As a part of Light City Baltimore, the Baltimore Office of Promotion has selected five local artists and artist teams to complete projects for a new public artist-in-residency program called Neighborhood Lights.
Neighborhood Lights is a community arts program in five neighborhoods: Coldstream Homestead Montebello, Hampden, Greater Mondawmin, Little Italy and Station North Arts and Entertainment District. Artists will partner with the neighborhood of their residency to create an illuminated public art project during Light City Baltimore, March 28-April 3. Light City Baltimore is a festival that features lighted visual art, pop-up performances, and concerts, all free and open to the public. The ticketed Light City U conference is a series of events dedicated to the theme of “Powering Social Change.”
The selected artists and artist teams: Coldstream Homestead Montebello: Isaac Ewart, Jose Rosero and Emmanuel Williams (DDm); Hampden: Diana Reichenbach; Greater Mondawmin: Llamadon Collective; Little Italy: Joe Reinsel and Station North Arts and Entertainment District: LabBodies.
Artists and neighborhoods will work collaboratively over the next three months to design the projects, which are fully funded up to $10,000, and will be announced in February.
For more information on Neighborhood Lights or Light City Baltimore, call 410-752-8632 or visit www.lightcity.org.
Artist Bios:
Coldstream Homestead Montebello:
Isaac Ewart is an animator and graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art whose interactive animations have been featured at Single Carrot Theatre and the Goddard Space Flight Institute. For Neighborhood Lights, Ewart assembled a team of Baltimore artists including video artist Jose Rosero and musician/poet Emmanuel Williams, who goes byDDm. Jose Rosero has worked in the Baltimore arts scene for years and has made animated video projections for the Transmodern Festival, the Great Halloween Lantern Parade & Festival, and other events. Emmanuel Williams (DDm) is the MC from the popular hip-hop group Bond St. District. With the direction of Isaac Ewart, the technical background of Jose Rosero and the addition of a hometown musician like DDm, the team represents artists of all mediums who share a dedication to Baltimore and its arts scene.
Hampden:
Diana Reichenbach is a multimedia artist specializing in immersive and architectural media. A recipient of the Annenberg Communications Research Fellowship, her work has been screened at festivals and venues across five continents. As an artist, she is interested in communicating a personal, introspective moment of immersion. She believes the sense of immersion (the feeling of losing track of time and space) is what draws people to various art forms, including writing, painting, and film. Specifically, she uses animation and sound to communicate these moments through time-based progressions of shifting color, form, texture, and movement.
Greater Mondawmin:
Llamadon Collective is a multi-disciplinary music and art collective based in Baltimore. Started as a DIY think tank of music producers and graphic designers, the collective quickly grew into organizing events and incorporating multiple genres of music and visual art. In the first two years, the collective has curated more than 60 local events ranging from pizza parties to art exhibitions, rap ciphers, and fundraisers. Llamadon seeks to work with other local collaborators to create an immersive public art project in Greater Mondawmin.
Little Italy:
Joe Reinsel uses media, video and sound to explore ideas about architectural space, time, and touch. His work considers interaction and the environment such as video work for public installation, collective story-telling and interactive exhibitions. He is the recipient of grants from The Flint Public Art Project, International Society of Electronic Arts, Maryland State Arts Council, The Baltimore Museum of Art, New York State Council for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts among others. He has presented work in twelve countries on four continents at venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chile), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Ars Electronica, Location One, Centro Cultural de España (Mexico), ZeroOne, and SIGGRAPH.
Station North Arts and Entertainment District:
LabBodies, comprised of artists Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona, is a performance art laboratory that provides artists working in the arena of performance art a platform to exhibit their work. Through collaboration, experimentation, and interaction LabBodies supports the work of artists who push the boundaries that exist between visual art, sculpture, dance, and other forms of traditional theater. Most recently they launched “Borders Boundaries and Barricades,” an annual performance art review that highlights the growing local performance art community. LabBodies has been commissioned by The Baltimore Museum of Art, Artscape, the Transmodern Festival and the Bromo Arts and Entertainment District to produce their signature interactive events.
