Wall Street to Main Street is a collaborative art project linking Occupy Wall Street and the rest of America, via the small town of Catskill, NY. The Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS) has focused its energy on the need for justice for the 99%. This project, Wall Street to Main Street, offers a platform for creative expression and dialogue focusing attention on an economically depressed community through inventive art exhibitions and cultural events.
Invitation to submit Proposals/Entries: Open to all artists nationally and internationally, including Hudson Valley artists.
Deadline for Proposals February 1
Notification to Artists February 7
Installations February 7-March 15
Opening Reception March 17
Project dates March 17 – May 31
The project goals of Wall Street to Main Street are:
1. To explore art as a way to understand the issues of the Occupy Movement with opportunities for education, communication, and a showcase of wildly creative artistic expressions;
2. To highlight the vanguard role of artists in this and past movements, as well as the role communities play in nurturing their vision;
3. To model a peaceful partnership between the cultural organizations, educational institutions, protesters, artists and the citizens who make up our communities;
4. To explore ideas in art works that call attention to real-world economic problems, fundamental democratic processes, and an urgent need for systemic reform.
People/Contacts- Presented by the Greene County Council on the Arts, this project is co-organized by Occupy With Art, an affinity group of the OWS Arts and Culture Committee, Fawn Potash (Project Director, Masters on Main Street) and Geno Rodriquez (co-founder/former Director of The Alternative Museum). Submit proposals to fawn@greenearts.org. 518-943-3400.
Exhibitions may include art work by/for/about the Occupy Movement in any media, utilizing interior space and/or windows. A dozen vacant storefronts are anticipated with additional display area in active shop windows. Exhibits may include traditional media, new media, light based works, sound, motion, text. There is no fee/rent, but interior exhibits require staffing and utility payments. A signed agreement is required promising to return the space to its original condition. Grant funding is pending to cover utility expenses, and a network is in process offering local hosts with overnight accommodations and gallery sitters.
Events may include workshops, hands-on activities, forums, panel discussions, tours, performance, radio broadcasts, story telling, projections and readings, cross-pollinated subjects/genres combining political science/economics/art taking place in exhibition spaces or surrounding venues.
Photo-Documentary Exhibit Call for Entries: Curated by Geno Rodriguez, this exhibit serves as a descriptive introduction of the events of the global Occupy Movement as seen through the kaleidoscopic lens of contemporary photographers, as well as the portal leading to the dynamic array of exhibits and events taking place down Main Street.
Area resources: Catskill’s Main Street is nestled between the Hudson River and the Catskill Creek with clear views of the Catskill Mountains at sunset. It offers several architecturally intact 19th century facades, a vaudeville-era movie theater, two small pocket parks and a Community Center. There is a Carnegie Library nearby, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and a bridge leading to Hudson, NY. Catskill is at the center of a circle of educational institutions- Columbia-Greene Community College (Hudson, NY), Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY), Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY), and the State Universities of New York at Albany and New Paltz . Local radio station, WGXC 90.7-FM broadcasts from Catskill’s Main Street on Wednesday afternoons and 24/7 from their Hudson and Acra studios.
Audiences for this project range from sophisticated, intentional viewers to curious pedestrians. In the last year, Masters on Main Street exhibitors have discovered that scale, night lighting and a descriptive statement in the window are very important features to engage this diverse crowd.
For Exhibit/Space/Event Proposals submit 1 page (max) project description and up to 10 low res jpegs with image list.
For Photo Documentary Exhibit entries, submit up to 10 low res jpegs with image list to:
Fawn Potash, Masters on Main Street, Project Director
Attn: WS2MS Space Proposal and/or WS2MS Photo-Doc Entries
Greene County Council on the Arts
398 Main Street, PO Box 463
Catskill, NY 12414
fawn@greenearts.org
Questions? Call Fawn Potash, Greene County Council on the Arts 518-943-3400.
