UICA Exit Space Project - Natalia Rak, Currents to Unknown 2019
Currents to Unknown was commissioned and created in 2019, and is Located at 26 Ionia Ave SW in downtown Grand Rapids, MI. The south-facing wall of the Richmond Stamp Building was painted by Natalia Rak. Rak is an internationally known, Poland-based artist that uses brightly colored paint to craft multi-story murals. Rak's subjects are predominantly larger than life situations that evoke mystery and metaphor, often using concepts or images from famous fables or stories.
All across the United States, towns of all sizes have been adopting the benefits of murals and public artworks. Several cities have committees, groups, and commissions that aim to promote local talent or bring in outside artists to engage the community and turn empty city walls into large public canvases. The result of their efforts has been shown to have long-lasting effects on neighborhoods.
UICA's Exit Space Project not only expands UICA's impact throughout our region but also connects the community to visitors and visitors to the vibrant neighborhoods in and around Grand Rapids. Public art is, on its surface, beautiful artwork, but the value of art in the public space is its ability to create conversations, said Katherine Williams, Community Programs Coordinator. Public art works to make areas feel more welcoming to visitors and more walkable for everyone. Often, experiencing art in your own community creates more than a conversation, it builds connections and gives people a sense of pride in their city, their neighborhood, and themselves.
We are thrilled to work with regional, and -now- international, contemporary artists to transform these public spaces, shared Miranda Krajniak, UICA's Executive Director. It's also been a rewarding experience to see the communities give input and feedback - and to watch people participate in these art pieces in their own neighborhoods - that communal effort has strengthened our passion for this project.
This mural project came together through the combined efforts of UICA, Downtown Grand Rapids Inc, and Grand Rapids Sister Cities International. One of the reasons Natalia Rak was selected as the artist for this project is her connection to the Grand Rapids Sister City, Bielsko-Biała, Poland.
When asked about the inspiration for her mural in Grand Rapids, Rak said, I was inspired, in part, by the shape of the specific building. The one half being high and the other half being lower - it was a more complex shape than many of my previous walls. I thought an image of water would fit the space well and allow me to create something beautiful while permitting me to be organic and have fun with the process. I also wanted to play with proportions and show elements with an unnatural contrast - in this case, a swan and a girl with relative sizes not normally found in real life. Plus, I still have a childlike curiosity, so some of this piece is, simply, fun and whimsical.
The process is very important to me, said Rak. Even though I have a plan before I start, I find inspiration in the process. I like to let some parts of the work just appear through the exploration and the time spent working on the project. Painting should be fun, and I'm always trying new things and learning while I create each piece. I'm bringing some techniques I learned in Berlin, and some from Spain - and some from playing with very liquidy paints on canvas in my studio. Plus, I'm sure I'll try some new things here, too.
UICA - Behind the Scenes - A New Building Takes Shape
Get a sneak peak of the new UICA facility still under construction with Brian Kelly and UICA Executive Director Jeff Meeuwsen. The Urban Institute of Contemporary Art is one of the most unique non-collecting art facilities in the country.
UICA Movie Theater | Go Underground
The UICA Movie Theater shows independent, international, and documentary movies in downtown Grand Rapids Tuesday–Sunday year round. Audiences can see critical favorites, festival award winners, and special one-night screenings of classic films in UICA's 195-seat theater, with a state-of-the-art, Dolby© certified movie viewing experience.
MusicX: The MusicX Concept Store Experience Tour
An impression of a fifteen minute session at The MusicX Concept Store at the UICA Grand Rapids Sept/Oct 2014.
Over the three week run ~8,000 people experienced MusicX in groups of six. This video is intended to give a sense of how it felt to be there and move through the 92 time-based cues encompassing audio, theatrical lighting, video, text, voice-over, diagrams, sculpture, and architecture.
Credits
MusicX is Micah Silver and Adam Schoenberg
Waiting Room:
Stephen Hill, The Voice of MusicX
Brett Leonard, MusicX Video Spokesperson
Chuck Peterson, Video DP and Editor
CNC Fabrication:
Jeff Wykrent and Ricky Johnson at the Paw Paw High School Industrial Arts Program
Large Format Fabric and Canvas Printing: FlexLab at KCAD
Music Nest:
Juliana Nahas-Viilo, Harp
Melissa Hamlen, violin
Leslie VanBecker, viola
Will Preece, cello
Chris Hamlen, bass
Open Source Furniture (Music Nest Stools): Anne Filson and Gary Rohrbacher
Continuous Time was developed by Zackery Belanger
Special Thanks
NHT HiFi
AKON Plastics
AJ Paschka, Curator
Brandon Alman, Install
Alex Orlowski, Install
Jon Hayes, Maintenance
Stan, Security
Stephen Malinowski, Midi Inspiration
Katie at the KCAD FlexLab
MusicX was brought to Grand Rapids as a co-commision by the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts and Grand Rapids Symphony as part of ArtPrize 2014
UICA - An Inside Look at the New Space
Animated virtual tour of the new UICA building, located at the corner of Fulton St. and Division Ave, in the heart of Downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. Animation by Via Design, Inc. Original music by Alexander Paschka.
Pull Me Back
Original dance-on-film created by ArtPeers and Dance in the Annex (DITA). Written, directed and edited by Erin Wilson. Choreography by Amy Wilson. Dancers: Joshua Burge, Rachel Finan, Hannah Loss, Amy Wilson, Hannah Sullivan and Rick Chyme. Photography and production by Seth Thompson and Erin Wilson. Music by Rick Chyme and Nixon. Michigan premiere January 2016 at Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (UICA).
UICA Artist: Jeremy Brooks
Jeremy Brooks' Catachresis is a space that is concerned with imminence and inaccessibility, language and memory. The investigation of such a space, one that is more properly sensuous than cognitive in its scope and depth of inquiry, is at the core of Brooks' work and studio practice. His aim is to draft and develop strategies in visual display that relate to the presentation of small-scale objects within a large exhibition environment. Brooks articulates these creations to utilize their supporting parts (pedestal, table, shelf, exhibition prop, etc.) in such a way that the interaction between construction and presentation becomes the center of the viewer's perception. His curiosity and conceptual interests reside within the integration of art object and exhibition prop. It is often this experience of encountering an art object within a highly articulated presentation where the content reveals itself most prominently to the viewer. Catachresis was exhibited at UICA from February 24-April 8, 2012.
2014 Thriller! Chiller! Film Festival Expands to 4 Days! 5 Venues!
The international film festival, now in its 9th year, was recognized in 2013 as one of the Top 20 Horror/Sci-Fi Film Festivals by Moviemaker Magazine. Thriller! Chiller! expects to program and screen 40 international films in the genres of action, horror, sci-fi & suspense at the 4-day event which takes place October 22-25, 2014 at five venues in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan: the Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts (UICA); the Grand Rapids Brewing Company; Stellas Lounge BrewPub Cinema; The Pyramid Scheme; and the Grand Rapids Art Museum.
Robert Hammond: Penny W. Stamps Lecture at UICA
The High Line, a new public park atop an abandoned, elevated rail line on Manhattan's West Side, is among the most innovative urban reclamation projects in memory. A remarkable community collaboration: neighbors, elected officials, artists, local business owners, and leaders of burgeoning movements in horticulture and landscape architecture came together to create a park celebrated worldwide as a model for creatively designed, socially vibrant, and ecologically sound public space.
Robert Hammond, Co-Founder of Friends of the High Line, shared his story of the park's remarkable creation at UICA on February 3, 2012.
Panel Talk: Abandoned Margins: Policing the Black Female Body (short)
Panel Talk: Abandoned Margins: Policing the Black Female Body
Friday, March 17, 2017
6:00pm 8:00pm
UICA Members: Free
Public: Free with gallery admission
Join us for a discussion led by a panel of community organizers, scholars, and artists as we investigate depictions of the black female body in art and in United States’ popular culture. The panel will recognize ways that traditional representations of black women aid in systemic racism and marginalization, and will consider methods for using visual language to challenge stereotypes instead of perpetuate them.
Enjoy food provided by Donkey Taqueria, and a cash bar.
Meet the Panelists.
Jessica Marie Johnson, Ph.D writes about histories of slavery and the slave trade; women, gender, and sexuality in the African diaspora; and digital history and new media. Her current book manuscript is a history of free women of African descent laboring, living, and traveling between eighteenth-century Senegal, Saint-Domingue, and Gulf Coast Louisiana. Her second project is a collaboration with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal (Duke University) compiling work reading nineteenth-century black codes against present-day black code” or digital vernaculars of people of African descent. Johnson is the founder/curator of African Diaspora, Ph.D, and is the recipient of research fellowships and awards from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Gilder-Lehrman Institute, the Richards Civil War Era Center, and the Africana Research Center at the Pennsylvania State University. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Regis M. Fox, Assistant Professor of English at Grand Valley State University, earned her Ph. D in English from the University of California, Riverside. Her primary research interests include Nineteenth-Century American Literatures, Feminist Theory, and African-American Literary and Cultural Studies. She has published in such journals as Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal and the Journal of American Studies, as well as in edited collections, including A Determined Life: The Elizabeth Keckley Reader (Eno Press 2016). A McKnight Junior Faculty Fellow for the 2015-16 academic year, she is currently completing her book manuscript under contract with University Press of Florida titled Unsung, Unwavering: Nineteenth-Century Black Women's Epistemologies and the Liberal Problematic.
Janice Bond is a curator, interdisciplinary artist, and cultural producer specializing in arts and culture. As a visual/multimedia artist, her original paintings, installations, and collective soundscapes focus on multidimensional human perspectives and identity, sacred geometry, sound frequencies, and indigenous fractal patterns found in various cultures and urban landscapes. In 2014, Bond opened Gallery ONI, a contemporary art gallery and cultural space located in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to promoting the work of women artists of color. As featured guest curator for Here + Now, Bond will present a new iteration of Abandoned Margins: Policing the Black Female Body, which debuted at Chicago’s Woman Made Gallery in early 2016.
Breannah Alexander is Director of Strategic Programs at Partners for a Racism-Free Community. She is responsible for the management of all external community-based programming, education program design and communications. Additionally she is the Founder and Managing Director of women reVamped, an organization established in response to a growing need for female centered initiatives and a personal passion for ensuring the empowerment of young girls. Breannah’s previous experience includes serving as the Program Manager of Michigan’s Habitat for Humanity AmeriCorps Program, an AmeriCorps State member at Grand Rapids Community Foundation and 6 years working in various capacities with youth grant-makers in Michigan and across the nation. She is also Co-Chair of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network Grand Rapids board and a Leader with Opportunity Nation, a national campaign to increase economic mobility for young people in the United States. Breannah was previously a Commissioner on the Michigan Community Service Commission, and board member of the Michigan LEAGUE board.
Panel Talk: Abandoned Margins: Policing the Black Female Body
Join us for a discussion led by a panel of community organizers, scholars, and artists as we investigate depictions of the black female body in art and in United States’ popular culture. The panel will recognize ways that traditional representations of black women aid in systemic racism and marginalization, and will consider methods for using visual language to challenge stereotypes instead of perpetuate them.
Meet the Panelists.
Jessica Marie Johnson, Ph.D writes about histories of slavery and the slave trade; women, gender, and sexuality in the African diaspora; and digital history and new media. Her current book manuscript is a history of free women of African descent laboring, living, and traveling between eighteenth-century Senegal, Saint-Domingue, and Gulf Coast Louisiana. Her second project is a collaboration with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal (Duke University) compiling work reading nineteenth-century black codes against present-day black code” or digital vernaculars of people of African descent. Johnson is the founder/curator of African Diaspora, Ph.D, and is the recipient of research fellowships and awards from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Gilder-Lehrman Institute, the Richards Civil War Era Center, and the Africana Research Center at the Pennsylvania State University. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Regis M. Fox, Assistant Professor of English at Grand Valley State University, earned her Ph. D in English from the University of California, Riverside. Her primary research interests include Nineteenth-Century American Literatures, Feminist Theory, and African-American Literary and Cultural Studies. She has published in such journals as Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal and the Journal of American Studies, as well as in edited collections, including A Determined Life: The Elizabeth Keckley Reader (Eno Press 2016). A McKnight Junior Faculty Fellow for the 2015-16 academic year, she is currently completing her book manuscript under contract with University Press of Florida titled Unsung, Unwavering: Nineteenth-Century Black Women's Epistemologies and the Liberal Problematic.
Janice Bond is a curator, interdisciplinary artist, and cultural producer specializing in arts and culture. As a visual/multimedia artist, her original paintings, installations, and collective soundscapes focus on multidimensional human perspectives and identity, sacred geometry, sound frequencies, and indigenous fractal patterns found in various cultures and urban landscapes. In 2014, Bond opened Gallery ONI, a contemporary art gallery and cultural space located in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to promoting the work of women artists of color. As featured guest curator for Here + Now, Bond will present a new iteration of Abandoned Margins: Policing the Black Female Body, which debuted at Chicago’s Woman Made Gallery in early 2016.
Breannah Alexander is Director of Strategic Programs at Partners for a Racism-Free Community. She is responsible for the management of all external community-based programming, education program design and communications. Additionally she is the Founder and Managing Director of women reVamped, an organization established in response to a growing need for female centered initiatives and a personal passion for ensuring the empowerment of young girls. Breannah’s previous experience includes serving as the Program Manager of Michigan’s Habitat for Humanity AmeriCorps Program, an AmeriCorps State member at Grand Rapids Community Foundation and 6 years working in various capacities with youth grant-makers in Michigan and across the nation. She is also Co-Chair of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network Grand Rapids board and a Leader with Opportunity Nation, a national campaign to increase economic mobility for young people in the United States. Breannah was previously a Commissioner on the Michigan Community Service Commission, and board member of the Michigan LEAGUE board.
UICA offers discounted admission for EBT users
The UICA wants to ease the financial burden for the hundreds of thousands of Michigan families receiving state assistance. (Nov. 9, 2017)
ArtPrize Eight Awards ceremony
Some $500,000 in cash prizes were handed out Friday during the eighth annual ArtPrize Awards ceremony, powered by the DTE Energy Foundation. (Oct. 7, 2016)