Martina Plag: Artist-in-Residence

Martina Plag creates puppetry for adult audiences to address contemporary issues and advocate social change and awareness. She is German and practiced architecture for ten years before pursuing her love of puppetry. Her masks, puppets, automata and experimental short films have been in juried exhibitions and have awarded her seven residencies. In 2008, she established her puppetry atelier: studium-praxis, which under her artistic direction has presented four original productions; two of which were invited to the Joyce SoHO New Dance Alliance Performance Festival and the Festival of Jewish Theatre and Ideas at Theater Three in NYC. Ms. Plag has designed puppets, sets and prototypes for Mum Puppettheatre, Enchantment Theatre Company, The University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Gas & Electric Arts, New City Stage Company, WHITE BOX THEATRE: Philadelphia; Slingback Productions, NYC, the Children's Theatre Company, Minneapolis, MN, Rowan University, Glassborough, NJ , People’s Light & Theater Co, Malvern, PA, and the International Opera Theater in Città della Pieve, Italy.

Beth Nixon: Artist-in-Residence

Beth Nixon is the human behind many Ramshackle Enterprises. She creates puppets, masks, piñatas, parades, pageants, clown acts, suitcase theaters, magical lands and other spectaculah, on her own, and in collaboration with other humans of all ages and abilities. She comes from Rhode Island, lives in West Philadelphia, and travels frequently to places where exciting building, performing, investigating or facilitating opportunities arise. Mostly she uses cardboard, science, and the imagination. Her performances and puppet installations occur in galleries, garages, street corners, and living rooms up and down the East Coast. She has been an artist-in-residence at dozens of schools, senior centers, addiction recovery and mental health programs. Beth believes in the power of bike helmets, cornstarch, tide pools, emancipatory pedagogy, utopian performatives, and snacks. She has an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. She was awarded a 2010 Leeway Transformation Award for her art and social change work and a 2008 Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts. For more info on Beth’s endeavors please see www.ramshackleenterprises.net

Michael Konrad: Artist-in-Residence

Above: 2011-2012 40th Street artist Michael Konrad is sheltered by his sleeping bag sculpture made from recycled plastic. For more photos and details about the project, visit www.konradprojects.net/2010/sleeping-bag.

Michael Konrad's sculptures contemplate the different functions of materials in a post-industrial world. Through his exploration of the built environment, Michael’s work is informed by careful observation of common objects and architecture of the city. His work explores the alternate functions of objects and structures in varying states of construction and decay. Through Konrad's sculptures we can imagine an environment where objects once considered disposable become valuable resources in a world that favors re-use over waste.

Michael Konrad received a Master’s degree in Studio Art from New York University in 2005. He has exhibited in various cities across the United States and is a recent recipient of the 2010-2011 Fleisher Wind Challenge Award. More information is available at the artist’s website: http://www.konradprojects.net

Rolf Potts: ArtsEdge Writer-in-Residence

40th Street welcomes Rolf Potts, ArtsEdge's 2011-2012 writer-in-residence. In the above photo, Rolf demonstrates his skills on the Spanish pipes in Havana.

Rolf Potts is the author of two books, "Vagabonding," and "Marco Polo Didn't Go There." He has reported from more than sixty countries for the likes of National Geographic Traveler, The New Yorker, Slate.com, Outside, the New York Times Magazine, The Believer, National Public Radio, and the Travel Channel. A veteran travel columnist for the likes of Salon.com and World Hum, his adventures have taken him across six continents, and include piloting a fishing boat 900 miles down the Laotian Mekong, driving a Land Rover across South America, and traveling around the world for six weeks with no luggage or bags of any kind.

Visit www.rolfpotts.com for photos and details of his travels.

Philadelphia Open Studio Tour at 40stAIR

Open gallery and studio event at 40th Street artist-in-residence program. Stop by and see diverse and vibrant art, 4007 and 4013 Chestnut Street, October 1st and 2nd from noon to 6pm.

Join us for the exhibition of the Venus Project

Dear friends and colleagues,

As part of my year at the 40th AIR residency, I had the fortune to work in 'The Venus Project,' together with artist Maria Anazasi, with a wonderful community of women from the MATER program.

For ten weeks we worked hard to complete individualized felt versions of the famous votive prehistoric sculpture The Venus of Wilendorf. The results are beautiful and inspiring, and the sculptures will be on display at the 40th AIR gallery (4007 Chestnut street, 19104) starting August 8th through August 24th. The gallery will be open between those days by appointment at anab.hernandez@gmail.com or 40th.air.app@gmail.com.

Please, join us on Monday, August 8th, 6-8pm, for the opening reception of this exhibition, where you'll have a chance to meet the artists. Reception will include a live samba drumming performance.

I hope you can make it!

Ana

Resident Erik Ruin's Staring at the Cracks opens Thursday July 7!

 Staring at the Cracks

by  

40th Street Artist-in-Residence Erik Ruin

(with Brett Story & Dan Blacksberg)

July 7-24 

Local artist combines prints, projections and sound  

to tell stories of solitary confinement in temporary storefront gallery

CONTACT- Erik Ruin- erikruin@gmail.com 267.262.0208

Staring at the Cracks

Installation by Erik Ruin (with Brett Story and Dan Blacksberg)  

Opening Reception:
Thursday July 7 at 7pm  

Closing Reception:
Saturday July 23 at 3pm  

at: 4212 Chestnut St., 1st floor, Philadelphia 

Temporarily inhabiting an unoccupied suite of offices near Penn's campus, artist Erik Ruin is constructing a unique environment to share the emotions and experiences of formerly incarcerated people.  Visitors are greeted in the entrance hall by a wall-paper-like pattern of silkscreened scenes depicting the isolation and repetition of daily life in the hole. Other rooms are populated by shadow-puppet and video projections by Ruin and award-winning Toronto filmmaker Brett Story.  Speakers littered throughout the space play snippets of audio interviews with men and women describing their experiences in solitary confinement, interwoven with a unique and haunting bed of sound composed by innovative klezmer and jazz trombonist Dan Blacksberg.

At the opening reception Thursday July 7^th, from 7-9 PM, Blacksberg will perform a live improvisational accompaniment to this soundscape, wandering throughout the space and performing with and against the audio samples.

Additionally on this night, Hakim Ali and William Goldsby, both of Philadelphia prison-activist group Reconstruction and both interviewees for this project, will speak about their experiences and the work they have been doing since their release.

On Saturday July 23^rd,  West Philadelphia fixture Ruin will be bidding Philly farewell with an all-day studio sale, live music, and closing reception. 3-11pm

Other viewings by appointment- contact 40th.AIR.app@gmail.com or 40thair.program@gmail.com

to schedule.

LOCATION- 4212 Chestnut Street (below Scribe Video Center), West Philly  

BIOs Erik Ruin is a Philly-based printmaker, shadow-puppeteer, occasional editor of various publications (including the anthology Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority with Josh MacPhee, AK Press, 2007) and a founding member of the Justseeds Artists' Cooperative. He is currently a 40th Street Artist-in-Residence.   Brett Story is a Montreal based filmmaker with roots in radio, print, experimental super8 film, live performance projections and documentary. Dan Blacksberg is a trombonist who is working to expand the range of the trombone in jazz and improvised music. He is also one of the premiere trombonists in the world of Klezmer.