Concord started as an experiment in collective programming and art making. Five people, different backgrounds, just an idea and a 3,000 square foot warehouse. Two years later, it’s become a space where hundreds of local Los Angeles and international artists have exhibited their work, constructed installations, performed, lectured, partied, and actively participated as members of our ever-expanding community.
Our school bus won’t be yellow. It’s not for kids (though kids are welcome). But we are reaching back to school buses to build on the type of learning that happens there—where we learn how to meet new people, plan minor rebellions, trade gossip, share secrets, doodle, and dream. School buses are (and have always been) spaces for unconventional learning, social experimentation, and community building.
We are Concord, an art collective that runs a project and live space in Cypress Park, Los Angeles. Concord started as an experiment in collective programming and art making. Five people, different backgrounds, just an idea and a 3,000 square foot warehouse. Two years later, it’s become a space where hundreds of local Los Angeles and international artists have exhibited their work, constructed installations, performed, lectured, partied, and actively participated as members of our ever-expanding community.
There’s nothing too similar about the work that’s been presented at Concord (paintings, happenings, pastas, dances) but our interests have been constant: creating social (and socially-engaged) experiences through a process of curating by feeling. Concord is a space where learning happens. Not the kind of learning that happens at desks, but the kind that emerges through exploration, collaboration, habitation, and encounter—the kind that emerges in the space between people.
We want to research the connections between art, social spaces, and education. So, we’re converting a once yellow school bus into P.S.1010: a mobile laboratory, gallery, and classroom. We will travel across the country, inviting artists, teachers, and community organizers to board, build, discuss, and create.
We will use the bus as a venue, inviting local artists, teachers, and thinkers, to board and give workshops, perform, install, and exhibit. The bus will also be an open forum for discussion, giving free entry to our onboard gallery, library, and archive (that we will continuously gather, re-arrange and present). Most importantly, the bus will be a connector: it can transport communities between spaces, and ideas between communities.
We’re concerned about the future. We’d like to think another is possible, a future that starts at the intersection of art, social space, and critical education. We’re not lecturing, but learning together; we’re posing a problem and asking questions. What if art and education had something to teach each other? What if we could use local knowledge to challenge our inherited future? Where should we go next?
Itinerary:
· 11 stops (starting at Good Children Gallery New Orleans, and ending in California City)
· 20 days
· 1890 miles
· 40 invited artists, performers, and social practitioners.
· $12,000
So like all the creatives, freaks, and Zach Braffs you know, we're Kickstarting. And we’re asking the GOOD community for your help, because, we’ve heard, you give a damn, and we thought you might like to ride with us.
Please visit our Kickstarter for more information and to contribute.
Join us in our quest to Explore and Protect the GOOD Outdoors. Click here to say you'll Do It.
This project was featured in GOOD's Saturday series Push for Good—our guide to crowdfunding creative progress.
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