Cultural Researchers Come to Resident Artist Program in Silver City, Nevada
The April 2017 and summer 2017 guests of the Resident Artist Program in Silver City will be Sue Mark and Bruce Douglas of Marksearch. A husband-wife artist team who describe themselves as “cultural researchers, creator of conversations, and locators of lost history,” they make interactive public projects that invite people to reflect upon their communities.
They’ve created many projects across the U.S., Europe and in Japan, with elements that generate local interest and serve as conversation starters – a human-powered cellphone charger, a mobile work-cart, a traveling billboard on a tandem bike, etc.
Their methodology synthesizes their academic backgrounds. Bruce Douglas, a fabricator and professional mechanical engineer, meshes his values of building community and using recycled materials by creating functional, quirky human-powered vehicles. Sue Mark, with a BA in philosophy and linguistics and an MFA from the California College of the Arts, creates national and international projects about local history, culture and community challenges.
Together, they have collaborated with non-profits, community groups, and municipalities worldwide to create projects. For instance, in 2013, they researched the disappearance of handicraft and agricultural practices in a region of Portugal comprising more than 2 dozen villages. They created portraits of traditional makers of baskets, shoes, olive oil, bread, wine, tools, and more. These portraits, permanently installed in each of the region's 26 villages, now form a new cultural landmark. In 2016, they spent 6 months in Japan through an opportunity with the National Endowment for the Arts and the US-Japan Creative Artists Program. Their residency in Kanazawa, Japan was spent studying traditional Japanese architecture such as townhouses from the Edo period (1603-1867). In addition, they’ve worked with:
+ Bulgarian sociologists, historians, and architects
+ Czech anarchists
+ German tour guides & archeologists
+ Oakland Chinatown elders
+ Norwegian fishermen
+ Southern civil rights activists
+ Urban social geographers
What is the Resident Artist Program in Silver City? The visiting artist program began in 2014. It provides a venue for those from other parts of the U.S. and the world to engage with the Northern Nevada community through the arts. People creating in the performing, visual, design or literary arts are invited to reside for up to 4 months at McCormick House, a geodesic dome designed in the 1970s by Nevada artist Jim McCormick. In exchange, the visitors offer public performances, exhibitions, readings, workshops, etc. in the community. Previous residents have included multidisciplinary Michigan-based artist Brian Schorn; New Zealand artist Sophie Scott; Oakland artist and writer Scott MacLeod; dancer Jessica Sanford of Earlham College; London-based artists Stewart Easton and Claire Scully; New-Zealand born photographer Frances Melhop; former Utah Poet Laureate David Lee; Danish writer Peter Krogh Andersen; etc. For more information, contact director Quest Lakes at 847-0742.
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