Getting My Feet Wet!

Hello! Just wanted to let y’all know about my new project, linking the gulf coast from Mobile, Alabama to Houston, Texas by connecting social justice organizations with artists whose work deal with community concerns through conceptual and experimental art. This project is made possible by a  New Voices fellowship I was awarded this year. I will be developing the work through DiverseWorks, who is hosting me as an Artist-in-Residence for the next two years. For more info: Email me at eliaarce@aol.com

Here’s the Gulf Coast Art Corridor proposal, let me know what you think- suggest artists, venues, scenic routes and good food along the way!

Thanks so much!

Gulf Coast Art Corridor Proposal

Independent artist Elia Arce will develop her new project: Gulf Coast Art Corridor, during her two year artist-in- residency at DiverseWorks. Arce's  2008 New Voices fellowship is funded by the American Education Development Foundation/ New Voices Fellowship in Washington DC, a Ford Foundation initiative. Arce will design and create a Gulf Coast Art Corridor that will match social justice organizations with arts organizations, and folk artists with experimental artists, from Mobile, Alabama to Houston, Texas. The project's objective is to identify and strengthen the cultural heritage and new artistic languages of the gulf coast.

Arce, a performance artist who has a strong history of creating experimental performances that deal with community issues, will work in identifying the art organizations, social organizations and artists who will become part of this project. This direct connection to the community will ensure that the issues addressed reach the core of community member concerns. 

Utilizing an alternate format to mainstream exhibitions, the Gulf Coast Art Corridor will present local artists in each city, and offer different art workshops during 2009 and 2010. The cities that we will visit are: Hattiesburg, Mobile, Biloxi, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Houston. The Art Corridor will become a way to unite the different artists that are speaking of local concerns and create an outlet for such artists to expand their visibility and strengthen their artistic voices.

Because the success of this project is based on community relationships, the research time that is spent in each community is crucial. Accurately identifying the issues and artists to be featured in each city is a delicate factor. This is why local partnering organizations in each community is fundamental for the integrity of the project.

New Voices fellow Elia Arce, has already identified other Gulf Coast fellows in the region who have already express their interest in participating in the Art Corridor. The organizations that these fellows work with include: East Biloxi, Relief and Redevelopment Agency; Common Ground Health Clinic; New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice; Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children; Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana; Capital Area Family Violence Intervention Center of Baton Rouge; Gulf Coast Teaching Family Services.

Written ongoing updates after each experience on each city will help us modify and adjust to the needs that will arise along the way.

Video documentation of this process will ensure that this self-determination effort can continue and not be forgotten by the new generation of artists that are joining us in this experience. A printed catalogue of the different artwork that was produced during this two year endeavor  will be published by 2011.

By supporting and sustaining communication and artistic interactions between folk and conceptual artists based in the Gulf Coast, we hope to help preserve the cultural heritage in the region while influencing and strengthening emerging artistic voices.

If by the Summer of 2010 the artists, art organizations and social justice organizations who have participated in the Gulf Coast Art Corridor are actively interested in utilizing all the different affiliations they made along the way for future art projects; then the Art Corridor concept would have succeeded.