Jess Van Nostrand and Lucy in The Project Room

The Project Room began in 2011 as an experiment in the arts, offering a platform for the development of new work and allowing for the public to participate in the creative process in a variety of ways. From a community crochet residency to a failure variety show to social experiments with art and technology to a podcast series and more, TPR started as a place to ask questions, and ended with a robust collection of events, activities, and conversations made specially for the curious and open minded.

Seattle was an important aspect of the organization, providing a backdrop that often wove its way into the programming, from the script-writing of These Streets to a re-interpretation of Northwest Masters to the presence of many artists, writers and performers who are dedicated to living and making their work here. However, the audience grew beyond the Northwest early on, thanks in part to great editors who worked on Off Paper, the literary voice of TPR, and made use of the online journal to introduce writers and ideas from near and far.

A key element of the organization from before it even had walls was the question-based approach to learning about the arts. From there, once a "big question" was posed, the programming had a direction to follow that provided cohesion to what might otherwise appear to be a wildly eclectic calendar of events. But it always came back to the big question, the thing that kept me up at night in a very personal way and allows us to be unified as people who perhaps share the same wonderment about the meaning of things. 

After more than four years, what we have is a collection of over one-hundred original essays, twenty-one podcast interviews, and lots of images (and memories) of the two-hundred thirty-two creative people who shared their work with us.

It took a lot of support from others to take TPR from my head into reality, so thank you to all of those early listeners who patiently had coffee with me while I sputtered inarticulately about the seeds of this idea, including Jim McDonald, Fidelma McGinn, Jenifer Ward, Sarah Novotny, Claudia Bach, Greg Bell and many others; huge grateful thank-yous to Founders' Circle members who allowed TPR to grow far beyond my capabilities, and the TPR Board who stuck with it through the end; also the wonderful volunteers and staff including Tia Kramer, Tessa Hulls, Corey Blaustein and Madeline Williams. I must also extend a special thank-you to all of the artists who were willing to share their work in development which can be a frightening stage of the process; and biggest thanks of all to my two little nuts Bubs & Lucy, and Mike "Smitty" Smith who thinks anything I imagine is possible and sees no reason to consider the alternative.

—Jess, September 2016

Displacement: Visual Artist Veit Stratmann

 Paris-based artist Veit Stratmann, who presented the work title L'Aquila at The Project Room in 2012, has made a practice of researching and writing about places of massive upheaval and its impact on the people who have lived there. After the recent terrorist attacks in Paris which took place near his home, we had a conversation about the connections between this event and his work, and what motivates him to be an artist, especially during difficult times.

Notes from the artist: The picture below were taken in early December 2015 during a visit to Addis-Ababa. I was invited there as an echo to the L'Aquila project as there are parallels in the progressive dissolution of the city, namely  the clearing  out a 700 acre wide neighborhood along the Bantyketu River in the absolute center of the city. This historical and socially crucial neighborhood was evacuated, bulldozed and then fenced in. Nothing happened since. Former inhabitants described the neighborhood to me as a place of high social coherence, mutual support and solidarity. But I heard that it had a high crime rate as well. This crime rate was often given as the reason for the destruction of the neighborhood. But most of the former inhabitants firmly believe the that the real reason was that the authorities considered their neighborhood as too ugly to be looked at from the national Palace, situated in the immediate vicinity. 

After the destruction of the neighborhood and its fencing off, the inhabitants who could afford it were relocated in condominiums outside the city limits. Those who couldn't pay simply became homeless, living in the streets. Naturally, in the process, the social coherence and the dense network of solidarity of the former neighborhood disappeared. 

About Veit:

Born in Bochum (Germany), Veit Stratmann lives in Paris. From 1981 to 1986 Stratmann studied fine arts at the Ecole Supérieur des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, France and the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenen Künste in Düsseldorf, Germany as well as History and Political Sciences at the Albert Ludwigs Universität in Freiburg, Germany. Veit has exhibited widely and internationally. At the Museum Folkwang in  Essen, Fondation Serralves in Porto, Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val de Marne MAC/VAL,  Vitry sur Seine (France) , Sox in Berlin, Le Centre d’Art et de Diffusion Clark in Montréal, CAPC-Musée à Bordeaux, The Project Art Centre in Dublin, The Taedok Science Town in Taejon (South Korea), LiveInYourHead-Institut Curatorial de la Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design, Geneve, L’Institut d’Art Comtemprain in Villeurbanne, The Anderson Gallery at the Virginia Commenwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, The Nevada State Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada, La Fondation Miro in Barcelone, Le Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, le Saarlandmuseum à Saarbrücken and Galerie Chez Valentin in Paris and more recently at the Suyama Space in Seattle. Stratmann has given multiple lectures and participated in various symposiums in Europe, North and South America and Africa. The “imposible tasks” surfaced in the media of many countries, as proposals in the form of lectures, press articles  and web sites. The developpement of the newest of those projects just started in Addis Abeba.

Learning Outside The Classroom: Electronic Artist Michna

Adrian Michna learned the trombone as a child, which led to experiments with electronic sounds (for example, gently squeezing a friend's cat to generate a squeak) and now to an established career as a DJ and electronic musician. Here, he shares his perspective on what makes a good song, how college transformed his musical style, and advice for young musicians. Have a listen!

Michna live at work during a 2013 tour in which he built a portable music set-up that fit into two custom suitcases. Using two tiny projectors shooting into mirrors and reflecting onto the weather balloons, he placed a strobe underneath his DJ table that was triggered with his foot, while projecting footage of each city that he had shot earlier that day onto the balloons. 

The New Art Marketplace: Digital Artist Kevin McCoy

Artist and Monegraph Founder and CEO Kevin McCoy

In 2011, New York-based digital artists Kevin and Jennifer McCoy created Northwest Passing for TPR; but instead of presenting what one might expect, they offered visitors to the space a live improvisational theater experiment featuring professional actors giving fake lectures about traditional artworks by Northwest Masters. The experience revealed all kinds of questions about the assumptions we make about works we think we know and should always revere.

In this interview, we visit with Kevin McCoy during the launch of his first company, an online platform for the buying and selling of digital artwork. Monegraph, as this company is called, could change everything about how we value artwork and how artists get paid for the work they make.

Watch video of Northwest Passing

A Symbol of Pride: Rainbow Flag Designer Gilbert Baker

In 1978, Gilbert Baker, a drag queen and community activist in San Francisco, responded to his friend Harvey Milk's assertion that the gay rights movement needed a new symbol. The pink triangle had been in use but was  connected to the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the movement needed something uplifting to replace it. Using his creativity, his sewing skills, many many volunteers and even more fabric dye, Baker designed and produced the Rainbow Flag- or Gay Pride Flag- that we know today.

Baker with the Rainbow Flag at the Museum of Modern Art, 2015

The Original 8-color Rainbow Flag, San Francisco United Nations Plaza, June 25, 1978. Photo: James McNamara. Courtesy of the artist. Baker is third from the left "in satin pajamas with my long hair." 

In this interview, he chats with TPR Founder Jess Van Nostrand about the flag's first showing in 1978 and many of the interesting things that have happened since.  

It's a Bitch to Remember

October 22, 6-6:45pm

For the third consecutive year, TPR is pleased to be a stop along the route for Lit Crawl Seattle. This year,  writers Steven Barker, Jason Schmidt and Allison Ellis tackle The Project Room's current Big Question "How Are We Remembered?" with a series of stories about memory. 

About the Presenters:

Steven Barker is a 2014-2015 Made at Hugo House fellow and is working on a collection of essays that detail the wide range of short-term jobs he’s held over the past ten years. When he’s not working or writing he hosts the arts and entertainment podcast Ordinary Madness (ordinarymadness.org), and he is the co-founder of Cheap Wine & Poetry and Cheap Beer & Prose.

 

Jason Schmidt was born in Eugene, Oregon, in 1972 and was raised up and down the I-5 corridor — but mostly on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. Jason is the author of A List of Things That Didn’t Kill Me, a memoir published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a Macmillan imprint. His writing has appeared in Jeopardy Magazine, Cranky Literary Journal, and ZYZZYVA, only one of which has since gone out of business. He took first place in the 4th quarter of the 1998 L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest (yes, you read that right), and is the recipient of a 4Culture Art Projects grant. He holds a BA in Creative Writing and a JD, both from the University of Washington. As a law student he received the Frank E. Holman & Judge William Steinert scholarships, and a CALI Excellence for the Future Award. He can make a large cheese pizza in under 40 seconds. 

Allison Ellis is a Seattle-based freelance writer. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, SELF, Redbook, Marie Claire, Fodor’s Travel Guides, ParentMap, and the Seattle Times. She is currently working on a memoir about young widowhood and her tragicomic pursuit of a new husband, and was recently selected as a 2015 Literary Contest Finalist by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association.  

Was Here: Visual Artist Ellie Dicola

This month's podcast is a conversation with Seattle-based artist Ellie Dicola. As part of Seattle Storefronts, a program that places artist projects in vacant storefront spaces, Ellie created the installation Was Here. As a corporeal monument to places that are gone, Was Here is a documentation of local businesses and organizations that have disappeared over the last handful of years. Ellie refers to her project as a map of experiences, and in our discussion of evolution and change, we explore what it means to give voice to memory and to create a place to collectively mourn the intangible. Thanks for listening!

Ellie Dicola has lived and worked in Seattle since graduating with an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005. Her background in sculpture has developed into a creative practice focused in video, performativity, experimental poetics and net-based platforms. She employs devices, often highly autobiographic, that speak to the overtly female. Working from the forces of love, hate, desire, death, madness and belief, a process of self-identification is at the core of her work. She approaches embodiment as a site--inevitably gendered and politicized--where agency and refusal posit further questions.  Ellie has an interest in alternative exhibition formats, having most recently presented a guerrilla project on pornhub.com through the avatar HipsLipsTitsPower. Her work has been shown at On The Ground Floor (Los Angeles), Present Company (Brooklyn), Seattle University's Hedreen Gallery, the Henry Art Gallery Test Site (Seattle), and on the Amazon campus through Shunpike's Storefronts Program.

Photos by Katie Miller for The Project Room

RESERVE TICKETS HERE:

Since October 2014, The Project Room has been following Anastacia Tolbert in the making of 9 Ounces, A One-Woman Show.  Starring the three female characters Alice, Luna & Saraphina, 9 Ounces uses the audience as a mirror to reflect, three narratives crochet themselves around evolving frames. After debuting the work this past July, Tolbert returns to share it once again as it continues to develop.

All performances will be held at The Project Room.  General admission performances are FREE.  Recommended for ages 16+ unless accompanied by a guardian.  Click on the dates below to link to Stranger Ticket Sales.

VIP PERFORMANCE: $25

Thurs. September 10, 6:30-9pm
Special Q & A with the artist after the performance. Wine and hors d'oeurvres will be served! $25 VIP tickets required via Stranger Tickets; available on 5/14/15. Doors open at 6:30pm, performance at 7pm.  Seating is limited.

GENERAL ADMISSION PERFORMANCES: FREE

Fri. September 11 & Sat. September 12, 7-8:30pm
FREE tickets required via Stranger Tickets; available on 7/30/15.
Seating is limited.

Please note: Some posters and postcards were circulated with incorrect dates. The above dates are the final correct dates!

 

MORE about 9 Ounces:

9 Ounces: A One Woman Show is an unkempt, de-ribbon-ed, narrative braid dangling with cooked parts. It unofficially yogas its way through the unexpected journey of a queer woman of color's mid-life a-ha moment and extreme case of takotsubo's cardiomyopathy. Using the audience as mirror, epiphany and diary, three narratives crochet themselves around evolving frames. Meet Luna, innocent, truth-telling childlike ghost-angel, Saraphina filter-free wise counsel-spiritual matriarch and Alice an artist and writer wedged between four universal questions: Who the hell am I/not? What am I supposed to be doing? Why me? What's for Dinner? Together, the three bravely and vulnerably traverse the what-now with humor, sadness and a longing wish to have a deeper appreciation and longstanding compassion for Alice's 9-ounce heart and a goal to master downward dog.

Episode 16: Building the Impossible City: Non-Profit Arts Collective Sawhorse Revolution

For this month's podcast, TPR Editor Tessa Hulls sat down with Sarah Smith and Micah Stanovsky of Sawhorse Revolution, a Seattle nonprofit that teaches carpentry skills to high school youth. With an emphasis on projects that serve their local communities, Sawhorse has constructed everything from tree houses to garden beds. Recently, they've been garnering national attention for their project The Impossible City, a partnership with the Nickelsville homeless community in Seattle, in which students are building micro-homes for homeless residents.

Sawhorse's mission tackles the idea of our current topic, Monument, in its most literal sense, but it also explores the ways in which students create their own legacy of empowerment and engagement by learning the value of concrete skills. In addition to their educational programs, Sawhorse Revolution produces a literary journal, FRAME. In conjunction with the release of this podcast, we published This Is Your Arm, an essay about intention, focus, and drywall screws that was first featured in FRAME. Be sure to head over to Off Paper to give it a read, and thanks for tuning in.

Photo: Alec Gardner

Photo: Sam Hunt

Photo: Nate Watters

Photo: Sam Hunt

Talking with Underscore: Sound Artist Daniel Neumann

The Project Room is pleased to present the work of sound artist Daniel Neumann, who joined us for an interview in his Brooklyn studio and generously created a new piece in response to that conversation. Have a listen to this conversation as it plays alongside its "underscore"- and enjoy! 

July 31, 8:30pm to 11:30pm
Southgate Roller Rink, Seattle

Join us for Rollergate 2015, an evening of skating, music, and art. A portion of ticket proceeds will support The Project Room's podcast series, yipee! If you happen to be attending Anastacia Tolbert's one-woman show 9 Ounces that night, Rollergate is providing free transportation after the show to the roller rink!