City of Boulder, CO Creative Neighborhoods Projects, 23 Jun 2021

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From YouTube: Artist Interview: Angie Eng

Description

Over the next few months, Angie is inviting neighbors to participate in collective creativity via the Avant Gardens project. A call to action invites community members to create DIY botanical sculptures with living plants and found objects. Designed in response to the isolating effects of COVID-19 restrictions, the Avant Gardens provide a symbol of togetherness and serve as memorials for those affected by the pandemic. Creative Neighborhoods: COVID-19 Work Projects was launched by the Office of Arts + Culture and Create Boulder: https://boulderarts.org/public-art/creative-neighborhoods/covid-19-work-projects/

A

I'm angie ing and I'm a visual artist um I studied as a painter and when I moved to new york a long time ago. I got into more art and technology and video, so I started a phd three years ago in intermediate arts writing and performance. I really experiment with lots of different mediums. So right now, I'm doing an interactive, mural, well, um lifestyle wise as an artist who works a lot alone and as a phd student like my daily life, hasn't changed so much right.

A

If I compare my life in new york city and my life in paris and then that drastic change to boulder- it's not like, I was going to concerts and museums every day, because that just doesn't there's hardly any of that um in my lifestyle in boulder.

A

But obviously a lot of festivals and exhibitions were canceled, um I'm both an art, organizer, an art instructor, as well as an artist so everything's, basically on hold, um and so that has been difficult in terms of trying to even organize for the future, um because people are in crisis mode. So it's the communication is is quite difficult, um even if we're planning for 2021 or even for winter, we can't make any concrete decisions, so that part has been been challenging um and the idea of socializing on the internet.

A

Well, I lived in ethiopia and I lived in I've spent a lot of time in asia and living in europe, so I'm quite used to socializing, with with my friends and family, virtually my organization. Creative catalyzers is really about organizing community arts already and um I'm a big gardener, and um since we can only stay at home and be outside, and the two stores that are open are mcguckins and home depot. Besides the grocery store, so I've been there almost every week um getting garden supplies and then I thought well.

A

This would be something that anybody could do and you can get really creative um because you can't have access to all the stores. So you know we were painting tires to make a flour, containers and vegetable garden containers and and getting pallets to to make herb gardens. I thought well it'd be really fun to make fairy gardens, but not just fairy gardens but um upcycling a quotidian object as the container and making little miniature gardens that people can put outside their front lawn and so they're they're a little bit like shrines.

A

You know, and so people can decide where what they want to dedicate their miniature garden to and then also get really creative like. What do you have in your garage or your your junk drawer that you can upcycle to make an avant garde? um So that's the idea and it's open to anybody. I listed it on quite a few sites um rather than organize a group of people to make these. We can't physically be in place and it's something that you do outside.

A

I thought well, let's just open this to anybody in boulder and then once people make them, they can show it to me. We can showcase it online and then maybe one day we can exhibit them. If not it's!

A

Okay, because they're already out in public for people to walk by and see, we were thinking or I was thinking that if enough people participate, it would be a lot of fun for people to take a little tour on their bicycles to check out all the different avant gardens um and that I would make labels that they put on the avant garden um and it had had a qr code so that that that would um link to the website where people can see all the other gardens and then also you know, have a map, but they could also have that map on their on their smartphones so that they can go around and check them out.

A

I just launched the avant gardens and announced it may 15th, so we've had so far. I've had four responses to people contacting me saying that they'll make one. I didn't put a timeline, because I learned from my previous experience with the rabbit open air gallery that I had changed.

A

The deadline like three times because it just it's kind of ridiculous- to make deadlines at this point um so to be very, very flexible when one is planning anything give or take a few months actually um so um yeah I just patience, is definitely a part of the process when, when organizing at this time, but it'll feel really great like when you know people participate, and I got a lot of positive feedback from people who were doing the projects with the rabbits they said.

A

Oh, it was actually kind of meditative and relaxing and taking me away from the stress of kovid. So that's really great, so I'm hoping that the avant gardens you know have the same effect on people's lives.