The "Ghost Forests" exhibition at Simmon University's Trustman Gallery has been postponed to Winter 2021. The upside is that there is more opportunity for collaboration. There is no downside. Endless thanks to Helen Popinchalk and gallery folks for being positively flexible and adept at rolling with the pandemic punches. Details to come.
The New Normal of Practice?
Six months worth of exhibitions, talks, and workshops have been postponed or altogether cancelled. The upside, if there is one, is that the COVID 19 pandemic has provided unanticipated opportunities for creating work in the studio. That said, I welcome online exhibitions, and of course, talks, and workshosps within the digital realm, despite my long-standing emotionally allergic reaction to online “zoom” culture. As always, I encourage folks to reach out via email for information, Borden@fas.harvard.edu.
Environmental Wayfinding Print
New 18x24” silkscreen print collaboration with Helen Popinchalk is now available for purchase online. The Ecological Collapse Wayfinding print features 30 logographic designs. Building off the traditional graphic language of the “hobo” travel symbols, this communication system serves as a survival code for an environmental collapse. Some pictographs communicate opportunities for potable water, free charging stations, camp wood, and welcoming “safe” communities. Conversely, others warn of environmental threats and misfortunes including barren farm land, superfund sites, chemical plumes, and monoculture landscapes. Purchase print online here.
New Data Viz Talk with Tera Hatfield
“Tufte Trap” slide for co-authored talk, Place-based Data Viz: Tips, Tricks, Grand Totals, and other Traps.
I am pleased to announce a new public speaking collaboration with Portland, OR-based designer and author Tera Hatfield.
A little bit about our first collaboration, Place-based Data Viz: Tips, Tricks, Grand Totals, and other Traps.
This co-authored talk by interdisciplinary designers Tera Hatfield and David Buckley Borden focuses on the artful presentation of information for narrative effect. The co-presenters challenge audiences to re-imagine data visualization rules and traditions as a means to develop culturally-compelling visual narratives for place-based projects. Borden and Hatfield's radical cartography, infographics, data-driven sculptures, and art installations are not driven by typical strategic communication conventions, but rather the integration of visual art and design to reposition data as an engaging narrative medium. This talk builds on Borden’s work as a designer-in-residence at the Harvard Forest and Hatfield's recent visually rich publication, “Seattleness: A Cultural Atlas.”
If interested in hosting this lecture, or other public talks and workshops, please reach out to Borden@fas.harvard.edu.
New Silkscreen Print Series
My collaborators and I will be releasing a series of silkscreen prints over the next three months as a fundraising initiative for the upcoming Ghost Forests project at Simmons University. The limited-edition prints are being created with Helen Popinchalk, Morgan Grenier, and Michael Demaggio. Most of the prints, starting with the DD Masshole print, will be available for sale in the mercantile section of davidbuckleyborden.com. Others will only be available at Simmons’ Trustman Gallery and select retail partners such as Visions West Contemporary.
Ghost Forest Project at Simmons University
I’m delighted to announce a new project “Ghost Forest” at Simmons University in Boston for spring 2020. The collaborative art and design project will include new silkscreen prints, fabric work, and sculptures both in and outside the Trustman Gallery. I’m thrilled to be getting the band “Hibernaculum” band back together including Christian Delano Borden, Cyrille Conan, Mike Demaggio, Morgan Granier, and Helen Popinchalk. I’ll also be working with students from the Simmon’s Art and Design Department. Opening reception will be held the evening of Thursday April 23, 2020.
Image: Earth Crisis Charm No. 2; Oil Reserves, reclaimed wood, paint, vinyl, and assorted hardware, 2020. Collaboration between David Buckley Borden and Christian Delano Borden.
Special Agent Residency at Agency Landscape and Planning
New Year; New Collaborations. I’m absolutely delighted to be an Artist-in-Residence at Agency Landscape and Planning for the next six months. Like the most productive residencies, this opportunity is an open-ended program in which I collaborate with in-house designers, planners, and landscape architects within the context of their professional practice. The intention is to contribute to Agency’s work in the form of drawings, models/sculptures, proposals, and (I hope) community-driven art installations. I’m excited to expand the expertise I’ve developed while at the Harvard Forest and apply my creative approach to the landscape and planning profession. I feel particularly fortunate to work with Agency in light of their mission-driven practice and their interest in making environmental place-based issues relevant by means of accessible art and design.
Beyond project output, I also look forward to developing a case-study for embedding visual artists within landscape architecture and planning firms as a forward-thinking mode of interdisciplinary design practice. Finally, I am grateful to Agency principals Gina Ford and Brie Hensold for their confidence in my work and their openness to this unconventional creative experiment.
Spring Talks and Workshops
New Year; New Talks. I'm now booking public talks and workshops for spring and summer 2020. I’ll be back in Oregon in early May and I hope to add more PNW dates. Booking info and abstracts for art and design lectures can be found here. Otherwise just ping me at Borden@fas.harvard.edu.
New Work Available Online
New art work is available for online sale here: http://davidbuckleyborden.com/mercantile
Artist Talk at Penn State
Please join me and the Penn State Abington Community for a public artist talk and reception for new campus arts installation, Data Decision Trees at the Penn State Abington campus. Artist talk is at 2:00pm in 9 Sutherland. Reception to follow at 3pm at site of new installation (by the duck pond). Many thanks to the Penn State Arts initiative and art and science department for the support.
New Silkscreened Canvas Flags Available
The Sixth Extinction Flag , one in an ongoing series of Environmental Revolution Flags that recasts historic flags to highlight cultural conflicts over environmental issues. Collaborative silkscreened flags with Helen Popinchalk of Trifecta Editions are now available for purchase here.
Art-Science Exhibition at NC State
Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping Our Genetic Futures is a visually stunning and thought-provoking exhibition aimed at raising awareness about genetic engineering, biotechnologies, and their consequences through the lens of art and design. By combining science and art and design, participating artists offer new insights about genetic engineering by bringing it out of the lab and into public places to challenge viewer’s understandings about the human condition, the material of our bodies, and the consequences of biotechnology.
The multi-site exhibition opens with a reception on Thursday, Oct. 17 from 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design (1903 Hillsborough St.). Art’s Work is shown at the Gregg, in the physical and digital display spaces of the NC State University Libraries, and on the grounds of the North Carolina Museum of Art. The reception and exhibition are free and open to the public.
Guest-curated by Hannah Star Rogers, an independent curator and Visiting Scholar at the University of Edinburgh, the exhibition runs through March 15, 2020 and is organized by the NC State University Libraries and the Genetic Engineering and Society Center. Many participating artists have exhibited widely and achieved international recognition, including Suzanne Anker, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Joe Davis, Richard Pell, Kirsten Stolle, Paul Vanouse, Adam Zaretsky, Jennifer Willet, Charlotte Jarvis, Maria McKinney, Emilia Tikka, Aaron Ellison, David Buckley Borden, Joel Ong, Emeka Ikebude, Kerasynth, Jonathan Davis, and Ciara Redmond.
Learn more about the exhibition and supporting program here.
"This Land Is..." Exhibition at Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
Detroit, MI, September 12, 2019 – The James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History, Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, Wayne State University, Detroit, is pleased to present THIS LAND IS…, October 25 through December 13, 2019. The opening reception will be held on Friday, October 25, 5-8PM. THIS LAND IS… features works created through a wide variety of disciplines by artists who address current and future environmental concerns. The artists confront political, cultural, and social ecological changes by observing sentimental landmarks and documenting their importance. This exhibition was curated by Jennifer Belair Sakarian and includes works by the following artists: David Buckley Borden, Sophie-Madeleine Jaillet, Sarah Anne Johnson, Margaret Laurena Kemp, and Casey N Keenan.
Special programming coinciding with the exhibition will include a gallery talk by David Buckley Borden, Casey N Keenan, and Margaret Laurena Kemp, Thursday, October 24, 6:30-7:30PM; and a performance by Margaret Laurena Kemp, Friday, October 25, 6PM. The talk and performance will be held at the Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, WSU. The James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History is a division of Wayne State’s College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts, educating the next generation of visual artists, designers and art historians. Wayne State University, located in the heart of Detroit’s midtown cultural center, is a premier urban research university offering more than 350 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to more than 28,000 students.
For more information about the exhibition, visit Elaine L. Jacob Gallery .
Critical Essay in Boston Art Review's Public Art Issue
I'm pleased to contribute to Boston Art Review’s pubic art issue with a critical essay co-authored with Aaron Ellison that explores the university campus as a space for public art. Many thanks to Jameson and the editor team for the opportunity. Learn more about BAR, the release event, and purchase the latest issue here.
Hoosic River Expedition, Part II
I’ve returned to North Adams, MA to continue work on the Hoosic RIver Expedition project, a speculative public art trail exploring ecological and cultural issues at play around the Hoosic River. I will be collaborating with Casey Keenan of Gravity Wave Studios to turn a series of public art proposals into a short animated film. Keenan will create voice-over, original score, and sound design for the five minute animated short. The Virtual Hoosic River Expedition will debut in Detroit at the “This Land Is” exhibition at the Elaine L Jacob Gallery at Wayne State University.
Thanks to Assets for Artists Studios at MASS MoCA for supporting the work through its artist-in-residence program.
Sasaki Pollinator Residency
For three months, Sasaki Gallery’s summer artist-in-residence David Buckley Borden collaborated with an interdisciplinary team of Sasaki designers to explore how architectural tropes can highlight the role pollinators play in urban ecology. This exploration produced a set of pollinator residencies with a playful nod to common building typologies. During weekly charrettes, the team designed and built a residential tower, a saw-toothed factory, a roadside motel, a luxury studio condo development, and a designer cabin on flood-proof stilts. Learn more about the project by clicking here.
Penn State Campus Arts Initiative
DBB Concept Proposal for Installation Art at Penn State Abington Campus.
I am delighted to have been selected to contribute to Penn State’s new public art campus initiative. I’ll be working with the Penn State Abington community to produce a temporary installation on it’s woodland campus in the fall of 2019.
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA – The Campus Arts Initiative (Campus Arts), a project of Penn State’s Strategic Planning Seed Grant program, has announced the first eight artist collaborators, which were selected from the more than 158 applicants who responded to a national open call.
Campus Arts is a cross-disciplinary project that aims to create site-specific visual art to engage communities in the spaces where they live and work every day. Eight partner locations across the Commonwealth were identified in January and the selected artists have each been paired with one of the high-impact locations from which they will take inspiration for the artwork. Project installations will begin in fall 2019. The project allows the site partners to work closely with the artists throughout the process to develop installations that connect to each space. The final selected artists visited the partner sites in May and were able to gain a deeper understanding of each location.
For more information about the new campus wide arts initiative click here.
The Art of Where on ESRI
ESRI Nerding. It was a treat to work with the ESRI Story Map team on this online publication. My story map features a variety of recent place-based art and design work including maps, plus collaborative work with Harvard Forest, Pennie Taylor, and Hoosic River Revival. Read the feature here.
Artist Residency at Sasaki
Art in Design Residency. I’ll be giving a public talk at Sasaki Associates on Wednesday, June 19th at 12PM. The artist talk will kick off a summer residency at the interdisciplinary design firm where I’ll develop an outdoor installation with the staff. Other residency happenings including workshops, fabrication experiments, and a Sasaki Gallery exhibition. The show, titled "Community Nature; People, Place, and Practice," is open to the public from 9 to 5, M-F, through August. Feels good to be back.
"Welcome to Weird West" Exhibition
WIld Group Show. Honored to have work in upcoming "Welcome to West Weird” exhibition to launch latest @tetonartlab residency space. Show will open new location (105 E. Broadway, Jackson, WY) and feature work from a variety of Teton Art Lab alum. Exhibition runs June 20 to July 13. Artists Jave Yoshimoto, Erick Nelson, Taryn Boals, Travis Walker, Katy Fox, David Buckley Borden, Jack Holmer, June Glasson, Carly Glovinksi and Ben Roth will all contribute. #tetonartlab #weirdwest #jacksonWY #sayhitoGwen