Education and Community Programming at SECCA

SECCA and Krankies Art Grind Film Series Collaboration

SECCA and Krankies Coffee are partnering to present a film series called "Art Grind." This free series will present documentary and independent films that reflect upon the nature of art, music, creativity, ingenuity and the human spirit. The series will be held on the first Thursday of every month beginning Feb. 4. Screenings will be held at 7 p.m. at Krankies Werehouse located at 211 East Third Street, Winston-Salem, NC 27101.

SECCA Curator of Education Michael Christiano says, "Film is a vital component of SECCA's multidisciplinary programming, as is collaborating. Our strong partnership with Krankies will bring films to our community that demonstrate the magnitude of creative expression, as well as reflect our shared institutional values."

Image: Film still from Beautiful Losers. Courtesy of Arthouse Films.

Art Grind Film Series: Beautiful Losers

CELEBRATES THE SPIRIT BEHIND ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL CULTURAL MOMENTS OF A GENERATION. IN THE EARLY 1990'S A LOOSE-KNIT GROUP OF LIKE-MINDED OUTSIDERS FOUND COMMON GROUND AT A LITTLE NYC STORE FRONT GALLERY. ROOTED IN THE DIY (DO-IT-YOURSELF) SUBCULTURES OF SKATEBOARDING, SURF, PUNK, HIP HOP & GRAFFITI, THEY MADE ART THAT REFLECTED THE LIFESTYLES THEY LED. DEVELOPING THEIR CRAFT WITH ALMOST NO INFLUENCE FROM THE "ESTABLISHMENT" ART WORLD, THIS GROUP, AND THE SUBCULTURES THEY SPRANG FROM, HAVE NOW BECOME A MOVEMENT THAT HAS BEEN TRANSFORMING POP CULTURE. DIRECTED BY AARON ROSE, CO-DIRECTED BY JOSHUA LEONARD; USA; 90 MINUTES; NOT RATED.

Image: Film still from Danielson: A Family Movie.

Art Grind Film Series: Danielson, A Family Movie

A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT UNBRIDLED CREATIVITY VS. ACCESSIBILITY, CHRISTIAN FAITH VS. POPULAR CULTURE, UNDERGROUND MUSIC VS. SURVIVAL, AND FAMILY VS. INDIVIDUALITY. THE FILM FOLLOWS DANIEL SMITH, AN ECCENTRIC MUSICIAN AND VISUAL ARTIST, AS HE LEADS HIS FOUR SIBLINGS AND BEST FRIEND CHRIS TO INDIE-ROCK STARDOM. DIRECTED BY JL ARONSON; USA; 105 MINUTES; NOT RATED.

Image: Film still from Garbage Dreams.

Art Grind Film Series: Garbage Dreams

THIS FILM FOLLOWS THREE TEENAGE BOYS BORN INTO THE TRASH TRADE AND GROWING UP IN THE WORLD'S LARGEST GARBAGE VILLAGE, ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF CAIRO. IT IS HOME TO 60,000 "ZABALLEEN," ARABIC FOR "GARBAGE PEOPLE." FAR AHEAD OF ANY MODERN "GREEN" INITIATIVES, THE "ZABALLEEN" SURVIVE BY RECYCLING 80% OF THE GARBAGE THEY COLLECT. WHEN THEIR COMMUNITY IS SUDDENLY FACED WITH GLOBALIZATION OF ITS TRADE, EACH OF THE TEENAGE BOYS IS FORCED TO MAKE CHOICES THAT WILL IMPACT HIS FUTURE AND THE SURVIVAL OF HIS COMMUNITY. DIRECTED BY MAI ISKANDER; EGYPT; 79 MINUTES; NOT RATED.

In Case You Missed It:

Check out a set of behind-the-scenes images on : www.flickr.com/photos/secca/sets/

Inside Out Classroom: Street Art Workshop with Roadsworth

Inside Out: Artists in the Community II participating artist Peter Gibson, otherwise known as "Roadsworth," led an intensive workshop for students and instructors at the Enrichment Center, which is nationally acclaimed for its work in developing artistic talent and careers in the arts for adults with disabilities. During the program Roadsworth shared his work and discussed how he transforms street lanes, crosswalks, and traffic markers into self described "Pedestrian Street Art". He also helped the participants develop their own project-transforming the grounds surrounding the Enrichment Center into an imaginative work of street art. Enrichment Center instructors and students spent a week completing their street art installation, which was revealed during the Street Art Community Day on Sunday, October 18.

Click on the image above to download a time-lapse video of Roadsworth's project at The Enrichment Center during his in-residence workshop. Music by The Enrichment Center Percussion Ensemble.

Street Art Film Series

From its rise in the streets of New York City to the global phenomenon it has become, street art continues to intrigue, inspire, and anger generations of people. SECCA and Krankies Coffee partnered to present this program exploring the legacy and impact of this compelling art form during the three day Street Art Film Series in conjunction with the artist Roadsworth's installation, produced as part of SECCA’s Inside Out: Artists in the Community II exhibition series.

Style Wars

Style Wars is a legendary hip-hop documentary and a timeless film classic, the indispensable record of a golden age of youthful creativity and exploding hip-hop subculture. Directed by Tony Silver, and produced by Tony Silver and photographer Henry Chalfant, Style Wars was awarded the Grand Prize for Documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival in 1984. In 2003 it has been newly acclaimed at New York's Tribeca Film Festival, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and numerous other festivals, where it screened with Style Wars: ReVisited, its new companion film, produced from the new 2-disc package recently named Best DVD of the Year by The Onion.

Style Wars captures the look and feel of New York's ramshackle subway system as the graffiti writers' public playground, battleground and spectacular artistic canvas. Opposing them by every means possible were Mayor Edward Koch, the police, and the New York Transit Authority. Meanwhile, MC's, DJ's and B-boys were rocking the city with new sounds and new moves, as street corner break dance battles became performance art. The soundtrack features classics performed by The Sugar Hill Gang, The Treacherous Three, The Fearless Four, Grand Master Flash and The Furious Five, Trouble Funk, Rammellzee/K-Rob, and Dion. Directed by Tony Silver; USA; 70 minutes; Not Rated.

NEXT: A Primer on Urban Painting

Next: A Primer on Urban Painting is a documentary exploration of graffiti-based visual art as a world culture. The filmmaker profiles the art form in nine countries including USA, Canada, France, Holland, Germany, England, Spain, Japan and Brazil. A combination of candid moments and interviews with painters, "writers," designers, documentarians and other participants within the subculture, the film conveys the dynamism and creative brilliance of this important emerging artistic movement. Directed by Pablo Aravena; Canada; 2005; 95 minutes; Not Rated.

Roadsworth: Crossing the Line

Roadsworth: Crossing the Line details a Montreal street artist's clandestine campaign to make his mark on the city streets. Hailed as an "artist's artist" by Wooster Collective, Roadsworth began to play with the language of the streets, overlaying city asphalt markings with his own images: a crosswalk becomes a giant boot print, vines choked up traffic dividers, and electrical plugs filled parking spots. Each piece begged the question, "Who owns public space?"

Roadsworth (aka Peter Gibson) is an internationally renowned street artist whose three-year campaign of illegal art installations galvanized the city of Montreal in a debate over art and authority. Today, in both his public pieces and private commissions, Roadsworth continues to define himself as an artist and takes the risks that make his work instinctual, immediate, and enigmatic. The post-screening Q&A featured Roadsworth who discussed his recent work as part of SECCA's public art series Inside Out: Artists in the Community II. Directed by Alan Kohl; Canada; 72 minutes; Not Rated

Check out the full set of images on : www.flickr.com/photos/secca/

Street Art Community Day at the Enrichment Center

SECCA and the Enrichment Center were pleased to host a collaborative Street Art Community Day. Inside Out: Artists in the Community II artist Roadsworth (aka Peter Gibson) led a workshop for Center residents to create their own street art projects. Enrichment Center artists and staff involved in the project were on hand to deliver a talk about their work.

Community Day festivities also included art-making projects for the public such as stencil making and sidewalk art. The Enrichment Center's Percussion Ensemble performed live during the event and local dancers from Kenevex Entertainment offered a brief history of the B-Boy, breaking, and hip-hop scene, followed by performances and breaking workshops.

Check out a set of behind-the-scenes images : www.flickr.com/photos/secca/sets/

Art Educator Professional Development Workshops with Mark Jenkins

Inside Out: Artists in the Community II participating artist Mark Jenkins led a fun hands-on workshop demonstrating his unique mold-making technique. Jenkins casts a wide variety of objects using ordinary and inexpensive Scotch Packing Tape courtesy of 3M. This innovative process has vast potential for classroom applications. During the September 15 workshop Jenkins worked with educators and students from RJR Reynolds High School to produce full-body molds. Art educators participating in the September 21 workshop had the opportunity to create their own sculptures utilizing Jenkins's mold-making process.

Scotch Packaging Tape from 3M

Check out a set of behind-the-scenes images : www.flickr.com/photos/secca/sets/

Artist's Talk with Mark Jenkins

The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art and Reynolda House Museum of American Art were pleased to co-present this engaging presentation by Inside Out: Artists in the Community II participating artist Mark Jenkins. Jenkins fashions mystifying moments from the humble medium of packing tape. Using it like past artists have used plaster of paris, he creates objects that are playfully deployed in unexpected ways across the urban landscape. His subjects have ranged from fire hydrants and parking meters to mischievous babies and fully dressed, life-size people (positioned in all manner of bizarre situations). Among other things Jenkins discussed the intriguing cast of characters he has created in and around Winston-Salem, including the mysterious figure inhabiting the grounds at Reynolda House Museum of American Art.

Check out a set of behind-the-scenes images : www.flickr.com/photos/secca/sets/

Art Educator Professional Development Workshop: Art as Experience with Lee Walton

Nationally-exhibiting artist Lee Walton (Greensboro, NC), who participated in SECCA's Inside Out: Artists in the Community II exhibition program, led this unique workshop for area art educators. Walton organizes subtle and playful performances where we would least expect them. Amplifying and repeating the theatrical moments of everyday life, Walton assembles ad hoc casts of artists, performers, and ordinary people into unexpected events. As performers emerge out of daily routines and familiar places, Walton leads us to look more closely at the people around us, and the ways life and theater overlap.

During this workshop Walton shared project ideas that emphasize creativity through collaboration, performative acts, and spontaneity. He focused on learning through process, re-directing attention away from the finished "product" as the ultimate objective, and re-valuing it more as documentation. Walton offered suggestions on how to utilize found objects, available environments, and people, in this creative process as a great way for students to explore and connect with the world around them.

This workshop was offered as part of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County's Staff Development Training.

Check out a set of behind-the-scenes images : www.flickr.com/photos/secca/sets/

A city's history is a rich and complex story. Just ask the 12 students from the Salvation Army Ken Carlson Boys & Girls Club who participated in SECCA's most recent Inside Out Classroom from July 27-31. During this innovative project, the students explored and investigated Winston-Salem's bygone Black Business District.

Through research, which included a study of historical maps, documents, and images; conducting interviews with more than six elder community members; and surveying the current geographic location once occupied by the District, students re-constituted this once vibrant and vital piece of our collective history.

Throughout the process students utilized filmmaking and new media technology to share and preserve their experiences for others. The students scripted, hosted, filmed, edited, and scored a series of webisodes hosted on a dynamic website of their own design. The various webisodes convey the significance of the Black Business District and its cultural legacy, through the eyes and voices of our next generation.

In addition to the webisodes, the site hosts a series of student blogs and other material, that further expresses the story of The Generation of the Old & New. To visit the website please go to iii Eye Kids.

SECCA would like to thank Maya Gilliam of III Eye Digital, LLC with her program III Eye [kids], and Annette Scippio of the Society for the Study of African American History in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, for leading the program. SECCA would also like to thank the Ken Carlson Boys & Girls Club for their collaboration, and SECCA programs assistant Endia Beal for helping to facilitate the program.

This program was presented in conjunction with Kianga Ford's The Story of this Place, which is part of SECCA's Inside Out: Artists in the Community II exhibition series.

Click the images above to view video of the Switch Video Project in action!

Inside Out Classroom: The Switch Video Project

SECCA helped young students understand each other, their diverse backgrounds and the places where they live through an innovative video project. During the program, students from Winston-Salem worked with students living in South Korea.

Called The Switch Video Project, SECCA's educational program involved students from two high schools -- West Forsyth High School's National Art Honor Society students in Clemmons, N.C., and Lincoln High School in Seoul, South Korea. The program took place April 8-22 and was taught by Maya Gilliam, a local artist/educator and owner of III Eye Digital, a local multimedia firm.

This project is part of the educational program developed to support SECCA's Inside Out: Artists in the Community II public art program. An imaginative cultural exchange program, Switch Video was presented in conjunction with Berlin, Germany artist Anna Von Gwinner's video installations, a part of SECCA's year-long public art program. Von Gwinner is one of seven artists creating public art in Winston-Salem during 2009.

The students explored and documented their specific "locals" through video and other new media tools.

Students in each class used Skype&trade, a web-based video-conferencing software, to consider the differences and similarities with their counterparts' places and lifestyles. During the project, students explored the intersection of place, identity and how they construct their identities and understand the unique status of project participants from their partner country.

After documenting their lives, the West Forsyth students "switched" or traded their video footage with the Korean students who reconstructed each other's video content. The switch underscores the importance of each groups' communication during the process in order to construct a result that was authentic to their counterpart's identity in the final video.

Korea, edited by US students

United States, edited by Korean students

Switch Video Project Final Videos Complete

With this project students explored how place informs identity. Students utilized a free online software (Animoto.com) using photo, video & text as their artistic tools.

Sponsors for The Switch Video Project included West Forsyth High School, III Digital, a Winston-Salem multimedia design firm, and the Flip Video Spotlight&trade program.

Lecture with Ed Uhlir
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Winston-Salem City Hall

The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art along with The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County and the Honorable Allen Joines, mayor of the City of Winston-Salem, partnered to co-present this lecture as part of SECCA's Inside Out: Artists in the Community II exhibition series. Edward K. Uhlir, FAIA, addressed the value and impact of public art by recounting his role in the development and implementation of Chicago's Millennium Park, a national landmark and benchmark for a successful public art park.

Prior to Uhlir's appointment by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley as the Director of Design of the Millennium Park Project, he was Director of Architecture and Engineering and then the Director of Research and Planning at the Chicago Park District. He is now a consultant and the Executive Director of Millennium Park Incorporated. Mr. Uhlir is responsible for the management, maintenance and improvement of the public art and gardens of Millennium Park. He also assists the City with the continued programming and development of Millennium Park. In addition, Mr. Uhlir is a consultant to various private and public organizations regarding park planning and development and an Adjunct Professor of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

A podcast of this lecture is now available. Click here to view the podcast.

Click here to watch Charlie Brouwer's Artist Talk at SECCA's Community Day on March 7, 2009. Click here to watch the Inside Out Classroom Spoken Word Performance with Gateway Y children and spoken word artist Dasan Ahanu at SECCA's Community Day on March 7, 2009. Check out a set of behind-the-scenes images : www.flickr.com/photos/secca/sets/ Artist's Talk with Anna von Gwinner Tuesday, March 31, 2009 University of North Carolina at Charlotte SECCA was pleased to co-present this lecture with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte's College of Arts + Architecture. During her talk, Anna von Gwinner (Berlin, Germany) discussed select projects through a range of documentation including videos and photographs. The artist addressed the creative potential found in the temporary manipulation of an architectural space through video-based practices and photography. Anna von Gwinner studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths' College in London and Architecture at the UdK in Berlin. Following her studies, the artist maintained a succesful architectural practice for several years, which informs her ability to explore and manipulate space. Von Gwinner's temporary site-specific installations have inhabited public spaces ranging from storefronts, to cathedrals, to industrial spaces, to mobile venues such as vans. Each installation is positioned to catch the attention of passersby, and inspire them to re-imagine the urban landscape. From the playful rendering of ice-skaters, to the slow-motion leap of a trampoliner, to the downpour of water, von Gwinner uses short video loops to create imaginary moments in the life of a city. A podcast of this lecture is now available. Click here to view the podcast.

main • visit • about secca • news & events • exhibitions • education membership • donate • calendar of events • contact us • podcasts blog • facebook • youtube • twitter • flickr Copyright ©2009 Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art Our Privacy Policy