Legacy Assignment Series 1

10,000 Year Warning System:

A Workshop with multi-media artist Robert Rhee

Saturday, February 28th, 1-2pm at The Project Room

Special Guests include:  Environmental Lawyers Wyatt Golding + Sara Leverette, Linguist Tanya Matthews, and Multi-Media Artist Vaughn Bell. 

Join Artist Robert Rhee and a group of interdisciplinary thinkers for the first free public workshop in our event series, The Legacy Assignments.

Robert poses this question to participants:  How do you create a warning system to prevent an accidental unearthing of 200 million pounds of radioactive nuclear waste? A simple sign, some chain link and a military post might work today. But what about 10,000 years from now? 

In 2002 the U.S. Department of Energy brought together engineers, archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists and asked them this question. What type of warning system can be put in place so people, 370 generations from now, won't open the  glowing door?  What they came up with is hardly inspiring.  Can we do better?

Together with a group of special guests, workshop participants will take a stab at designing this system while asking, "How Are We Remembered?"

Images above from the 2002 U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Waste Storage Plan Proposal.  It includes: a large earthen mound with a salt core and two identical Dr. Strangelove-esque control rooms with a warning message  written in the six official languages of the U.N. and Navajo. Construction of this Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is currently stalled and (in our opinion) in desperate need of a redesign.

Spread the word about the event by sharing our facebook invitation


Robert Rhee is based in New York and Seattle. He is an artist and writer and a professor at Cornish College of the Arts. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including White Columns in NY, the Ilmin Museum of Art in Seoul, and the Ferdinand Van Dieten Gallery in Amsterdam. He is currently represented by Opsis Art in Seoul and has an upcoming essay in the inaugural issue of Heck Magazine.

Rob Rhee (self portrait)

Rob Rhee (self portrait)

Unseen monuments

Thursday, February 5th at 7p at The Project Room

Author Michelle Peñaloza launches The Project Room's new topic, Monument, with a discussion about the unseen Seattle monuments she uncovered while writing her forthcoming book landscape/heartbreak. 

Over the course of a year, Michelle asked people in Seattle to take her on walks from the Richard Hugo House to places in the city where they’d had their hearts broken. With poems and maps, Peñaloza's chapbook landscape/heartbreak creates a literary cartography of heartbreak in Seattle.

Join us to ask, "How do our ephemeral experiences create monuments?  What kind of story can a city tell if this isn't just the corner of Broadway and John, but the corner where X learned that Y never really loved him? Or if this isn't just the hospital across the street, but the place where Z told her mother she loved her for the very last time?"

landscape/heartbreak book cover (Tessa Hulls)

landscape/heartbreak book cover (Tessa Hulls)


Photo by Timothy Aguero Photography for Poetry on Buses, King County, WA

Photo by Timothy Aguero Photography for Poetry on Buses, King County, WA

About Michelle:

Michelle Peñaloza grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming from The Asian American Literary Review, The New England Review, TriQuarterly, Pleiades, Pinwheel, and INCH.  She is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the University of Oregon, Kundiman, Artist Trust, Jack Straw, the Richard Hugo House, and Literary Arts, as well as scholarships from VONA Voices, PAWA (Philippine American Writers and Artists), Vermont Studio Center, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the Napa Valley Writers' Conference.  She lives in Seattle.  Her chapbook, landscape / heartbreak, is forthcoming from Two Sylvias Press on Valentine's Day, 2015.

Michelle also recently published an essay, "Who Was Your First Hero, Michelle Peñaloza?" on TPR's online literary journal, Off Paper.  Take a peek to learn more about the character that brought her comfort and courage: Muhammad Ali. 

Podcast Episode 9

Inside the Dream Palace: Author Sherill Tippins

Sherill Tippins, recently published Inside the Dream Palace, a wonderfully-researched history of the famous NY art hub, The Chelsea Hotel. Sherill shares some of her favorite moments and her opinions about its current renovation, giving us plenty to talk about during our current “Monument” topic.

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A Conversation with Ahamefule J. Oluo

Monday, December 15th at 7:30pm at The Project Room

Musician/performer/comedian Ahamefule J. Oluo’s Now I’m Fine is a genre-spanning pop opera of “darkly funny personal stories about illness, despair, and regeneration.” Stemming from a period in his life in which everything seemed to be falling apart, Oluo’s Now I’m Fine is a creative exploration of how we navigate moments of hopelessness. Join us for a conversation with Oluo about this work, and how it dovetails with The Project Room’s current topic of Transformation.    

About the Presenter:

Ahamefule J. Oluo is a composer, comedian, and trumpet player. Oluo was the first Artist-in-Residence at Town Hall in Seattle. A longtime writing partner of comedian Hari Kondabolu, he has performed nationally with bands including Das Racist and Hey Marseilles, and is a fixture in the local and national comedy scenes. His garage-jazz quartet Industrial Revelation won the 2014 Stranger Genius Award. Oluo lives and works in Seattle.

 

Photograph by Bruce Tom

Photograph by Bruce Tom

Creative & Inspiring People Who Have Shared Their Work With The Project Room

Two-Hundred and Thirty-Two since we opened in July, 2011! Here is our list of past presenters, podcast interviewees, and contributing writers: 

Adrian Michna

Ahamefule J. Olou

Alina Hua

Alicia Eler

Allan Packer

Allison Ellis

Amanda Manitach

Amy Poisson

Amy Schrader

Amy O’Neal

Anastacia Tolbert

Andy Meyer

Angela B. Ginorio

Angela Jane Fountas

Anne Blackburn

Anne Carson

Antoine Wilson

Barbara Dollarhide-Pritchard

Barbara Earl Thomas

Ben Blankenship

Bernadette Bascom

Bill Wood

Bill Horist

Bonnie Hammond

Brangien Davis

Brett Hamil

Brian Emery

Bruce Machart

Bryan Cook

Byron Au Yong

C. Davida Ingram

Cameron Hall

Cameron Anne Mason

Carrie Akre

Charles Mudede

Charles Spitzack

Charlie Matlack

Claire Barboza

Claude Zervas

Corey Blaustein

Dale Dougherty

Dan Webb

Dave Zucker

David Eadington

David Mura

David Henry

David Nixon

David Vaughan

Dawn Losinger

Dean Moore

Derrick Jefferies

DJ Brass

Donald Byrd

Elisabeth Robson

Elizabeth Davis

Elizabeth Kenny

Ellen Forney

Ellen Garvens

Ellie Dicola

Emily Marsh

Emily White

Emma Desjardins

Emmet V Smith

Emmett Montgomery

Eric Olson

Erin Shafkind

Ethan Schoonover

Evan J. Peterson

Ezra Cooper

Faustine Hudson

Fiia McGann

Frederick Robinson III

Garrett Fisher

Gilbert Baker

Gina Frangello

Greg Stonebreaker

Gregory Laynor

Gretta Harley

Hannah Stephenson

Harmony Hasbrook

Hrafnhildur Arnardottir

Hsu-Ken Ooi

Jan Wallace

Jane Charles

Janet Yoder

Jason Dodson

Jason Schmidt

Jean Hicks

Jeannine Hall Gailey

Jeffrey Mongrain

Jeffry Mitchell

Jenifer Woffard

Jenifer Ward

Jennifer Borges Foster

Jennifer Dalton

Jennifer McCoy

Jentry Sayers

Jesmyn Ward

Joe Henry

Joey Bates

Joey Veltkamp

John Gilbreath

John Grade

John Osebold

Jonathan Miles

Jonathan Zwickel

Joshua Brevoort

Joshua Wolf Shenk

Juan Pablo Macías

Julia Harrison

Justin Runge

Kate Lebo

Kate Willette

Katrina Hess

Keely Isaak Meehan

 

 

Most recently updated: September 2016

donum: A Huge Success!

Photography by Katie Miller

Photography by Katie Miller

Thank you to everyone who came out to support donum, our TPR fundraiser! We were honored to feature beautiful work by local artists (learn more about them here, and view studio visits here). The Project Room continually looks to support innovative makers, and we appreciate their generosity in supporting our work in return. Special thanks to our food sponsor Artusi, and to Britt Rynearson, donum founder, who selected The Project Room for this year's event.

The event was a huge success, and we are grateful for all your generosity. 

by Katie Miller

Speed Dating 2.0: Art & Technology

Photography by Nicholas Strobelt

Photography by Nicholas Strobelt

On September 30th 2014, The Project Room gathered twelve artists and twelve technologists for the purpose of engaging in high-powered yet very brief conversations, under the watchful eyes of twelve "chaperones." The event was called Art & Technology: Speed Dating 2.0.

by Nicholas Strobelt

by Nicholas Strobelt

Thanks to our hard-working chaperones, we have notes from every conversation that took place, and we did our best to tweet as fast as we could during the one-minute break between "dates." We didn't have time to tweet everything--and some handwriting was just too indecipherable!--but we did our best.

Thank you to Siren, our co-host, and our wonderful participants, whose investment and curiosity made this event a success! Read more about structure of the event in our original invitation. Stay tuned for future Art & Technology events!

Below are some particularly good responses to a few of the questions we asked:

 

When do you do your best problem-solving?

Screen Shot 2014-10-13 at 9.20.17 PM.png

Which matters more to you, that your work be critically acclaimed, or that it be wildly popular?

by Nicholas Strobelt

by Nicholas Strobelt

Should your work last forever? If so, how and why?

What does it look like when your work fails?

Screen Shot 2014-11-25 at 11.29.21 AM.png
by Nicholas Strobelt

by Nicholas Strobelt

What would you do if you weren’t an artist/technologist?

by Nicholas Strobelt

by Nicholas Strobelt

What might a monument built for you look like?

Podcast Episode 6

Tradition & Innovation: Noh Master Munenori Takeda and Composer Garrett Fisher

Japanese Noh Master Munenori Takeda was in Seattle recently, preparing for an opera collaboration with Composer Garrett Fisher and the Fisher Ensemble. At The Project Room we discuss our current topic, “Transformation,” and how it relates to the rich tradition of opera and Japanese Noh Theatre.

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Podcast Episode 5

Empathy, Equity, Change: Musician and Visual Artist Paul Rucker

in 2009, Paul Rucker began making work that responded to the history of slavery and its relationship to current American issues about race and equality. This effort developed into the on-going work, "Recapitulation," which The Project Room is followed throughout 2014. Hear about Paul's progress and to see what he has learned so far in this ambitious and large-scale body of work. 

Read More

Podcast Episode 1

Furious Cool: Authors Joe & David Henry

Authors and brothers Joe and David Henry visited The Project Room to chat about their new book Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and The World That Made Him. As young kids who fell under Pryor’s comedic spell, and as adults (and brothers) who collaborate, there was much to discuss in light of our current theme How Are We Remembered?

Read More

Inside Art Series Debuts at Town Hall Seattle

Begins Tuesday, September 10
at Town Hall Seattle
7:30-9pm
Tickets: $5

LISTEN TO AUDIO HERE

The Project Room’s Founder Jess Van Nostrand hosts Town Hall Seattle’s new visual arts series titled “Inside Art.” Created by visual artist Juan Alonso and featuring four evening events that each feature three artists and a moderator, this series will open up a conversation about how, when and why visual artists do what they do. Jess will moderate events #1 and #4 based on The Project Room’s first two “big questions”: Why Do We Make Things? and How Are We Remembered? Actor and singer Sarah Rudinoff and writer Brangien Davis will moderate the other two conversations, rounding out the series with their perspectives as makers from different art forms. This first evening features Seattle artists Marita DingusRodrigo Valenzuela, and Margie Livingston.

The schedule of programs is as follows:

Oct. 15: Inspiration, featuring Laura CastellanosDan Webb, and Sharon Arnold in a conversation moderated by actress Sarah Rudinoff;

Nov. 19: Imagery & Art, featuring Barbara Earl ThomasStephanie Hargrave, and Alan Lau, moderated by writer Brangien Davis

Dec. 10: How are We Remembered? featuring Diem ChauAlfredo Arreguin and Ronald Hall and moderated by Jess Van Nostrand

To read more, go here!

Inside Art, curated by Juan Alonso, is presented by Town Hall and The Project Room as part of Town Hall’s Arts & Culture series. Media sponsorship provided by City Arts.

Note that this event takes place at Town Hall Seattle, not at The Project Room

 

The Beautiful Mistake by Garrett Fisher

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Any classical musician will tell you: they’ve been trained to believe that mistakes are a very, very bad thing. Most classical musicians have had drilled into them the goal of perfection – that the best performance was one that adheres the most strictly to the score, that doesn’t deviate in any way from what’s written on the page. The performer must get 100% of the notes right in order to get an A+; anything less is an F.

Sounds scary, right? How can any musician actually enjoy this?

On the other hand, the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi celebrates imperfection and asymmetry as key elements in art. It shows that a human being is behind the creation, not a computer program.

As a composer, much of what I do is created in rehearsal, and it’s through the performer’s own interpretations of my music that I feel that the music is given life.

I rarely put in tempo markings, dynamics, articulations. I discover them.

When I first moved to Seattle, I took Indian vocal lessons and was introduced to the Indian raga. I was inspired by this fluid and poetic, yet highly structured approach to improvisation. Since then, I’ve embedded my own “ragas” into my scores, in which the performer is required to be part of the process, as opposed to the end-result. It creates more spontaneous performances; and it excites me to think that there might not be just one interpretation of my music.

My general rule is, make it your own, but be true to the spirit. While I grant the performer a lot of leeway, there are times when I do feel that the performer has veered too far from what I intuitively believe to be the intention – the mysterious intersection between my artistic self and the piece I’m trying to create.

But there are times when, even if the performer tries to change, they just keep going back to the way they were doing it. This is what I call the beautiful mistake. It’s my own version of wabi-sabi. It might not be what’s written or directed, but it’s who the performer is. It’s how they were meant to perform the role.

This way of working extends to other elements too, like production design. With my latest project Magda G, I’ve been working with artist Tori Ellison on a paper dress, to be worn by countertenor José Luis Muñoz who plays the lead. Instead of giving Tori explicit parameters, I’ve given her poetic ones: fragility, filo dough, Nazi, paper, danger. It’s been great to see how she’s developed this and made it her own, while staying true to the spirit.

I’ll be rehearsing Magda next Tuesday (October 16) at the Project Room @ 8 pm, before we perform it at Barca Lounge on Friday, October 19. It’ll be an open rehearsal, so come by! The thing about beautiful mistakes is that they can’t be planned, so I can’t guarantee anything. But a good, if imperfect, time shall be had by all.

Update: we just learned that Magda G (the screenplay) was shortlisted at the 2012 Gotham Screen International Film Festival!

Photo: José Luis Muñoz as Magda. Courtesy of Tim Aguero.