Arts Benicia / Creative Work Fund: Meeting With Mayor

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Meeting With Mayor

What a great start to a project in which Mark is working with the political aspects of a site as well as the physical. He had dinner with Mayor of Benicia, Elizabeth Patterson who is not only a great host but also an attorney with a wealth of knowledge about water law. She gave Mark a lot of ideas about incorporating law as a material to work with in this project.

Mark Brest van Kempen meets with Benicia Mayor Elisabeth Patterson to discuss Public Art in the Benicia Waterfront.

Mark Brest van Kempen meets with Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson to discuss Public Art in the Benicia Waterfront.

The Creative Work Fund is a program of the Walter and Elise Haas FundSupported by a generous grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

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Benicia Waterfront Public Art Project

Mark Brest van Kempen

Arts Benicia is very pleased to announce that it is being awarded $30,250 from the Creative Work Fund for an 18-month residency with Artist Mark Brest van Kempen at Arts Benicia. The period of this award is from October, 2013 through August, 2015. The grant guidelines state: “A minimum of two-thirds of the project budget must be dedicated to paying the artists or covering their direct expenses for creating the work.”

Mark’s residency will be aimed at influencing the Benicia waterfront project to integrate engaging public art through education, participation, outreach and demonstration. With a $140,000 grant from the Coastal Commission, the Urban Waterfront Enhancement Master Plan is moving forward to create a plan to integrate the marshlands with the historical downtown area.

The collaboration between Brest van Kempen and Arts Benicia will provide a parallel process to the “official” planning process, serving to augment the plan, increase public interest and facilitate new opportunities for the community at large to participate in this process.

Here is a brief overview of the work Mark and AB are committed to do over the next 18 months for the CWF grant:

1. Temporary land / environmental art pieces.

2. On-site sculptures that explore various aspects of the site such as history, ecology, hydrology etc.

3. Art events involving public participation.

4. Participatory projects that invite the public to directly engage in aesthetic research.

5. Design charettes involving local artists, architects and designers.

6. Brainstorming meetings for local artists to create their own designs for the waterfront.

7. Public seminars where visual artists will dialogue with environmentalists, scientists, community leaders and others.

8. A culminating installation at the Arts Benicia gallery (ABAiR 2015). Documentation of the entire project will be exhibited in a culminating installation at Arts Benicia. This entire project is to some degree an experiment in art and public life. The exhibit will show the results of this eighteen-month experiment.

If you would like to participate in this exciting process, please contact Arts Benicia at 707.747.0131.