New Public Docu of 2015

As the future of 2016 grows from burgeoning horizon, I wanted share a few updates on recent current projects. Last year proved exceptional for my public art mission to interpret, critique, activate and improve the public space of our everyday lives.

SiteLines Current Install - 01

SiteLines Exhibit

I had the great privilege of staging my first true solo show with ICA Baltimore at Current Space last spring. With the support of a Rubys Grant, my show SiteLines was the culmination of a series of radical walking tours I organized in 2014 seeking to understand overlooked public spaces in and around some of Baltimore’s highway foleys and pedestrian malls. It so happened that the show opened just as the Baltimore Uprising began to take shape in the streets.

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SiteLines Tours

The day of the first major Freddie Gray march, I led 44 participants on my Crossing the Highway to Nowhere tour. As I talked about West Side struggles against top-down planning, a helicopter hovering over the nearby protest split off and followed us as we gathered at the edge of Route 40. After crossing the highway our group began to head back to the gallery, only to run directly into the Freddie Gray march. To join was urgently appropo. On that day a modest crowd of Radical Pedestrians merged with a much larger force of walking movement in our city.

Here is what a few others had to say: ArtFCity, Bret McCabeGBCALandscape Architecture Magazine, and BmoreArt.

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The Ragged Edge of Rockville

After SiteLines, I  was invited to develop a New Public Sites project exploring the invisible sites, contradictory features and historical spirits embedded in downtown Rockville for Come Back to Rockville, a two person show with Naoko Wowsugi at VisArts curated by Laura Roulet. Naming my project, “The Ragged Edge of Rockville”, I created a gallery installation, shot new videos and staged a series of tours in and around VisArts, the Rockville Library, the Beall Dawson House and a special gravesite. Along the way we learned that Rockville twice entirely razed its downtown. What’s since emerged is an uncanny image of pedestrian urbanism embedded with the beginnings of civic spaces while hiding parking garages for car-bound shoppers. Thankfully the various redevelopment schemes spared the town’s historic Catholic cemetery – final resting place for literary icons F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, Mark Jenkins at the Washington Post took a stroll through the gallery and wrote this review.

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New Public Sites – McDaniel / Westminster

Immediately following my Rockville drift, I began work on another New Public Sites tour and installation, this time in collaboration with McDaniel College students and residents of Union Street in Westminster, Maryland. I was honored to have “New Public Sites – McDaniel / Westminster” commissioned by curator Izabel Galliera for her group show Alternative Cartographies. Through a new map, bulletin boards and Shards of Site, we investigated the overlooked yet meaningful public spaces between an idyllic hilltop and historic neighboring streets. New Public Sites are not just in big cities, but also among rural towns and suburbs alike. Rebecca Juliette from BmoreArt still made it up and posted this on the group show.

Infinite Thanks for all the support. Let’s keep on projecting thoughts from radical walks through 2016 and beyond. Check back for updates on my forthcoming tour shattering Baltimore’s Inner Harbor Spectacle, and other delightful spring walks.

Cheers,

Graham signature teal

 

 

 

PS: Many thanks also to Baltimore Clayworks and School 33 for the opportunities to lead wanders through Mount Washington and of Baltimore City’s amazing murals.

SiteLines Video Walking Tours announced!

SiteLines poster

Throughout the month of September, all are invited to join Baltimore public artist Graham Coreil-Allen for four New Public Sites walking tours of invisible public spaces around Baltimore. Including the Highway to Nowhere, Reservoir Hill / Druid Lake, Old Town Mall and Power Plant Live, these tours will be documented for the forthcoming internet video series SiteLines.

The ongoing New Public Sites project interprets the overlooked and invisible sites within cities, investigates the negotiable nature of public space, and pushes the boundaries of pedestrian agency. SiteLines will translate these radical walking tours and urban design research into sharable, online videos. The video production will capture Coreil-Allen and walking tour participants as they playfully explore public space while he shares some of the sites’ histories, design, and uses. The four tours are thematically connected by suburban style development in a city context, including urban highways and pedestrian malls. The entire SiteLines season will be released on the New Public Sites YouTube channel on a periodic basis, then exhibited as part of a larger installation in Baltimore next Spring. SiteLines will present a compelling portrait of Baltimore and its civic space potential through dramatic shots of public space and pedestrian interactions therein.

All tours are free and open to the public.

 

Walking tour / video shoot schedule:

Saturday, September 6, 1pm – Crossing the Highway to Nowhere

Explore interchanging embankments around The Highway to Nowhere while bolding crossing where many have walked before.
Meet at 398 N Greene Street, in the former Social Security Administration Offices plaza.

Saturday, September 13, 1pm – Reservoir Chill

Where the sidewalk ends beyond a flowing overpass, climb as Druids towards a pastoral sublime.
Meet at 701 Druid Park Lake Drive, next to the intersection of Park Ave and Druid Park Lake Drive.

Saturday, September 20, 1pm – Old Town Wandering Revival

Honor the glory of Gay Street while humbly acknowledging its challenges with pedestrian gestures of hope and cheer.
Meet at 414 Old Town Mall, next to the Baltimore City Fire Museum at Gay and Orleans Streets.

Saturday, September 27, 1pm – Power Plant Alive!

Wear your full rock gear to swamp the market and flip the switch on its power of place.
Meet behind the old Power Plant at 601 E Pratt St, on the south side of Market Place and Pratt St.


Graham Coreil-Allen is a public artist who explores the constructs and contradictions of cities through videos, maps, crosswalks, and walking tours. Coreil-Allen recently completed the Hopscotch Crosswalks in downtown Baltimore and his walking tours have been showcased around the United States and at the US Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

SiteLines Press Release download

Contact: Graham Coreil-Allen, graham@grahamprojects.com
More info: grahamprojects.com/sitelines | newpublicsites.org | youtube.com/npsvt

Greater Baltimore Cultural AllianceSiteLines is being made possible in part by a Rubys artist project grant from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.