December 19, 2019–May 3, 2020
Press Preview | Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Survival Architecture and the Art of Resilience
December 19, 2019–May 3, 2020
Guest curated by Randy Jayne Rosenberg of Art Works for Change (AWFC) this exhibition follows the idea that addressing climate change must include ensuring durable, long-term housing solutions for vulnerable populations. For example, participating artist Tina Hovsepian’s Cardborigami (2016) installation showcases her lightweight and sustainable cardboard shelters that are big enough for two people to sleep in and can fold small enough to carry. In a similar vein, the projects and design concepts in the exhibition highlight how we need to rethink and develop robust housing designs that are flexible, resilient, and adaptable to survive the future effects of a changing environment.
The exhibition aims to make concepts accessible to a general audience and to address climate change through four centralized themes that reflect key characteristics about survival architecture: Circular—the importance of creating structures made of materials that can be used and reused indefinitely; Portable—the ability to create easily moveable and nomadic dwellings; Visionary—forward-thinking ideas that can radically change the way we think about shelter; and Resilient—structures that can adapt to adverse and dynamic circumstances.
Science, technology, architecture, and art converge within the exhibition to question the nature of what it means to survive climate change and natural disasters. How do we design and retrofit our built world to adapt to increased uncertainty and do it affordably? How do we produce dwellings that have a full life cycle of durability pre-, during, and post-disaster?
Climate change represents a vastly different kind of environmental challenge, requiring out-of-the-box thinking in how we adapt to and survive the expected onslaught of extreme weather and other disruptions,” said Rosenberg. “Artists are uniquely adept at re-envisioning our world and how we relate to it, as this exhibition shows.”
Support for the exhibition is provided by Simpson Strong-Tie, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.
Participating artists and studios include Andrew Maynard Architecture, Alejandro Aravena, Vincent Callebaut, Nathaniel Corum, Davison Design, Tina Hovsepian, IKEA Foundation, Chris Jordan, Liam Kelly, Thomas L. Kelly, Jingyang Liu Leo, Mary Mattingly, Achim Menges, Gerard Minakawa, William McDonough and Partners, Peta Fend and Malgorzata Pawlowska, The Empowerment Plan, Journeyman Pictures, Pedro Reyes, Phil Ross, Terreform ONE and Mitchell Joachim, Tomas Saraceno, Kevin Jin He and Won Ryu, and ZO-Loft Architecture and Design.
About Art Works for Change
Since 2008, AWFC has created, curated and produced 13 cross-disciplinary traveling exhibitions and projects that address critical social and environmental issues, and have reached a global audience of over 2 million people. These projects, hosted in 17 countries on five continents, have showcased the stories and visions of renowned artists from around the world. Learn more at www.artworksforchange.org
(Above Image: Tina Hovsepian, Cardborigami, 2016. Image courtesy of the artist and Artworks for Change)
Linda Gass: and then this happened…
December 19, 2019–May 3, 2020
Linda Gass, Dogpatch: Impact of Climate Change and Sea Level Rise, 2019.
Image courtesy of the artist
Multimedia artist Linda Gass creates stitched paintings and works in glass questioning water and land use issues in California. Informed and inspired by her extensive research on the impact of changing waterways, sea-level rise, fire, and drought in California and the American West, Gass’s work uses beauty to shed light on these challenging issues.
Evoking both topographical maps and comforting textiles, Gass’s work brings to light the incongruence between the safety of individual homes, and the devastating effect environmental manipulation has on the natural ecological processes of our collective home, California. Divided into four themed topics, the artwork in this exhibition reflect how sea-level rise, man-made waterways, rain/snowpack loss, and wildfire changes over time. Gass includes work that is hyperlocal in context, including three new sea-level rise artworks focused on the Dogpatch neighborhood where MCD is located. This series shows three aerial street views of Dogpatch: as it looks today, how it would change after the impact of three feet of sea-level rise and the devastation after six feet of sea-level rise. Another localized piece, Severely Burned (2014) represents the impact of the 2013 Rim Fire on the Tuolumne River Watershed, which provides drinking water for the City of San Francisco and many other Bay Area cities.
Gass comments, “Our current water infrastructure was designed during an era when our climate was more stable and the average annual rainfall was higher than it is now. Human development has permanently altered and destroyed much of our natural water infrastructures such as wetlands and watersheds. My textile, glass, and mixed-media artworks address these concerns–how our infrastructure and development policies are failing under climate chaos–and invite the viewer to ponder the question ‘what can we do better?'”
About Linda Gass
Bay Area artist and environmental activist Linda Gass is best known for her labor-intensive stitched paintings about land use and water issues in California and the American West. She graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Mathematics and MS in Computer Science and has been creating art for more than 20 years after a decade-long career in software. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US and in Europe and Russia, at venues including the Oakland Museum, the Bellevue Arts Museum and the US Embassy in Moscow. Gass’s work has been written about in The San Francisco Chronicle, National Geographic’s All Over the Map: A Cartographic Odyssey, 500 Art Quilts, The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography, Why We Quilt: Contemporary Makers Speak Out about the Power of Art, Activism, Community and Creativity, and American Craft as well as other publications.
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Exhibition Press Preview
Wednesday, December 18, 2019 | 5:30 PM–7:00 PM
RSVP to Sarah Beth Rosales at sbrosales@sfmcd.org
Related Events
MCD Curator Walkthrough: Survival Architecture and the Art of Resilience
Thursday, Feb 27, 2020 | 6:30 PM–8:00 PM
MCD Design Lab Happy Hour: Linda Gass • Creativity and Climate Chaos
Date, TBD 2020
Images and checklist for Survival Architecture and the Art of Resilience can be found here.
Images and checklist for Linda Gass: and then this happened… can be found here.
For more information and interview requests, contact Sarah Beth Rosales at sbrosales@sfmcd.org or 415.773.0303.
About the Museum of Craft and Design
Celebrating 15 years with DESIGN15, the Museum of Craft and Design (MCD) is the only museum in San Francisco devoted to craft and design. Founded in 2004, the MCD showcases designers, makers and artists through an exciting and distinctive series of craft and design-focused exhibitions and public programs. As a non-collecting institution, the museum actively collaborates with artists, designers, museums, and universities as well as design venues and practitioners to create inspirational experiences in the world of craft and design for visitors of all ages. Learn more at sfmcd.org.
Upcoming MCD Exhibitions
bauhaus.photo
October 10–November 8, 2019
In partnership with AIA San Francisco and the Goethe Institut, and developed by the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung, Berlin, bauhaus.photo presents 100 key works from the world’s largest collection of Bauhaus photography, which will be distributed between AIASF and the Museum of Craft and Design. The exhibition presents classic works by Lucia Moholy, László Moholy-Nagy, and T. Lux Feininger as well as images by less popular photographers like Kattina Both, Irene Bayer, and Max Peiffer Watenpfuhl and a few superb works by entirely unknown artists. The exhibition bauhaus.photo is touring throughout the USA as a part of the “Year of German-American Friendship,” a comprehensive and collaborative initiative funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, implemented by the Goethe-Institut, and with the support of the Federation of German Industries (BDI).
Moto MMXX
May 23–October 25, 2020
The custom motorcycle scene has exploded in the past years, transitioning from a fringe pursuit into a mainstream phenomenon. Focused on motorcycle builders based in North America, this exhibition will display twenty custom motorcycles that epitomize and represent the best contemporary examples of this resurgence. It will include custom motorcycles supported by development sketches, models, bucks, prototypes, photos, and videos. It’ll show the finished ‘design’ and the ‘craft’ behind the glossy machines. Moto MXMX will showcase the actors and supporting characters, who design and build contemporary custom motorcycles using both traditional crafts and state-of-the-art technologies. This exhibition is guest curated by Hugo Eccles.
