“Now, you are assembled here, the strength of this city is here to express their sense of this fugitive act… The question is with you.”
*** www.spectresofliberty.com ***
Participate, Discuss & Create
OPEN CITY WORKSHOP * May 17-June 4, 2010 * XL Projects 303-317 S. Clinton Street.
Open Tuesday-Sunday 12 – 6pm
Come be interviewed on video (it will take 15 minutes):
- What do you think is an Open City?
- Is Syracuse an Open City?
- In an “Open City” what are the narratives that get told? What are the narratives in Syracuse? How do we see/hear/experience them?
- What does it mean to a culture and a city when a history is submerged or erased?
- What have you done or do now to make an the city open?
- What would you like to see happen?
Interviews will be:
- posted on artschoolsound.org
- used to create posters and short video animations
- become part of a sound installation for the public art event in Lipe Art Park on June 5.
The Open City Workshop is part of a larger project called The Great Central Depot in the Open City, a public art project that explores the connections between Syracuse’s abolitionist history and the present.
contact: Joanna Spitzner
cell: 315.430-7969
email: joanna@theasintheas.org
Spectacular Outdoor Public Art Event
The Great Central Depot in the Open City * June 5, 2010 * Lipe Art Park
(Near corner of Fayette & Seneca; Rain Date: June 6, 2010)
In the mid-19th Century, Syracuse, New York, was central to the anti-slavery movement in the United States. Called the “Great Central Depot,” its residents, and those of the surrounding region, helped thousands of individuals escape slavery. Jermaine Loguen, a local Reverend and station master in the Underground Railroad, called Syracuse an “Open City” because he and fellow abolitionists spoke and published anti-slavery sentiments while openly providing sanctuary for freedom-seekers.
The Open City Workshop, held in a downtown storefront, will be open to the public for three weeks of discussions, workshops and brainstorming. The discussions will be shared on ASS Radio, through video recordings and ultimately used to create Open City animations featured in a public presentation. This culminating one night, community event will respond to the question, “Is Syracuse an Open City today? What would it mean to move Loguen’s Open City from the realm of metaphor to a lived reality today?”
Partners for this project include the Community Folk Art Center, The Matilda Joslyn Gage Home and the Art School in the Art School. This variable media art work is made possible, in part by the Franklin Furnace Fund supported by Stimulus funds from the New York State Council on the Arts a state agency; the Lambent Foundation; and Jerome Foundation. This project is made possible with Funds from New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Grant Program, a State Agency and the Cultural Resources Council a Region Arts Council.
*** www.spectresofliberty.com ***