Projects

Podcasts

Ten Chances No Hustle Podcast: Series One, circa 2012.

As a method of publishing the artist’s results and experimentation the residents decided to create a series of podcasts which examine the creative concept of joy.

Ten Chances
No Hustle: An Experimental Urban Artists’ Residency

Summer 2012 Artists’ Publication

Residents Welcome Dinner

The structure of the residency was planned to run from each Wednesday to Wednesday for three weeks, those days bookending a weekend crescendo that houses a Sunday dinner and conversation with one of our Guest Lecturers. These Guest Lecturer dinners would prove to be the focal point around which each week turned. Collectively, the group decided on Tuesday evening and a long Sunday to be designated mandatory resident “sessions” each week, while the Work Space, or Headquarters, “The Deli”, would still have 24-hour access for all residents to gather and work as they like, whenever they like. 

The very first Wednesday night, July 25, the residents and assistants met at Patty and John’s house in the Deep South of Minneapolis for a Kick-Off dinner and cocktails. Plans revealed themselves to us for the weeks to come. New faces met old faces. Subconscious scripts were being written. 

The nature of a body that remains constantly in-flux requires every player’s presence of mind.

SPACE: 101 

Preparation and Organization (2—days) 

After searching and assessing many empty urban warehouses and storefronts in the hot days of June, we chose a former deli and bakery at 2501 Nicollet Avenue, in the heart of the Whittier neighborhood of South Minneapolis. The 2,000 square foot space, formerly Streudel Noodle in the 1980’s and then recently Ly Vietnamese Bakery on “Eat Street”, retained a long history and much visual information of its former lives, a situation compelling to any artist. Erich and Joanna Christ, the owners of the Black Forest Inn and notorious artist supporters in the community, kindly rented us the sprawl for the month and gave us as free a reign as we could have hoped. 

The Deli had been used for storage for years. After three long days of preparation, which involved moving over 100 boxes of pulp fiction, the space was open and inviting. 

In this particular project, the space that housed our activity became crucial. It’s glowing deli cases, the history scratched on the hardwood floor, the long stainless steel deli counter and broken hot ovens began to inform thought processes and conversation. 

Parts of the deli organically became the library, the office, a screen-printing shop, a smorgasbord for potlucks. The men’s bathroom with a broken light was easily turned into a darkroom. The quaint brick-laid patio behind the building, once used for outdoor seating, became the Guest Lecturer dinner spot fitted with grill and strung with white globe lights, as well as cigarette break and reading chairs. 

Our long storefront window served as the suture between public and private; our activity humming inside it’s walls. A constant give and take with the street, and it looking back at us.

Residency Collage

THE IDEA:

THIS DISCURSIVE ART RESIDENCY BRIDGES THE GAP BETWEEN ACADEMIA AND THE REAL WORLD. IT IS A PLACE FOR SERIOUS ARTISTS OF RIGOR TO STEP BACK FROM THE HUSTLE AND TAKE TIME FOR EXPERIMENT AND RESEARCH. IDEAS, LIKE PEOPLE, SOMETIMES NEED A SECOND CHANCE TO FIND THEIR GROOVE. GIVE THEM THREE. GIVE THEM TEN.

2012-2015, a collection of practicing artists; came together in late summer months, taking up temporary work residence in a unique urban/rural space(s) for the 2-3 week(s) duration(s). Artist origins vary each year; some local acting as hosts, others traveling from afar to take up collective residency.

All artists are asked to bring an open mind, an open heart, and some studio chops.

This is a time that is meant for the artists; they may use it simply to do research, or to collaborate with another resident in a new form, or to stir the beginnings of a new body of work.

When artists can find the time and space to even think about the possibility of doing a residency, which often artists have to pay for out-of-pocket, they are usually signed up for a particular time slot without regard to whom will be there at that same time.

We believe artists can thrive when given room and agency! So, first beginning with a small group of selected local artists, we hold an equal number of resident seats open for an out-state or international group which they elect and invite themselves. In this way, the original core can determine their own resident nucleus and modes of making.

Ten Chances is not an escape, but an opportunity. It is a new residency paradigm with a vast potential influence on the greater contemporary art community.

THE PROGRAM:

Every artist receives a stipend, and travel funds if necessary, for their time.

(This is based on a European model of economy, where artists receive incomes and commissions which are not solely based on market-value product.)

Once a week, a Guest Lecturer is invited to join the resident group for conversation and studio visits.

THE LEGACY:

The residency artist core group decides collectively on a form which documents their time in residence – be it exhibition, film, happening, event, performance, podcast or other open form. Each year’s residency will carry forth a documentary book.