Platform2
2007-2012
Platform2 was a series of events in Boston, MA, designed to facilitate dialogue about art & social engagement. Platform2 events happened every 2-3 months in diverse locations, such as an artist’s studio, an urban park, or on a bus.
Platform2: Art and Social Enagement was a forum for imaginative dialog about creative practice and its intersection with social, political, economic, and cultural issues. Platform2 conversations brought together presenters from diverse disciplines and took place in urban environments both public and private: an artist’s studio, a public park, the Boston transit system. Platform2 created transdisciplinary, nomadic spaces for reflecting upon ideologies, institutions, and possibilities for creative intervention. Past events include: Art & Activism, The Commons, Risk, The Future, Slow, Free, and Failure.
Art & Activism. 4/07. At Jane Marsching’s studio in Boston, MA. Presenters included elin o’Hara slavick, Jane Marsching & Catherine D’Ignazio. During the discussion, guests were invited to write their questions on file tags.
The Commons on the Common. 6/07. A potluck picnic on the Boston Common where we discussed “the Commons” in relation to the work of invited guests, including Iain Kerr/spurse and policy activist David Bollier of onthecommons.org.
RISK: Race, class, geography & art. 9/07. What risks do we take in seeing a place from perspectives other than our own? What risks do we take if we don’t? Geographer Marie Cieri and artist Andi Sutton discussed projects which investigate race, class and the demographics of Boston neighborhoods and bus routes. Participants started at Symphony Hall where Sutton presented and then the group rode the #1 bus to Dudley Square where Marie Cieri presented. One more bus ride took us to Jane Marsching’s studio in the South End where we had a final discussion. Click on the image to read coverage by Greg Cook.
Failure Support Group. 2/08. Art projects fail a lot, particularly those that are participatory, public and/or social. They fail for different reasons and cause myriad revelations. Nevertheless, the structures that we use to talk about these works and contexts where they are presented often don't leave room for discussing the failures plainly and objectively. February 2008. Click the image to read an article about the event by the ever curious Greg Cook
Parade for the Future. 9/08. An event lead by Platform2 where we biked and walked through Boston Commons marking the water lines for 2108. I rode the stereobike as a mermaid blasting music through the Commons: On Sat, Sept 13th, Platform2 will lead a Parade for the Future in the form of a giant blue wave. We will gather outside the Park Street T station at 4PM. From there, the parade will proceed along the flood line of the neighborhood, tracing a worst-case scenario future geography from the year 2108. We will all be wearing blue and carrying a giant wave (from the website of Platform2). All photos courtesy James Manning. Click the link to see more images from Greg Cook
Manifesto Slam. 1/09. We invite you to stand on a soap box to read, sing, dance, scream, build, perform – to SLAM! – your own (or your favorite) manifesto. In this celebration, we will climb aboard a bio-diesel bus and drive through Boston broadcasting our individual and collective voices throughout the city. Join us to manifest the visions we have, the politics we feel, and the movements we revere. We will gather together words, thoughts, and gestures of action. We will distribute them on loudspeakers from the windows of a bio-diesel bus. We will mail hard copies and documentation to the White House. We will provide a soap box and musical interludes. You will provide the manifesto. 2008
Brownfields Bear Fruit. 2011. Meet and walk with expert forager David Craft to discover the intersection of edible plants in the city and invisible toxins. Part of Soil + Garden + Sky - a trilogy of projects about toxins, our backyard gardens, and our bodies. Click on the image to see an old Flikr image set
SLOW. 2010. an exploration of being slow in the midst of Downtown Crossing in Boston
Wearable Gardens. 2011. On a sunny, unseasonably warm October afternoon, nine people gathered in a circle and wrote a story. The story was of a tree seed – the sugar maple – at risk of survival due to the environmental impacts of climate change, and the possibilities of its migration north. It was a story in action and of action, told next to a 200 year old Sugar Maple at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts, in the midst of the largest and most diverse collection of maple trees (genus: Acer) in the world. Click on image to learn more