As part of the launch of the Settlement, The Aspens project will occupy Trade Gallery until February 1, 2011.

The Settlement - Trade Gallery
3rd floor, Pioneer Place mall
700 SW Fifth Avenue
December 18
6-10 PM

The Aspens’ project is to collect and consider the ways certain ideas and patterns manifest in cultural organizations, communities, art, and technology. The Aspens is organized by the same principles which it studies -- rhizomatic communication, fractals, and lückologie -- the process of filling empty spaces with life and activity using available resources. The following people and groups have come together to form this part of The Aspens.

Golden Rule Gallery

Wynde Dyer of Golden Rule presents “I Knew You Pt. 1 (Dear James),” an installation piece consisting of more than 500-square feet of wall space covered in letters written by her deceased mother, Morena Threse Faust, to a prison inmate/lover, James Taylor, between 1983-1990.
                           

Max Ogden

Max Ogden will be creating an interactive installation of the wide variety of maps produced by his software which visualizes open and publicly-owned data available in geographically-useful ways. Visitors are encouraged to explore a scroll of maps on an overhead projector or to view local geography through an augmented reality application.

Recess Gallery

RECESS will be directly responding to the rhizomatic framework via the Aspens Project by a further focus on the potential for further interplay between the artist and the art audience. RECESS is constantly working to blur the boundaries often set up by functional, artistic stratification systems(namely: sponsor -->gallerist --> curator --> artist --> art audience). Often, the method taken to overcome what's been established involves a circulation, a sharing, or a spiraling of some combination thereof.

As representative of RECESS, there will be three - four installations that take up and account for the place of the viewer within the work. Further, the curatorial authority in set up will be spread between the facilitators and the artists, as it is for this Trade installation at large (while still providing aesthetic and curatorial counseling when needed/asked for).

Tori Abernathy's “Performativity Parlor” is a traveling, interactive performance/installation of a tiny cafe that sells edible prints. It's circumventing the task of constructing and performing one's identity via the choices, purchases, and stances enacted by the viewer, e.g. purchasing ones jeans at Juicy Couture vs. Salvation Army, or going to this particular space rather than watching T.V. at home with the fam. Instead, let's just serve them to you directly(a la the trope “You are what you eat...”).

Ross Young's installation involves sound normally disregarded by our discriminative systems of listening and interpretation, particularly by exploring how undesired interference could be co-opted into cryptic systems of communication.
                              

Research Club

Research Club will be assembling a resource and information center as a direct means of engaging with ideas behind The Aspens. We will be providing study space, literature, and other materials to the public to learn about the other groups sharing the space, the ideas behind these groups, Research Club, and the many other projects in Portland and beyond which relate to these ideas. We will install a cluster of desks to create a welcoming haven where the public can sit and read, ask questions, work, or just think. We hope to later install a computer terminal at which visitors can watch curated
    Throughout the rest of the time we will be in the space, we will use the opportunity to invite members of the community to run workshops, events, and lectures about their interests. At the end of our time in the space, we will host our first brunch of 2011 right next door at another part of the Settlement.

Elizabeth Lamb comes to the Aspens Project as consulting curator. In collaboration with the presenting partners Lamb activates the  collective vision and communication between the evolving projects and audience. With a background as a practicing artist, an MS in Arts Administration, and a breadth of experience with various cultural organizations in the Pacific Northwest, Elizabeth is an arts creator, promoter, and advocate. Elizabeth’s passion lies in providing access and opportunity to diverse sectors of working artists and the greater public. She currently works as the White Box Exhibitions Coordinator for the University of Oregon in Portland, specializing in critical contemporary arts presentation.

Many of these project will continue to grow and change throughout the month, so come back often.