COCA Center for Outdoor Contemporary Art
proudly presents
Open Skies
Celebrating the Frontier Spirit of Today’s Artists
3 Days - 10 San Francisco Parklands - 20 Contemporary Artists
Friday thru Sunday, October 19-21, 2007, noon-5 PM every day
Rain or Shine! And Free for ALL!
Freya Bardell with Brian Howe (Los Angeles), Jason Robert Bell (NY), Scott Cartwright (MA), Ellen Babcock with Hannah Barnard-Henke, Amy Dotts, Shawn Hibmacronan, Marnika Shelton, Gian Giglio (SF), Flower Frankenstein (SF), Rebecca Herman and Mark Shoffner (NY), Mikhail Iliatov with Erica Ehrenberg (NY), Mike Lai (SF), Ellen Lake (Oakland), Moses (MO), Diana Sanchez (Oakland), The Studio for Urban Projects (SF)
Alamo Square, Brooks Park, Esprit Park, Fillmore/Turk Mini Park, Gilman Playground, Golden Gate Park (Conservatory of Flowers, Peacock Meadow, Stow Lake), John McLaren Park, Lafayette Park, Mission Dolores Park, Panhandle, Washington Square
Curated by Elliot Lessing
Open Skies is made possible, in part, through generous support from Potrero Nuevo Fund, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, and Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund
Open Skies Celebrating the Frontier Spirit of Today’s Artists is a Citywide Contemporary Arts Exhibition that celebrates the spirit of wonder, renewal and creative social action through artist-driven public projects that activate public space and community resources.
Open Skies unites 20 Contemporary Artists with 10 San Francisco neighborhood parks to deliver extraordinary site-specific art projects of all media for families, new residents, and city visitors.
All artists will be on hand to host their original creation and offer personal insight into their chosen sites or project genesis. Many artists will offer Open Skies Workshops to provide families and individuals with hands-on experience into the art-making process. Original artist-designed educational materials relating to project sites and local history will be offered throughout. Create your own Open Skies Park Discovery Tours to share natural, historical, and folkloric information to adventure-seekers of all ages – vividly linking oral tradition to local communities and public space.
All exhibitions, tours, workshops, special events, and educational materials are completely free to the public. Combined, these exhibition-features highlight our neighborhood parks as living outdoor classrooms – thus transforming Open Skies into a welcoming community enrichment project.
Open Skies offers an entirely new way for an all-ages public to experience their neighborhood parks, while encouraging others to explore little-known parks within their city. Open Skies cultivates new forms of learning about nature systems, art-making, and park stewardship. Open Skies invites families and individuals to develop their public parks as safe places to explore personal relationships with nature, art, and public spaces. Open Skies provides an opportunity for the public to grow their ideas regarding harmony, community-building, and creative social action.
Open Skies Celebrating the Frontier Spirit of Today’s Artists is at once a brilliant opportunity for families, community members, and city visitors to enjoy a rich synthesis of inspiring artistic visions, dynamic educational programming, and constructive civic engagement.
Our wish is that within the scope of the event, attendees and participants will be touched by the new breed of artists who are fine-tuning their visions to address the spiritual and social needs felt in our public spaces – and in our public lives.
Please join COCA and the City of San Francisco as we launch Open Skies!
