OPENSOURCE Art is...
OPENSOURCE Art is an alternative art space accommodating variety of non-traditional, community-oriented art projects events within Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Using our current location as a home base, we intend to host and support a diversity projects: artists' workshops and lectures; short-term art
and events by local, regional, and national artists; and community outreach activities. We intend to initiate and local, national, and international projects, whether independent artists or students and faculty from the local schools.
Access to space for the presentation of art is limited and highly confined to institutions dependent upon conventional modes of operation and large financial restrictions. The need for a space for presenting art in which relationships between artist, facilitators and audiences can be established without monetary exchange is crucial to finding alternative ways of understanding art and its varied meanings. With this in mind, OPENSOURCE Art exists in order to create the possibility that art might be defined by those whom it impacts and by those who are rarely given a voice in conventional museums and commercial gallery spaces. Originally started as a public space for the display of any and all art projects, OPENSOURCE initiates its programs through open calls to the general public, inviting them to use the space. OPENSOURCE takes proposals and submissions from anyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or age, and without prejudicial reference to a person's past experience with OPENSOURCE or the creative arts. Anybody who puts forth a proposal is asked what it is they want from OPENSOURCE and what OPENSOURCE can do for them. Proposals are then evaluated, on the understanding of the purpose presented to OPENSOURCE, by a group of participating members who decide between proposals on the basis of simple majority vote.
Active members help facilitate the production of the agreed-upon proposal. This includes, but is not limited to publicity/promotion, space preparation, communications, solicitation, event staff and coordination, curatorial advice or direction, administration, etc. Though OPENSOURCE operates in ways not unlike a conventional art gallery, OPENSOURCE attempts to distance itself from the limiting functions of most commercially run spaces. OPENSOURCE creates and fosters activities that challenge our prescribed notions of art, its meaning and its role in a capitalist and consumer-based economy. Although it has common financial needs, and expects its members and board members to raise funds for its operations, OPENSOURCE acts without any formal financial or commercial affiliations and strives to avoid the presentation of art objects and
activities as consumer products.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask any current member or email us at opensource@boxwith.com
Posted by os_admin on November 26, 2006 / Permalink
