Learning from New Orleans, the Western Balkans, and Acre, Brazil

The New School - Orozco Room
66 West 12th Street
New York City

Thursday, November 1, 2007 - 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
Admission: $8, free for all students, as well as New School faculty, staff and alumni with valid ID*

"Future Talk Now: Learning from New Orleans, the Western Balkans, and Acre, Brazil"

2007-08 Vera List Center Fellow Marjetica Potrc, in conversation with Carlos Basualdo, Curator of Contemporary Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art

"Sustainability has become a buzzword recently. Slovenian artist and architect Marjetica Potrc has applied and investigated this concept for many years in artworks, museum exhibitions and on-site interventions around the world. In this conversation, the renowned curator Carlos Basualdo will introduce the artistic oeuvre of Potrc, the newly appointed Vera List Center Fellow with whom he has collaborated on several projects.

The focus of their conversation will be Potrc's new research project on the use of water: during an artist's residency with the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans this fall, the artist was conducting on-site examinations into sustainable water-use practices that have developed in New Orleans since Katrina such as the reclamation of wetlands, and she is now beginning to draw comparisons to New York City.

The New Orleans project is characteristic of the artist's approach: Potrc took up residency in a site of political turmoil and social transformation and, after extensive scientific and cultural research, will insert into the contested situation her work, possibly an architectural installation or simply a conversation, in order to provide clarity and new solutions. The outcome of this project will be featured in the exhibition "Something from Nothing," curated by Dan Cameron and opening at the New Orleans Contemporary Art Center in early 2008."

*["Space is extremely limited; reservations are required."]

[graphic from google search for "water" found on Sustaining the Environment and Resources for Canadians - About Water Web site.]