Commissioned Works/Special Projects is our program offering financial and administrative assistance to individual artists. We act as a fiscal agent for those artists applying for grants from federal and state programs and private foundations. Through this program we help develop collaborative projects between artists and assist with the presentation of their work. In 2013, we have sponsored the following projects:
Steve Bull / Kathleen Hulser
Prowling the War of 1812 Seaport. Blockade, smuggling, volunteers, deserters, dissenters, war contracts: the War of 1812 plunged Lower Manhattan into issues that threatened to rip apart the young Republic. New Yorkers hated to see their merchant fleet rot in the East River, but they had no love for the British after the city was occupied in the American Revolution. Tour significant sites of activity and dissent in the War of 1812, from the spot where political leaders denounced Madison’s War to a grand finale at Castle Clinton. Participants can use an augmented reality app by Steve Bull on their smartphones or iPads to explore a smuggling incident in the NY Harbor at tour’s end on the Battery. Mobile Phone App, supported by Harvestworks and the New York Council for the Humanities.
Elizabeth Axtman
The Love Renegade #308: I Love You Keith Bardwell (Phase I&II) is a transmedia experimental documentary. The films gaze is placed upon former Justice of the Peace, Keith Bardwell. In 2009 he broke the law by not marrying an interracial couple in Louisiana, because he believes that children of interracial marriage have difficult lives.
The film gives the topic of LOVE (not race) back to interracial couples asking them the reasons they chose to marry their partner, as well as, asking biracial people/children to speak on their own behalf on how they feel about Keith placing his “fears” on the backs of biracial children. The entire film focuses this discussion through the lens of compassion, love and forgiveness, in the hopes that minds and hearts open wider and that people take greater responsibility for how they treat others. The project is supported by supported by Harvestworks and the New York State Council On the Arts.
Elizabeth Axtman is a performance artist who creates works on the complexities of love, hate, and forgiveness. She received her BA from San Francisco State University in 2004 and completed her MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006. She was also a participant in the Skowhegan School of Painting and Drawing in 2006 Summer Residency Program. She has participated in exhibitions at the Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago, The Studio Museum of Harlem, NYC, The Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; Kunsthalle Gwangju, Republic of Korea, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts Auckland, New Zealand, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, and The Kitchen, NYC. She has lectured at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of the African Diaspora, DePaul University, and Sarah Lawrence College, and is a recipient of the Skowhegan Endowment for Scholarship Foundation, and Franklin Furnace Fund recipient in 2012. Her work has been reviewed in Art Forum, Art Papers, Houston Chronicle, and her video ‘American Classics’ was used as the lead image for the catalog from the much acclaimed exhibition Cinema Remixed & Reloaded: Black Women and the Moving Image Since 1970.
www.elizabethaxtman.com