Miami Report – Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel Dugas (2014)

Report from a visit to Miami and the Everglades National Park – Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel Dugas, November 2014

Our visit to South Florida to screen video poetry at the Miami Book Fair International and a visit to the Everglades National Park was short.  Aside from the two days of air travel, we were there for just three days, really full days! To begin, on November 18, we screened several videos and took part in a panel discussion on the transformative effects that the July 2014 AIRIE (Artist In Residence In Everglades) residency had on our work.  While our FLOW: BIG WATERS everglades-based project is ongoing and will eventually include an installation with soundwalks and photographs, we were happy to screen a selection of the video works that we have completed to this date.

The panel discussion was co-moderated by Artist and AIRIE Executive President, Deborah Mitchell and Biologist Skip Snow.  The five AIRIE Artists who presented and took part in the discussion were: Gustavo Matamoros, Reed van Brunschot, Author Anne McCrary Sullivan, and ourselves. After brief introductions by Deborah Mitchell, Miami historian Dr. Paul George opened the conversation with details about the current and recent landmarks that stand and stood close to the Book Fair venue we were sitting within. Downtown Miami is undergoing many physical changes as new buildings replace older structures. Dr. George’s comments brought some of these changes to light. The evening took place at the SWAMP; the pop-up lounge utilized for showcasing social and cultural events during the Miami Book Fair International on the Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus.

After the AIRIE presentation, Gustavo Matamoros and his partner, Miami-based Graphic Artist Claudia Ariano invited us to drive over to Little Havana’s El Cristo Restaurant to experience Cuban cuisine. The conversations continued in a range of topics that ran from contemporary art through a variety of cultural markers.

During two of our days, we walked around the Wolfson Campus and Miami’s downtown to become somewhat oriented with the city. We found our way over to the Miami Beach Mall for the opening of an umbrella of exhibitions at the ArtCenter of South Florida. The open studios and exhibitions for the 30 Years on the Road show spread out from 924 Lincoln Road, along the block to transform the experience from indoor venues to vitrines for sidewalk viewing. It is an ambitious undertaking that showcases retrospective and contemporary artworks embodying many genres.  Outside of 924 Lincoln, the Listening Gallery, in partnership with Subtropics.org is presenting the collaborative work: Walk-Run. On opposite sides of the entrance doors, Walk-Run features face to face moving images by Charles Recher. Combined with a soundscape by Rene Barge and Gustavo Matamoros, Walk-Run can be experienced differently depending on if you are up-close to it, on the sidewalk in front of the building, or at distance. Turning the corner to view other artworks presented in vitrines also permits variable exposure to the audio as the sound waves bend around the architecture of the cityscape. Owing to the nature of showing so many artists at one time, the opening reception moved along the block with conversations continuing inside in and outside of the studios. Walking this stretch of the Mall with Gustavo, we met and talked with many artists. We also took time to view examples of art deco along the Lincoln Road Mall.

On November 20, the final day of our visit, Deborah Mitchell invited us to drive out to the AIRIE lab to visit November’s resident artist Regina Jestrow.  Regina had generously organized an open studio reception in the lab where she laid out a sampling of the research she carried out during the month. It was a chance to talk informally with Regina, the other artists and scientists who dropped by, and several of the Park Staff that we had the pleasure of working with during July. We saw the beginning stages of Regina’s artworks utilizing imprinted rubbings and look forward to seeing the next stage of this new textile based work.

Back in Miami the same evening, we visited the Locust Project.  Showing in the Main Space is Daniel Arsham’s Welcome to the Future. In the project room,Salvadorian artist Simón Vega’s exhibition Sub-Tropical Social Sculptures is ongoing.We arrived in time for the Art on the Move presentation with Curator Dominic Molon in conversation with Vancouver-based artist Ron Terada. The subject of the discussion was Terada’s Soundtrack for an Exhibition.

Our on-the-ground introduction to the Miami art scene gave us the chance to scratch the surface of this diverse, multicultural city where Spanish is the predominantly spoken second language. Staying in downtown Miami gave us the chance to see the last days of the old Miami Herald Building as it underwent demolition. It will be interesting to go back and see what new masterpiece rises to replace it on Biscayne Bay. If one word could be used to describe the face and evolving culture of Miami, vibrant would fit!

This activity was supported by the New Brunswick Arts Board

And the MBFI / The Swamp

Miami Book Fair International (2014)

An Evening with AIRIE (Artists in Residence in Everglades)

Miami Bookfair International 2014

Tuesday, November 18th @ 7pm at The Swamp Pavillion

Look for the big tent at the southeast corner of N.E. 3rd Street and 2nd Avenue.

Science + Art:  Transformative Experiences in the Everglades

Despite its importance, abundance of wildlife, and great natural beauty, many people have never visited  the Everglades and only have a vague idea of it as a tangled swamp rife with pythons, mosquitoes and alligators.  AIRIE executive director and artist Deborah Mitchell and biologist Skip Snow will co-moderate a panel of five AIRIE artists on the transformative experience their residency in the Everglades has had on their work.  Audio composer Gustavo Matamoros, Visual artist Reed Van Brunschot, author Anne McCrary Sullivan, and multi-disciplinary Canadian artists Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel Dugas will share their recent experiences with the audience while a slide show of AIRIE art provides visual support for their moving narratives.

About the artists

LeBlanc and Dugas will debut their new project FLOW- BIG WATERS with a program of video poems. Based upon their research in the Everglades National Park, the project will continue through 2015 and will also include a series of sound walks and photographs. Researching and recording several aspects of this unique biosphere, this dynamic duo continues working on various aspects of this multi-facetted project. Using tools of writing, still and moving images and audio, the root of their desire is to share the aesthetic joy of being there in the moment. When completed, the project will be available online.

Matamoros will present Bats & Insects, a sound-scape audio composition on exhibit September 19-November 5th at the critically acclaimed Common Ground:  Artists in the Everglades at Florida Atlantic University. This Venezuelan composer is the driving force behind ISaw + Subtropics, the leading proponent of experiential music and sound art in the Southeast.

McCrary Sullivan has had poems widely published in literary and academic journals including The Gettysburg Review, the Southern Review, and Harvard Educational Review.  During and after her AIRIE residency, she accumulated thousands of hours paddling the waters of the Everglades National Park, which resulted in two books:   Ecology II: Throat Song from the Everglades and Paddling the Everglades Wilderness Waterway.

Van Brunschot is a visual artist who uses multiple mediums including sculpture, painting, performance and video.   Based on evoking memories of childhood, home life and a general commonality found in nostalgic experiences, her work examines transitions and places them in the public sphere.  Van Brunschot will discuss how her recent transformative residency experience has affected her studio practice.

About the Moderators

Biologist Skip Snow worked for the National Park Service for 38 years, the last 25 at Everglades National Park. He has evaluated the effects of water management on park wildlife, worked to reintroduce native species, and spent considerable time working on eradicating the Burmese python.  Since retiring in 2013, Skip has been pursuing a keen interest in the intersection of art and science, and continues to volunteer for the park as an emeritus wildlife biologist.

Artist and Executive Director of AIRIE, Deborah Mitchell, participated in the Artist-in-Residence program in Big Cypress in 2007.  Since then, environmental awareness and community outreach has been the focus of her multi-disciplinary work.  In addition to working with AIRIE fellows and organizing cultural programs, she curated The Preserve in 2012 and Flight: Aloft in the Everglades in 2014. Mitchell’s photographs can be seen in Swamplife, (Minnesota Press).

An evening with AIRIE in the Swamp Pavilion at the Bookfair will be an informative program which presents a nuanced look at the Everglades by letting AIRIE Fellows share their work and perspectives on the park with both local and international book lovers.

http://airie.org/2014/save-the-date-airie-at-the-book-fair-nov-18/