We've been working hard on the launch of our monthly newsletter, filled with news updates, artist profiles, delightful anecdotes, music updates, and general information regarding various happenings. If you'd like to sign up, there's a handy box to your right in our sidebar! Just type in your name and email address, and you'll receive a confirmation email with a link to add you to our list. Our newsletter will only go out about once a month, so I promise we won't flood your inbox!
If you have any trouble signing up, you can email me at alex@floatingworldprojects.org and I'll add you.
Below is co-founder James McLeod's 2010 reflection from the first issue we sent out last week:
Hello and Happy Holidays from FWP!
As 2010 comes to a close we would like to take an opportunity to thank everyone that has helped us in all of our achievements in 2010. It has been an exciting year here at Floating World Projects with many new developments, none of which could have happened without the generous support of our collaborators, sponsors and friends in the international art community.
Looking back to three years ago to the conception of FWP, I can recall how distant all of this seemed. The idea began with a simple conversation one evening in Istanbul overlooking the Bosporus straight. I was with my colleague Leo Tecosky and we had the idea to create an art project that could help share our perspective of a city and a community half way across the world with our communities back home. When we analyzed our concept, we quickly realized that it was far more complex than a just a story about a city or a community that we wanted to share; our conversation was about socially constructed prejudices that exist and what we can do to help dismantle them.
Three years later we are still here and evidence of all of our hard work can be seen with our new web presence. In September 2010 we launched our new website with updated examples of all the multimedia projects we are currently working on. This is a huge step for us, compiling of all of the work that we have done over the past three years in one, easily accessible place. In addition, our new web content and social-networking manager, Alexandra Kittle, has outfitted us with this newsletter, a facebook page, a blog and twitter account that are updated on a regular basis. Since we have been primarily self-funded in the past, we are also happy to announce that we now accept much needed donations on our website.
Our events in 2010 began with a month long collaborative residency at the Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul for the month of June. Six artists from the USA and Turkey joined together to collaborate on glass artwork and the result was an overwhelming success. This residency was conceived of three years ago and was more productive than we ever could have expected. The next stop for FWP in July 2010 was a preliminary research trip to the West Bank to begin work on a new project; a documentary of one of the worlds’ oldest glass studios that is still operated by the same family since the 13th century.
In October 2010 upon return to the USA FWP incorporated as a non-profit organization and enlisted the help of our current staff Alex Kittle, Penny Saftler, and Sylvie Agudelo. We are currently preparing for our next trip to the West Bank in January 2011. In addition, we have two Exhibitions scheduled for May and September of next year and an additional residency at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in June. The residency will be the counterpart to our collaborative work last summer and will involve four Turkish artists visiting us for the first time in the USA.
Please keep in touch and feel free to follow our activity as we have a busy year ahead. Thank you again for all of the support from our friends and sponsors and we wish you a safe and happy new year to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment