Artist Exchange
Baltimore-Rotterdam Sister City Committee (BRSCC) is organizing an artist residency program for artists in Baltimore, Maryland and Rotterdam, the Netherlands. This project is an outgrowth of our Reflection student postcard exchange that took place in 2006 and 2007.
The artists in the program focus on public art projects that actively invite communities to examine their unique histories and sense of place. An extensive educational outreach program accompanies each residency in an effort to allow the artist and their project to dialogue directly with students as well as the general public.
The Baltimore-Rotterdam Sister City Comittee (BRSCC) has received several grants for this arts initiative and is soliciting funds from other sources.
Current Program
HarborTraces: Baybrook <> Heijplaat
The Baltimore Rotterdam Sister City Artist Exchange Program currently features artist Steve Bradley from Baltimore and will involve a Rotterdam artist in the future.
The HarborTraces project is designed to empower members of two marginalized harbor communities, situated in two sister cities: Heijplaat in Rotterdam and Baybrook in Baltimore. Both communities are culturally diverse and have suffered from a loss of industry, jobs, and prospects. Both have both been geographically cut off from the rest of the metropolitan cities by waterways and major transportation arteries.
Key objectives:
-
Enhance residents’ knowledge about and engagement with local places and histories, in order to develop com- munity pride and a sense of ownership.
- Broaden residents’ horizons by setting up exchanges between Heijplaat and Baybrook and enabling people to share experiences. The medium of art plays a crucial part in achieving both objectives.
Artist Steve Bradley is currently collaborating with University of Maryland Baltimore County and Maryland Institute College of Art on community arts and education activities with Benjamin Franklin High School in Baltimore’s Baybrook neighborhood. Planning is underway for parallel activities in Heijplaat and a future exchange between the two communities.
Components include:
- Mapping the neighborhood’s history — Developing
an online interactive map that documents the boom and
bust of the community. - Portrait Stories — Youth engaging elders through the
creative act of “portraiture” and storytelling, to document
and preserve a sense of place, identity, and memories. - Stop-motion animation films and other arts projects.
Websites with more information:
Building Cultural Bridges
With our art exchange programs, we are addressing issues that relate to globalization, cultural development of community, multiculturalism, and social change through community and contemporary art. Our efforts include educational programs, artist residencies, and commissioned artwork, aiming to foster dialogue between the people of these two unique yet complementary cities, and at the same time strengthen institutional partnerships.
Supporting Institutions
Many institutions have a connection with the Artist Exchange.
They include:
Maryland
|
Netherlands |
Activities associated with the Artist Exchange have been partially funded by the Maryland State Arts Council, the Baltimore Office of Promotion and The Arts, Inc., Baltimore County Commission on the Arts and Culture, the Baltimore’s Mayor's Office, and the Center for Art and Visual Culture at University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
ARTIST PROFILE
Steve Bradley
Steve Bradley received his MFA from Florida State University and is currently an Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He is a trans-media artist performing in the United States and internationally, and founded art@radio based at the UMBC campus.
Steve Bradley is the driving force behind URBANtells, a collective of media artists whose work focuses on the intricacies between the architecture, cityscape and the human and cultural geography found within any city. One of their projects is URBANtraces; it collects stories from the residents in Baltimore’s Station North district and redistributes the recordings back onto the streets through various means. It creates a sense of place by offering up the sounds and the voices of the residents back into the urban environment. Now, Steve is doing a similar project with Baybrook in Baltimore and Heijplaat in Rotterdam.
TIMELINE OF ACTIVITIES
- Fall 2012
Artist Steve Bradley will re-visit Rotterdam and is planning a fall exhibition in Baltimore. - 2011-2012
Activities with MICA, UMBC and Benjamin Franklin High School students in Baybrook area of Baltimore. Recording the voices of Baybrook residents. - July 2010
Broadcasting on low-power FM radio sound compositions that juxtapose recordings made in Rotterdam with Baltimore, at Baltimore’s Artscape festival
Event announcement (PDF) - February 2010
Steve Bradley visits Rotterdam - December 2009
Kathie DiStefano from Stichting Lawine visits Baltimore - June 2009
Steve Bradley microexhibitions and artist’s talk at Rotterdam’s Foundation B.a.d
- Summer 2009
Steve Bradley artist residency in Rotterdam - May 2008
URBANtraces in Station North:
Community arts project, launched May 6, 2008 by Baltimore’s former Mayor Dixon
