chrisgang's blog

What a week!

The Sanctuary for Independent Media, teamed with members of the Hudson Mohawk Indymedia Center collective, has spent the better part of the last 7 days planning, executing, and post-producing media for the United National Peace Conference, a major meetup for the antiwar and progressive communities that took place in Albany from July 23 to 25.

After attending a pretty damn cool panel on the future of Indymedia at last month's Allied Media Conference, we were looking for an excuse to test out a new crowdsourced-media web platform developed by the good folks at IndyPGH for their coverage of the G20 resistance in September 2009. Although we weren't closely involved in the planning of the UNPC's media strategy, a couple of weeks ago we found ourselves essentially in charge in that regard — and we decided to step up to the challenge.

Last weekend we had an AWESOME youth media workshop and film festival, as part of the N.Y. Shout Out Youth Media celebration. Huge thanks to everyone who came from near and far, to help make media, share ideas, brainstorm, act, write, edit, volunteer, cook food, and even just to watch and discuss the youth pieces.

We (fittingly) produced a ton of media during the day -- and the first finished pieces, which were completely produced between 2 and 4pm on Saturday, were four different short video public service announcements (PSAs). Each group got up on stage to screen and discuss their PSA, while other youth crew volunteers did a live video shoot of the discussion.

Here's what you made!

PSA 1: Youth Voices

Created by Andrew Vu, Darian Henry, Andrew Cullen, and Halle Prentice, with Branda Miller and Deyva Arthur.

PSA 2: High Fructose Corn Syrup

Created by Aden Suchak, Ben Maloney, Mike Mejia, Mike Irizarry, and Mohamed Gardner, with Gaetano Vaccaro, Amy Halloran, Jason Corwin, and Joe Lopez.

We're excited and honored that the Capital Region's altweekly, Metroland, chose to feature our current gallery show, a 30-year retrospective of political comics and graphic art by the NYC-based World War 3 Illustrated collective, on its cover this week!

You can read the full story at http://metroland.net/features.html, but the online version sacrifices much of the presentation. So I recommend you find a hard copy! We have a number here at The Sanctuary — or you can just click on the images below to download full-size scans.

Remember, if you haven't seen the show yet, it's up for almost another full month. Our gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., plus two hours before any event. As always feel free to contact us for more information.

Seth Tobocman, a renowned artist and activist and founding member of the World War 3 Illustrated collective, sent us these thoughtful words about why the collective is still creating and publishing its magazine.

Why is this political comic book, which started in 1980, still publishing?

The oil slick off the gulf coast, the collapse of a speculative housing bubble, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, the bombing and siege of Gaza, the massive anti-globalization protests in Seattle and other cities, the election of America’s first Black president. All of this proves us right.

We started this magazine in 1980 because we believed that Ronald Reagan was taking this country in the wrong direction. We believed that a new, radical movement would emerge to challenge these right wing policies.This was not a popular position at the time and even many who agreed with us cautioned us that it was unwise to be so bold and upfront about our politics.

Bike!Bike! NE happened!

HUGE THANKS to everyone who made this a weekend to remember, and for sending me your digitized memories. KEEP SENDING STUFF IF YOU HAVEN'T YET -- chris DOT gang AT gmail DOT com!!

here's your evidence:

PHOTOS

faced-book photos from Worcester Earn-A-Bike, incl.: TBR workshops, bike piles, Blister Pack, indoor tallbiking, group ride, polo

flickr set by E.P. of tri-county sunday ride with AWESOME "share the road" billboard and abandoned gas station takeover photos

We've had a series of really great events this season, and if you haven't made it here, stay tuned for videos soon. But in the meantime I thought it would be nice to share something from the really great potluck dinners we've had before some of the events. 

The latest hit was a Tunisian Vegetable Stew brought by volunteer coordinator and superstar Nancy. She was kind enough to email the recipe around — and now here it is for everyone to enjoy.

Thanks Nancy!

(For more delicious foods, why not participate in our next potluck? Watch our facebook page and event pages on this site for updates about when potlucks will be happening.)

---------------

Several people asked me for the recipe for this delicious and easy dish from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home (1994):

1 ½ cups sliced onions

This past weekend we had two members of the incredible World War 3 Illustrated collective here to hang their show in underground gallery, our upstairs gallery, the cafe, the main Sanctuary space, the stairs ...

There was so much art to behold, and to be organized, laid out, measured, hung, and given a proper sign, that it took several volunteers, artists, and significant others two full days and more wallspace than our galleries contained to get it all up.

We passed around a point-and-shoot digital camera, snapping around 100 photos during the installation; I've included a selection of them below as a Picasa slideshow. (Click READ MORE to see the slideshow, or you can go directly to our album at Picasa to leave comments or download copies.)

Another option: If you prefer your internet with one less step of corporate mediation, you can view the gallery through our own kinda clunky interface here.

Our season is over, and next week we'll be taking down our photography show, "Evidence & Fantasy: Militarism in American Life," by Nina Berman.

I've passed by these photographs almost daily for the past four months, but they've lost none of their power; if anything, my growing familiarity with the photographs as physical and visual objects makes them that much more stunning when I take a moment or two and really look, identifying with the wounded and disfigured soldiers as human beings and not just a collection of pixels, for the hundred-and-nteenth time. I'll be sad to see it go (though next season's art show should be great too; stay tuned!).

So I was thrilled to learn that Nina's work has been selected for inclusion in the Whitney Museum's upcoming 2010 biennial show of new American art. This is, apparently, a big deal in the art world and beyond: Wikipedia's (not always trustworthy) authoritative voice says the Biennial is "generally regarded as one of the leading shows in the art world, often setting or leading trends in contemporary art." Cool. (The show's up 2/25/2010 - 5/30/2010, at 945 Madison Ave. on the upper East side of Manhattan.)

We'll be taking down and packaging up the "Homeland" photographs next week, to be sent to The Whitney. "Purple Hearts" and "Marine Wedding," which are the photos on display in our downstairsunderground gallery, apparently haven't been invited. (Nina can only bring one series of work, and even though we've exhibited them together, these photographs were really taken and originally intended as separate projects.)

Here's a selection of photographs from "Homeland" which may or may not be showing at the Whitney in 2010!