Artist Meets Architect
by Sheryll Durrant
On November 2, 2011, Open Source Gallery hosted the Green Idea Pool at its location in South Slope, Brooklyn. The event was a fundraiser and open call to the community to come explore and share ideas on how to winterize our space using more green and sustainable approaches. A forum for creative problem solving that leads to green low cost solutions both for the immediate, as winter approaches, and permanently.
Open Source is essentially a converted garage with its original carriage doors and basically no insulation or heating. The goal of our project is to pool as many ideas as possible, then determine the best ones for implementation — ones that are simple, practical, elegant and will efficiently heat our space for the winter while lowering our energy costs.
Our open call solicited interest from a number of organizations whose focus is green building and green design. The firms included — Loadingdock5 (http://www.loadingdock5.com/); Build It Green! NYC (http://bignyc.org/); Right Environments (http://www.rightenvironments.com/); Gregory Duncan Architect (http://www.gduncan.us/ ); Ryan Schede Studio (http://www.ryanenschede.com/); Prospect Architecture (http:// www.prospectarchitecture.com/).
The ideas included for consideration as a result of the open call, were wide in range and scope from building a green roof to cutting a small door into one of the large carriage doors and leaving the main doors locked for the winter. But based on an assessment of our immediate needs we decided to implement the following changes as a start to our project:
• Insulate the ceiling using cellulose batt insulation (R-value 3.0-3.8 psi) between the ceiling joists. For this we will need 24″ wide roll for a total of about 320 sq. ft. In addition, we will use discarded small sheet and board material from Build-it Green — MDF shelving, disassembled IKEA units (R-value 2.35 psi) etc. — to create a patchwork finish to the ceiling.
• Install a gabion of books as insulation to fit the large carriage doors. The design module would comprise pre-made gabion baskets filled with books and laced together in place against the doors. We intend to host a special event where the community can participate in building the gabion, by bringing books they no longer need to fill the baskets themselves. We also plan that when the weather becomes warm, to deconstruct the wire mesh baskets for re-use or recycling and have the books sold or donated.
• Install a winter curtain to serve as both heat insulation and as a visual and conceptual background for other projects to be produced and displayed in the gallery during the winter of 2011-2012. This fabric installation is the work of Chilean artist Felipe Mujica and is the focus of an exhibition titled One Day This Will All Be Yours, which opens at the gallery on November 30.
An important component of our project will also be educational. This is chance for us, as well as the community to challenge our assumptions on energy efficiency and find the solutions that are the most effective, practical and sustainable methods to lowering our energy costs.
We plan to build an energy model with Gregory Duncan that would document and chart the space’s energy use as we implement the changes or improvements that we hope will help us lower our energy costs. Each idea would be viewed as an experiment. We would establish baseline data that shows our current energy use and then compare against each idea as they are implemented. We would also measure the effectiveness of each idea — whether it fulfilled the goal of providing adequate heat during the cold winter months.
Part of the process also is to invite our community to demonstrate their own ideas — where performance art piece meets building science laboratory — and publicize these events. We have already received a number of interesting entries for consideration such as the SunBike — a mobile solar-electric system on a retrofitted cargo bike designed to meet all kinds of “street power” needs; and building a windmill with a crew of teenage volunteers to test its generating capacity.
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Open Source Gallery Inc. is a 501(c)(3) New York State licensed, federally tax-exempt charitable art organization. Donations are tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.
For information on sponsorship opportunities, please contact Executive Director, Monika Wuhrer at our gallery at 646-2793969 or Email:monika@opensourcegallery.org.
You can also send a check to
Open Source Gallery, Inc
306 17th street
Brooklyn, NY 11215
ALL DONATIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE
occupy associated
Open Source Gallery is using the exterior of the former gallery space. Open Source used to share teh ground floor of the corner building on 5th ave and 17th street with the Supermarket Associated. The artworks will be permanently on view as part of a growing collage of works from various artists. All pieces are posted on the exterior wall, submissions must be able to handle outdoor elements like rain and sunlight. They age with the weather and get enriched by passer-byes.
We take submissions.
Jeanne Verdoux
iPod listener
Stephan Eins
Stefan Eins is the founder of Fashion Moda, the seminal alternative art space that began in Soho in the 1970s and moved to the South Bronx, where the downtown scene and the world of hip-hop and graffiti cross-polinated.” (Art International)
Letizia Werth
My heart is a black bag
Alison Read Smith
Thugs
Open Source Soup Kitchen
For the month of December Open Source Gallery is about, Cooking, Eating, Sharing, Celebrating…
Dinner is served from 7-9pm
It’s time for the 4th annual OPEN SOURCE SOUP KITCHEN. So if you want to participate, please reserve a date. We are looking for artists, cooks, friends and neighbors to join us for SOUP KITCHEN, where for as many days as we have volunteers, we will be offering a “one-pot meal” to all on a first-come, first-served basis. The cook is responsible for the night. Unique dishes from any ethnic tradition are more than welcome. We will provide cookware, utensils and help with logistics. We ask that you supply the love. LET’S EAT!!!
Each night in December, a different person signs up to cook a meal for approximately 15 -20 people to be served between 7 and 9pm every night. Kind of like an advent calendar for food. Most of the dishes are a one-pot meal–either a soup or stew which can be served in bowls with bread on the side.
Mostly, people from the neighborhood or artist or musician friends sign up to cook, but occasionally there is the new person who sees the sign up sheet and is up for a challenge. The people who come vary from working class people to self-employed artists and occasionally a neighborhood person who is down on their luck or simply hungry.
2009 was the second year of soup kitchen. Some nights up to 50 people were standing in line for the delicious food, other nights the conversation, wine and beer kept us up until 3am in the morning. Sometimes, the chef did incorporate an artistic element to the evening, either displaying photographs on the stark, white gallery walls or reading a monologue from a play he or she has written.
Sometimes the conversation flows easily and sometimes not, but the food is nearly always tasty (it’s new York after all–we have standards!)-Lily White
Borderland Collective
Nov 5 – Nov 27, 2011
Opening Reception: November 5th, 2011: 7PM-10PM
In late October, artist Jason Reed (director of social art project Borderland Collective) will take residence for 10 days in Brooklyn to collaborate with Open Source Gallery in Park Slope and youth from the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies.
The project will function as a means for a diverse group of young people to explore place and identity in Brooklyn through map-making and photography. The youth will individually and collectively explore their personal geographies, illuminating spaces and places of comfort, contention, and possibility.
The resulting work will be exhibited at Open Source Gallery for one month, presented on the Borderland Collective website, published as an on-demand zine, and preserved in the Borderland Collective archives at Texas State University.
Borderland Collective is a social art project that facilitates the participatory exploration and documentation of geographic and sociocultural borders. Fueled by collaborations between artists, teachers, youth, and families we use art as a means to trouble notions of who holds knowledge and what stories are told, providing an inclusive representation of the contemporary American experience.
More information: borderlandcollective.org
on view now
Patrick Cadenhead: Spring and RenewalOpening Reception: May 5th, 2012, 7-9pm May 6th – June 3rd With Spring and Renewal, artist Patrick Cadenhead seeks to create a multi-sensory meditation on religion, laundry, and our denial of decay. Large sculptures caked in common cleaning products make up this installation, as active fountains push water and soap over and through, constantly changing [...]
upcoming
MS 136
Koko
eL Paper
riepl & co marianas trench discoveries inc
Nick Kline
Kathleen Vance
Michael Poetschko
past
Felipe Mujica: One day this will NOT be yours
BETWEEN MOUNTAIN
Between Mountain – part 2
Peter Feigenbaum
The Meeting
Karl Spörk, Another Meeting
Leigh Davis: The Burrow (H.H.)
Evan Robarts and James Moore: the cave
Sara Bouchard: The News: Monday-Friday, Parts 1 & 2
Open Source 2011
Open Source Soup Kitchen
Borderland Collective
Jason Reppert: Parlor Tricks
Felipe Mujica: One Day This Will All Be Yours
Green Idea Pool
James Leonard – 927 Days at Sea
Soap Box Derby
Naoe Suzuki and Dramahound Productions: Mi Tigre, My Lover
Associated
Raphaela Riepl: adorable steamed sea urchin
Allison Read Smith: Thugs
Open Source Gallery 2008-2010
Soup Kitchen 2010
Pirmin Hagen: First
Nobuko: wa
ORFI nyc: live gig 2010
Peter Feigenbaum “Trainset Ghetto: Streetsmart”
Images NYC
make Soap Box Racers for the Soap Box Derby
ONE BIG WINDMILL
Open Source Residency w/Austrian Artists
Patricia Watwood: Portraits 20/10
Cornucopias: Paintings by Rachel Youens
Ondrej Brody & Kristofer Paetau: Wang Bin Torture in Commercial Quality, High Quality and Museum Quality
Akiyuki Ina: Emitting Evanescent Beauty
John Coburn: Fairlane Marauder
Soup Kitchen 12.1 – 12.24
Sara Ching-Yu Sun: Nov 7th- Nov 30
Victoria Stanton and Christian Richer: Sat Oct 10th
Patrick May: October 3 – november 2
