Rick Lowe: Exploring Social and Community-Engaged Art
A talk by the internationally acclaimed artist and community organizer behind Houston’s Project Row Houses
Join us for a talk by internationally acclaimed artist and community organizer Rick Lowe titled Exploring Social and Community-Engaged Art.
Wednesday, Sept. 7
7:00 p.m.
Roxy Theatre, 320 20th Street West
Free admission
Project Row Houses is a community-based arts and culture nonprofit in one of Houston’s oldest African-American neighbourhoods. Rick Lowe’s unconventional approach to community revitalization transformed this long-neglected neighbourhood into a visionary public art project centred on the art and culture of African-Americans. It is a project that continues to evolve more than two decades since its inception.
Project Row Houses’ approach to community revitalization includes youth arts education programs, exhibition spaces and studio residencies for artists, residential mentoring for young mothers and an organic gardening program, among other things. It is also a development incubator for historically appropriate low-income housing design on the land surrounding the original row houses. Key to the Project Row Houses approach is continuous collaboration with area residents, artists, churches, architects, and urban planners. Rick Lowe’s vision is one that seeks to animate the assets of a place using the creativity of its people. In 2014, Rick Lowe was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. Among his many honours, fellowships and residencies, he has been at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the University of California Berkeley and the Nasher Sculpture Centre.
Rick Lowe will also be present at an event on Friday, Sept. 9 titled Changing Saskatoon Neighbourhoods.
Sponsored by the U of S Interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Creativity; AKA artist-run; Canada Council for the Arts; City of Saskatoon’s Public Art Advisory Committee; Great Places; Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy; PAVED Arts; TRIBE; and the U of S Office of Community Engagement and Outreach.
For more information, contact jen.budney@shaw.ca or ryan.walker@usask.ca.