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The Watts Towers Common Ground Initiative:
Art-Migrations-Development
[Conference: October 22-24, 2010]
[Festival: September 25, 2010 - March 19, 2011]
www.WattsTowersCommonGround.org
<
http://www.wattstowerscommonground.org/>
(tm)
Thursday, October 21
(Co-presented with)
UCLA Armand Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, 90024
7:00 p.m.
The Watts Towers Project
The Watt Towers Project is created and performed by Roger Guenveur Smith
with sound design by Marc Anthony Thompson, projections by Daniel
Foster, and lighting by Jose Lopez. An intimate meditation on solo
endeavor, Smith's play is inspired by the Simon Rodia masterwork, which
has withstood earthquakes, riots, and civic indifference. Smith's work
for the international stage also includes the Obie Award-winning A Huey
P. Newton Story, which he adapted into a Peabody Award-winning telefilm,
and Inside the Creole Mafia, named Production of the Year by LA Weekly.
Event is free and open to the public. First come, first served.
Reservations not accepted nor required. Parking is available under the
museum for $3 after 6:00pm.
More information at:
http://hammer.ucla.edu/calendar/detail/year/2010/month/10/day/21/type/pr
ogram/id/609
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Sunday, October 24, 2010
Day in Watts
tour
Watts Towers & Watts Towers Arts Center (WTAC)
1727 East 107th St., LA 90002
&
Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC)
10950 South Central Ave., LA 90059
8:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
(or optional return at 4:00 p.m.)
Includes return transportation to Westwood, guided tour & lunch.
Reservation by pre-payment only. Payment must be received by October 18.
To register, send name, telephone number, and email to:
info@??? <
mailto:info@wattscommonground.org>
And send check for $15 (payable to "Italian Cultural Institute") to:
Watts Tour c/o IIC, 1023 Hilgard Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
8:30 Departure, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, 1023 Hilgard Ave., LA
(Westwood) 90024
9:00 I - Guided Tour of the Watts Towers, Watts Towers Arts Center,
Charles Mingus Youth Arts Center (including Exhibition: Migrating
Towers: The Gigli of Nola and Beyond), Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts,
Conservation Headquarters * II - Guided Tour of the Watts Labor
Community Action Committee campus, including Civil Rights Museum
[Made possible, in part, by a grant from S.P.A.C.E.S. - Saving and
Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments]
11:30 Lunch, Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC)
[Return to Westwood at 1:00 p.m. OR stay for conference sessions, with
return at 4:00 p.m.]
Conference Sessions:
12:30 Art Environments & Cultural Contexts * Chaired by Luisa Del
Giudice
Joseph Sciorra, John D. Calandra It. Am. Inst., Queens College, NY *
"Why a Man Makes the Shoes?": Italian-American Art and Philosophy in
Sabato Rodia's Watts Towers
Laura E. Ruberto, Berkeley City College * A California Detour on the
Road to Italy: The Hubcap Ranch, the Napa Valley, and Italian American
Identity
Alessandro Dal Lago and Serena Giordano, University of Genova * Art
Without Nation
Thomas Harrison, UCLA * Sam Rodia-Outsider Artist?
2:30 Art & Development * Chaired by Edward Tuttle, UCLA
Gail Brown, "Where I'm Standing," Los Angeles * From Where I'm
Standing Photo-Documentary Workshops at Watts Towers Arts Center:
Building Community Through Self-Awareness and Self-Expression
Monica Barra, Rutgers University * Teaching the Watts Towers, Learning
Los Angeles: Public Art, Storytelling, and Urban Pedagogy
Darnell M. Hunt and Ana Christina Ramon, UCLA * Watts This About
"Black Los Angeles?" An Anthology on Space, People, Image, and Action
[Complete conference program to follow]
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about the...
Watts Towers Common Ground Initiative: Art-Migrations-Development
The extraordinary Watts Towers were created over the course of 3 decades
by a single-minded artist-artisan, Sabato (Simon, Sam) Rodia, an Italian
immigrant who wanted to do "something big." Now a National Historic
Landmark and internationally-renowned icon, they are both a personal
artistic expression and a collective symbol of Nuestro Pueblo-Our
Town/Our People. The Watts Towers Common Ground Initiative:
Art-Migrations-Development seeks to celebrate the common ground of the
Towers, a locus of creativity, of sustained resolve in adversity and of
positive public transformation. With an eye to renewing civic
commitment to art in community contexts, this Initiative will encompass
a range of public events throughout the city, including an international
conference at the University of California at Los Angeles and Watts, and
a festival of art, film, theater, music, communal food tables and city
tours. Our goal is to address modes of sustaining art and community
development within a civic environment of meager resources. We also aim
to promote hospitality and partnership across geographic, social and
other boundaries.
Both festival and conference carry forward the conversation begun at the
international conference, Art and Migration: Sabato Rodia's Watts
Towers in Los Angeles, jointly sponsored by the University of Genova and
the UCLA International Institute (Italy, April 2009), which examined the
monument's multiple resonances within the milieux of local and global
migrations, of contested social and urban spaces, and of the rapport
between art and economic development. How are these divergent
discourses and goals best bridged? How is "common ground" fostered
around the Watts Towers? The continued well-being of the Towers and
their adjacent Art Center, as well as the divergent communities which
sustain and are sustained by them depend on upon how well we answer
these questions.
Sponsors: Department of Italian at the University of California at Los
Angeles; UCLA International Institute; City of Los Angeles, Department
of Cultural Affairs; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Italian
Cultural Institute of Los Angeles (IIC); Consulate General of Italy in
Los Angeles; Armand Hammer Museum; Saving and Preserving Arts and
Cultural Environments (S.P.A.C.E.S.); Watts Towers Arts Center (WTAC);
Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC); Museo Etnomusicale, I
Gigli di Nola (Gigli of Nola Ethnomusicological Museum); St. Alban's
Episcopal Church; Dept. of Special Collections, Young Research Library,
UCLA
Project Coordinator: Luisa Del Giudice
With the Assistance of: Thomas Harrison, Edward Landler, Jo Farb
Hernandez, Rosie Lee Hooks, Edward Tuttle, Rudy Barbee, Janine Watkins,
UCLA Conference Committee: Thomas Harrison, Luisa Del Giudice, Jo Farb
Hernandez, Paul Harris, Alessandro Dal Lago
www.WattsTowersCommonGround.org
