Hambidge Creative Hive, an innovative artist enclave project, along with presenting sponsors North American Properties, the PNC Foundation and SKYY Vodka, will feature 12 selected artists to temporarily reimagine empty spaces at Colony Square this Spring.
“Artist enclaves are often pushed to the fringes of society, but this innovative project brings the art community center stage at the heart of Midtown Atlanta,” said Jamie Badoud, Executive Director at The Hambidge Center. “From live figure-drawing battles promoted by artists trash talking each other to a deconstructed Islamic Garden, this group of creatives is sure to deliver unique, interactive works of art for the public’s enjoyment and engagement.”
Initially, the Hambidge team planned to select seven artists. But after reviewing projects from 62 outstanding candidates, the team reconsidered. The final 12 artists selected will move into their spaces immediately, and the installations will be open for public interaction April 1 - June 3, 2017.
The panel of judges consisted of:
Jonathan Odden, High Museum Curatorial Assistant, Contemporary and Modern Art
Neda Abghari, Founder & Executive Director The Creatives Project (TCP),
Karen Comer Lowe, Director at Chastain Arts Center
Jessica Helfrecht, Independent Curator
Susan Bridges, Whitespace gallery owner
Dayna Thacker, Artist and Hambidge Center Communications Director
Jamie Badoud, Hambidge Center Executive Director
Below are summaries from each of the artist teams who will transform Colony Square from the inside out into an ever-changing enclave of experimental works-in-progress, workshops and performances. Through the use of several different mediums, the art projects are meant to engage the community across generations.
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Hambidge Creative Hive Artists
World Wide Art Federation
Taking a cue from the theatrical performances of the wrestling world, this group will hold World Wide Art Federation Art Battles. The live figure-drawing battles are promoted by artists trash talking each other as their costumed alter egos. A crowd member is chosen to be the subject, and the battle commences. Afterward, the audience judges the winner. The WWAF was developed to bring attention to the multiple dimensions of the fine artists’ personae and abilities. Its mission is to inspire all art patrons, giving them an unforgettable, interactive, multimedia experience through creative competition and performance, setting the standard for a new and exciting art viewing experience.
Artists: Fabian Williams, Kimberly Binns, Horace Williams, Grace Kisa, Maurice Evans
Queen of the Field
Through the creation a conceptual landscape, Zipporah Thompson will use giant looms to weave together objects foraged in Midtown with objects donated by the public to produce multiple, ongoing, and ever-changing sculptures and installations, with the underlying goal of fusing together our personal histories and collective contemporary experiences.
Artist: Zipporah Thompson
Breath of the Compassionate
With a sense of playful, yet reverent {re}cycle of creation, all artwork in this project originates in and then departs from the classic Breath of the Compassionate pattern of Islamic sacred geometry and art. The artists will transform their space repeatedly, including turning it into a deconstructed Islamic Garden that will feature a musical performance by prominent Pakistani musician Ahsan Bari. The artists will also offer multiple workshops for both adults and children including embroidery, miniature painting, and mosaic paper lanterns.
Artists: Erin Sledd, Ahsan Bari, Shannon Frye, Will Griffin, Amir S. Hamer, Michael Garvey
Midtown Players Club
The Midtown Player’s Club will transform a former gym into gathering and incubation spaces for numerous young and mid-career artists activists, and entrepreneurs to explore their craft and share their experiments and results. The various installations will include rotating gallery shows, performance art exhibitions, music, immersive theatre, workshops and discussions. Each day will manifest a new experience in which the public is invited to participate.
Artists: Kris Pilcher, Elizabeth Jarrett, Miranda Kyle, Priscilla Smith + other invited artists
The Rivalry of Your Elements
In an ongoing performance and installation that focuses on a life philosophy supported by raw elements including air, water, fire, and earth, the artists will use potter’s wheels to create vessels from 1,000 pounds of locally sourced black and white clay. When a vessel is complete, it will be smashed by the artist into a pile in the center of the room. The public will be invited to create vessels and contribute to the clay pile by using the same process.
Artists: Katie Troisi, Olivia Rado
Bojana Ginn & Brian Ginn
Creating immersive installations of light, fiber and sound, the Ginns embrace technology in their work. This project will combine light drawings on the walls created by the public, collaborative sound performances, moving image environments and a sculptural island of natural fiber.
Artists: Bojana Ginn, Brian Ginn
The Untamed Parlor
Beginning as an orderly Victorian-style sitting parlor, The Untamed Parlor will slowly be invaded by wild things, giving way to disarray and the unexpected as the artists cultivate an infiltration of nature into an urban world.
Artists: Matt Haffner, Laura Bell
You are Welcome, You’re Welcome
Taking over a former doctor’s office, MINT Gallery will curate 15 artists to each create a room installation using light as their primary medium. This will culminate into an installation of a slowly shifting spectrum of light, bathing the space in an otherworldly glow. This newly transformed ‘artist’s office’ will offer regular office hours to the public with performances and ‘artist’s visits’ .
Artists: Erica Jamison, Sarah Nathaniel, MINT Gallery Artists + other invited artists
Hive Mind Arise
Through workshops, meditations, yoga classes, and creative interactive installations including dance, sound, and painting, Hive Mind Arise seeks to activate positive social change through an emphasis on meditation and self-care.
Artists: Charlie Watts, Emma Alley, Narinder Kaur, Kelly Blackmon, Flight of the Swallows, Mary Grace Phillips, Jared Kelly and Erin Palovick
FREE ART!
Forest McMullin will take photographs of overlooked spaces in Colony Square, portraits of visitors, and the transformations wrought by the Creative Hive artists. He will then post the photos outside his space and encourage everyone to take a print with them.
Artist: Forest McMullin
Scenes
A fantastical, life-sized living room scene, constructed and transformed over a three-month period, culminating with tableaus featuring a live model and a flying flock of paper red-winged blackbirds.
Artist: Dorothy O'Conner
Fly On A Wall
Embracing experiments with technology and structures within dance, Fly On A Wall will concentrate on two main projects: Hz, centered around binaural beats and the states of mind these frequencies inspire; and Prism 2, featuring a platform suspended by harp strings, which both supports the movement of the dancers and is played as a gigantic instrument. Dance and movement classes will also be offered to the public.
Artists: Nathan Griswold, Nicole Johnson, Sean Nguyen-Hilton, Jesse Tyler
Scheduled Events:
April 1 - May 27 – Several artist workshops/demonstrations as well as open house receptions are offered in Colony Square’s outside courtyard and/or indoor atrium. Free to the public.
April 29 - Hambidge Art Auction + Performance Gala (expected attendance 1,500)
June 3 - Closing event of Hive Projects with dance party and popping Hackenwerth’s balloon sculpture in the atrium
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About Colony Square:
At the corner of Peachtree and 14th Streets, Colony Square is not only the heart of Midtown, it’s the heart of Atlanta – an original icon at the very center of the ever-rising capital of the modern South. Today, Colony Square is becoming an icon of another kind, bringing the Art of Modern Life to Midtown. With two office towers totaling 720,000 square feet, residential condos, a 467-room hotel and a 163,000-square-foot retail center, Colony Square is a sophisticated business, residential and cultural hotspot, that like all great city squares, is alive with possibility. The reimagined Colony Square will be known as a foodie haven; a shopping mecca; an events destination; a beautiful, amenity-rich and arts-infused place to gather with community and soak up Midtown’s vibe. Open, walkable and transit-friendly, the reimagined Colony Square will be seamlessly connected to the vibrant energy of the streets around it.
Follow Colony Square’s transformation with the hashtag #reimagineCS on Twitter, Facebookand Instagram. For more information, visit colonysquaremidtown.com.
About The Hambidge Center:
For more than 80 years, the Hambidge Center has been nurturing creative talents within the arts and sciences at our 600-acre creative sanctuary in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Eight individuals are in residence at any given time – each has private accommodations and studio space, and shares communal dinners prepared by an in-residence chef. The public is invited to the Center on Saturdays for a series of programs that include artist talks, nature hikes, gristmill visits, gallery openings and other special events. The Hambidge Center is funded in part by the LUBO Fund, the Fulton County Commission under the guidance of Fulton County Arts & Culture, the Georgia Council for the Arts through the appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Find out more about the Hambidge Center at www.hamidge.org, and follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Follow the Hambidge Creative Hive at www.hambidgehive.org and with hashtag #hambidgehive.
About PNC Foundation
The PNC Foundation, which receives its principal funding from The PNC Financial Services Group (www.pnc.com), actively supports organizations that provide services for the benefit of communities in which it has a significant presence. The foundation focuses its philanthropic mission on early childhood education and community and economic development, which includes the arts and culture. Through Grow Up Great, its signature cause that began in 2004, PNC has created a bilingual $350 million, multi-year initiative to help prepare children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life.
About SKYY Vodka
SKYY Vodka was invented in San Francisco in 1992 and is steeped with the innovative and progressive spirit of California. Conceived by an inventor looking to create the world’s smoothest vodka, SKYY revolutionized vodka quality with its proprietary quadruple-distillation and triple-filtration process to deliver a fresh, clean spirit. Like many things that originate in San Francisco, SKYY grew from a tiny startup into what it is today—the leading domestic premium vodka in the US. To learn more, visit SKYY.com.
