portfolio – the building collective

a field guide to bottlenecks

Field Guide to Bottlenecks was developed by Chelsea Wills and Kyle Lane-McKinley on behalf of the building collective for the Ebb & Flow Arts Festival.

Field Guide to Bottlenecks is a mobile story collecting unit that explores how people interact with place based on their experiences of it. Participants are invited to document personal reflections about the history and ecology of the San Lorenzo river by recording their responses to key questions (below) and submitting those recordings for inclusion on a map of how we think differently about the San Lorenzo River. Additionally, attendees of the Ebb & Flow Arts Festival, a project of the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County, are invited to listen to stories of the San Lorenzo gleaned from historical archives, while riding along with us in a custom built camera obscura, on the front of a cargo-tricycle. In these ways, we invite publics to share what they know about their waterway, and rethink what they think they know.

Learn more at http://fieldguidetobottlenecks.org

The Earth as Metaphor: Public Lecture Series

On February 13th at 4:30, as part of a public lecture series at UC Santa Cruz’s Sesnon Gallery, the building collective will host a facilitated dialogue about upper campus and the green belt, rooting UC Santa Cruz’s legacy of environmentalism in personal experiences of the campus and efforts to resist development.

The lecture series, which includes lectures by the Harrisons, Annie Sprinkle, Chip Lord, and Nina Simon, is titled “The Earth as Metaphor” and is curated by Elizabeth Stephens. For more information go to: http://art.ucsc.edu/news_events/earth-metaphor-1

building stories: secret spatial histories of santa cruz

As part of a three month exhibition titled “Work in Progress,” at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH), the building collective has been invited to create an installation that explores spatial stories of santa cruz.

PROJECT SUMMARY
The building collective is interested in exploring and transforming spaces. For Work in Progress, we will transform the space of the museum by filling it with secret histories excavated from everyday spaces throughout Santa Cruz. Every other week, we will invite amature historians, story makers, accidental geographers, and other participants to the museum to drink coffee, eats snacks, and create shared spatial histories by sharing stories in a shared space. These shared histories will become a giant concept map drawn on the walls that will serve as a record of these meetings and explore connections between the social and material practices that continually recreate the spaces we inhabit. Do you know a secret something about Santa Cruz? Share it.

PLACES
UC Santa Cruz
Far Westside / Lighthouse Field
San Lorenzo River and its levees
Midtown / Seabright / Branciforte
Beach Flats / Boardwalk
Downtown

DATES (6 Meetings)
December 14th: Setup
December 21st: Downtown. 2-6 pm. 5-6pm facilitated conversation with specially invited guests.
Jan 11st: Westside. 2-6 pm. 5-6pm facilitated conversation with specially invited guests.
Jan 25: UC Santa Cruz and the greenbelt. 2-6 pm. 5-6pm facilitated conversation with specially invited guests.
Feb 8: the mighty San Lorenzo River and its levees. 2-6 pm. 5-6pm facilitated conversation with specially invited guests.
Feb 22: Midtown / Seabright / Branciforte. 2-6 pm. 5-6pm facilitated conversation with specially invited guests.
Mar 8: Beach Flats / Boardwalk. 2-6 pm. 5-6pm facilitated conversation with specially invited guests.

This project made possible with the generous support of SPARC at UC Santa Cruz and the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History.

Special thanks to our many specially invited guests, including Blaize Wilkinson, Bridget Henry, Josh Muir, and Wes Modes.

finish line

performance for the opening of building

The building collective surprised participants of the art/bike ride with tiny cups of water, orange wedges and a hot pink finish line for each rider. The ride was headed to building’s grand opening at the Digital Art Research Center. Willing gallery goers left the exhibition to come help out.

photos by Nick Lally (http://www.nicklally.com/exhibitions-performances-09-11/).