic assisted by co-curator Claudia Löffelholz.
For further information and to be constantly updated about the project see:www.artepartecipativa.it 

Watch the interview with Blazers TV here.

For artist Harrell Fletcher, community itself it art. Though an object—a public sculpture, another artist’s paintings, documentay photographs from another museum, a rug—are sometimes at the heart of his based art projects, the work itself is always about human relationships and processes of community understanding. This Sunday at I.D.E.A. Space at Colorado College, Colorado College artist-in-residence Fletcher will host “Come Together: Colorado Springs” a open gathering for people to discuss the military with veterans of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan as part of his larger project: “Active Engagement: Learning about the Military in Colorado Springs.” Full details of the event are below along with an interview and slide show featuring Fletcher and his wife Wendy Red Star we did in December about their “Made in India” project which was on dispaly at IDEA Space then.

Monday, February 28, 2011

PSU Art Building Annex Rm. 160 (North of 2000 SW 5^th Ave.)

12:00 – 1:00PM 

The Diversity Committee Lecture Series is pleased to present “Cutting the Disability Out of Disability Arts”—a talk by Canadian artist and writer Carmen Papalia. 

Carmen Papalia is an artist and writer that produces socially engaged projects that are initiated by, and informed by, his body. Often based in lived experience, Papalia’s work is participatory and creates the opportunity for productive conversation on topics ranging from: the accessibility of urban design to the role of slapstick in the everyday. Papalia is currently enrolled in the Art & Social Practice concentration of the MFA program at Portland State University.

He is a co-founder of the Memewar Arts & Publishing Society—a not-for-profit organization in Vancouver, British Columbia that is responsible for three main projects: Memewar Magazine, the Short Line Reading Series and the publishing imprint MemePress. www.memewaronline.com

Papalia’s writing can be found in journals such as West Coast Line, sub-TERRAIN Magazine and Disability Studies Quarterly. His recent work includes a contribution to the upcoming Somewhat Secret Place: Disability & Art exhibition and book project, and the Open Engagement 2011: Art + Social Practice conference.

As part of Portland State University’s Spring 2011 Chiron Studies course offerings, Papalia will facilitate the “Writing through the Body Workshop”—a ten week creative writing course that introduces beginner and intermediate writers to a number of strategies for addressing their bodies in their autobiographical poetry and prose. www.chiron.pdx.edu

On February 19th ProjectGrow will host a panel discussion exploring the question, ‘Why make art?’, featuring artists Harrell Fletcher, Chris Johanson, Karl Lind, Sandy Sampson, Avalon Kalin, and Larry Supnet. This event is held in conjunction with Bruce Conkle’s ‘Who the Hell is Piet Mondrian?’, on view in the gallery through February 28.

The evening will begin at 6 p.m. with a screening of short films by Karl Lind and Jenn Keyser, including Keyser’s new work, “Something Else”, a meditative little film about getting too wrapped up with one’s self. Discussion will follow at 7 p.m.

Project Grow is located on 2156 N Williams Ave Portland, OR 97227

If you watched the first episode of the spoof hit “Portlandia” on the Independent Film Channel, you know that a locally grown, organic chicken named Collin ended his life as a trendy restaurant entrée.

But you probably didn’t realize that Collin’s buddies are alive and well – at a Metro natural area. They’re actually egg-laying hens at Wealth Underground Farm, which leases Metro land near Forest Park and doubled as a filming location for “Portlandia.”

As a community-supported agriculture farm, this one-acre vegetable and flower patch sells “shares” to members who pick up a weekly haul of produce. Many members make the steep, twisty trip to the farm, where boat horns rise from the Columbia River below and bird calls echo from the fir trees above. Wealth Underground fulfills the college dream of three 20-something buddies, who literally wear their passion on their jackets, with matching antler-tip symbols of unity. Reflecting on the unapologetically over-the-top “Portlandia,” farm co-founder Nolan Calisch jokes: “This is exactly what they wanted to make fun of.”

Wealth Underground also shows exactly why Metro leases 580 acres of natural areas to farmers, bringing in nearly $60,000 a year and supporting local agriculture in the process.

Two voter-approved bond measures have allowed Metro to protect water quality, wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation opportunities by purchasing 11,000 acres across the Portland metropolitan area. Large properties with rich wildlife habitat sometimes include a farm field. Without money to publicly open or restore these natural areas right away, Metro rents them out. Part of Graham Oaks Nature Park in Wilsonville, for example, was leased to a wheat farmer until Metro had the resources to transform it into valuable oak habitat with hiking trails, picnic tables and other amenities.

Wealth Underground co-founders Eric Campbell, Nolan Calisch and Chris Seigel.“We’re trying to use land that isn’t being converted right away or restored for habitat,” says Metro Councilor Carlotta Collette, who has a strong interest in sustainable agriculture and toured some of Metro’s leased farms. “It’s just part of being a sustainable region. We have great soil, we have productivity. Let’s use it.”

Leasing property also reduces the cost of fighting invasive plants and protecting natural resources, because farmers actively care for their land. Laurie Wulf, who manages Metro’s agricultural leases, works with farmers to navigate the challenges of growing crops in a natural area.

“We’re keeping the land weed-free, for the most part,” Wulf says. “And the farmer can make a living.”

Farms on Metro’s natural areas span the region, from Forest Grove to Corbett and Sauvie Island to Canby. They also span the agricultural spectrum, from permaculture to potatoes and clover to community-supported agriculture.

Calisch, the Wealth Underground co-founder, trained at another Metro-leased farm: Sauvie Island Organics. That’s how he learned about a rental house and small field near Forest Park, part of a 58-acre property that might someday allow Metro to extend the Wildwood Trail.

Timing was right. Calisch recruited two classmates from Denison University in Ohio, bringing Chris Seigel from the San Francisco Bay area and Eric Campbell from Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. They launched an organic farm, selling at the St. Johns Farmers Market their first season and transitioning to a member-supported operation last year.

The Wealth Underground team didn’t specifically look for publicly protected land, but the connection felt natural.

“It appeals to our sensibilities, putting land into conservation,” Calisch says. “We’re also interested in how a farm can operate in a low-impact and ecological way. You can have growing spaces in wild spaces.”

They’re learning to work alongside wildlife that relies on the wooded corridor in and around Forest Park. Wealth Underground planted a garden for a herd of elk, for example. And when chickens got killed, the farmers did a better job of protecting them instead of targeting the predators. As Campbell puts it, “We don’t try to chase things off. It’s not set up to push the animals back.”

Wealth Underground was more focused on kale and rutabaga than publicity last year, when a talent scout inquired about using the farm as a filming location. It was deemed perfect for “Portlandia,” the new sketch comedy show created by Saturday Night Live star Fred Armisen and Sleater-Kinney rocker Carrie Brownstein. The storyline, the farmers were warned, would poke fun at Oregonians’ obsession with living off the land.

As it turns out, a couple played by Armisen and Brownstein consider ordering chicken at a downtown restaurant. But first they want to make sure it’s local. And organic. And what about the sheep’s milk, soy and hazelnuts the chicken ate? Are those local, too? Unsatisfied with details of Collin the chicken’s chick-hood, Peter and Nance ask their waitress to hold the table while they visit the farm.

A true local might recognize the wooded backdrop as Peter and Nance pull up to the farm. And frequent visitors might spot their favorite rabbits and chickens, who make cameos. But that’s where the similarities end. Wealth Underground is recast as Aliki Farms, named for a spiritual guru who runs the operation – and, apparently, is married to everybody else who works there. It’s a sunbathed scene straight out of 1970.

“I’m just falling in love with this place. It’s just beautiful,” Nance gushes.

“Yeah,” Peter adds. “We almost don’t want to leave.”

For five years, they don’t. As the farm crew lovingly surrounds Aliki on his death bed, Peter and Nance realize they’ve been sucked into a cult. They rush back to the restaurant, where they start interrogating the waitress about the salmon.

The Wealth Underground trio watched filming up-close, when they weren’t busy tending crops. And they reveled in the fame just a little, naming one of the rabbits Aliki and proudly showing off the star chickens. Although “Portlandia” makes a satire of the farmers’ profession and adopted city, they don’t take offense. “It’s not making fun of this at all in a malicious way,” Seigel says. “To be able to laugh at yourself is very important.”

Wealth Underground is busy planning for the next growing season. They’re building a greenhouse and expanding their memberships, from 21 last season to 30 and counting this year.

But Calisch took a break to attend the “Portlandia” premiere last month at the Hollywood Theatre. When he told people he was with Wealth Underground, he got VIP treatment.

“It’s the only time in my life I can drop a farm name,” he says, “and be ushered in on the red carpet.”

Learn more about Wealth Underground Farm or sign up as a member 

Learn more about Metro’s Natural Areas Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Portland Stock hosts a Micro-Stock Grant as part of the University of Oregon 2011 Visual Culture Symposium
February 11, 2011 6PM

White Stag Building

University of Oregon Portland
70 NW Couch Street
Portland OR 97209 

Portland STOCK is seeking proposals from artists under the theme of “culture as a component of sustainability” for our February project grant.

We are now soliciting artist proposals, due Friday, February 4th at 5:00pm for a dinner event on Friday, February 11, hosted in conjunction with the University of Oregon 2011 Visual Culture Symposium. Progressive arts and culture organizers from around the country will be in attendance, experiencing and studying the innovative ideas Portland offers in the way of self-organized-non-institutional activities, with an eye on sustainability.

STOCK has been invited to showcase Portland’s artists via our dinner grant format. STOCK funds artists through hosting a series of dinner parties where the diners pay for a great meal and the right to discuss and vote on which artist’s proposal will win all of the profit from that night’s event. Past awards have ranged between $400 and $700 dollars per granting dinner.

The Micro-STOCK at the Visual Culture Symposium is not open to the public, unlike our regular bimonthly dinners. This dinner is to demonstrate a micro-granting process and to highlight Portland artists and groups who are working within the idea of “culture as a component of sustainability” for the gathered arts administrators, curators, and educators. 

 Application guidelines can be found on our website at portlandstock.blogspot.com.  

The first ten proposals that STOCK receives meeting the proposal criteria will be included in the running for a STOCK grant. We will notify people via our blog, Facebook and Twitter when we have received 10 eligible proposals.

Portland STOCK is an all-volunteer organization coordinated by Katy Asher, Amber Bell, Grey Brent, Ariana Jacob and Mack McFarland – there is lots to do, let us know if you are interested in participating. STOCK is inspired by InCubate’s Sunday Soup granting program and has sister projects both nationally and internationally. STOCK is sponsored by the Pacific Northwest College of Art, who graciously donate their space and infrastructure.

Contact: Portland Stock portlandstock@gmail.com