• Article

    The Billboard Project returns to Locust Projects

    Published October 12, 2011 by

    By Locust Projects Locust Projects is pleased to announce its second annual Billboard Project. Argentinean-born, Miami-based artist Agustina Woodgate, has been selected to present site-specific artwork for billboards and bus shelters surrounding Miami’s Design District and Miami Beach in November and December 2011. A reception for the artist will be...
  • Article

    Southwest Story at the Matrix Theatre Company

    Published October 11, 2011 by

    By Meranda Stuart, Matrix Theatre Company October is very busy at Matrix Theatre. Currently, our teen company is in its last week of dress rehearsal for Southwest Story. Southwest Story is a collaboratively written play by Matrix co-founder Wes Nethercott and youth members. The plot of this show is based...
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    Unorthodox tradition under the lens

    Published October 11, 2011 by

    One doesn't need to know the background of the portraits at Fredric Snitzer Gallery to grasp their power. These photographs are immediately and aggressively captivating, in-your-face so. They are also skillfully and beautifully done. There's real burgeoning talent in Zack Balber, the...
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    Philadelphia Open Studio Tours weekend two

    Published October 11, 2011 by

    If you missed the first weekend of Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, there is another busy weekend of art exploration just around the corner. What is Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (POST)? Essentially, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours is an organized pair of weekends at the beginning of October, in which a wide...
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    Would nutrition labels work for news?

    Published October 11, 2011 by

    Matt Stempeck, research assistant at the MIT Center for Civic Media, recently asked the question: “What If We Had a Nutrition Label For News”? His call for feedback prompted a response from Eric Newton, senior advisor to the president at Knight Foundation, who equates the fundamental nutritional elements of food directly to their counterparts in news. Newton wrote: Congratulations for taking on this fantastic topic. Anyone who can break down and communicate the nutritional value of news will be an American hero. As you note, the idea of a food label for news has been kicking around for a long time. I first started talking about it nearly 15 years ago with some other folks at the Newseum in various programs we had in the broadcast studios there. I got some bits on the record five years ago in the book Mega Media, and most recently I wrote “Junk-food news turning us into fat-heads” in the Miami Herald. We've known for ages that words are food for the mind. The devil is in the details. Every previous effort I've seen has failed to properly unwind the metaphor. Listing the various failures may not be as helpful as talking aspirationally about the real goal. What we really need is a food label not so much on each news outlet but on each news story. (ie, Marissa Mayer's point at Google about the new unit of organization of news being the story, not the outlet).
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    Two thumbs up for August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running” at Penumbra Theatre Company

    Published October 10, 2011 by

    “Two Trains Running” is Penumbra director Lou Bellamy's latest production from August Wilson’s "20th Century Cycle," which chronicles the African-American experience, decade by decade, from 1899-2000. In 2007, Penumbra Theatre Company (a Knight Arts grantee) committed to producing each one of the cycle’s plays — and counting “Two Trains,” they’ve...
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    Finalists announced in challenge to find new models of local arts coverage and criticism

    Published October 10, 2011 by

    This summer, 233 ideas for new models of local arts coverage and criticism were submitted as part of the first-ever Knight/NEA Community Arts Journalism Challenge. The challenge focused on the eight communities where Knight Foundation invests.Today, Knight Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts announced the five finalists who will have the opportunity to create an Idea to Action plan for their idea to inform and engage audiences in the arts. You can watch the announcement live at 1 p.m. EDT/10 a.m. via a live webcast, straight from the Grantmakers in the Arts conference in San Francisco. Follow @knightfdn on Twitter for updates during the session on Monday and join the conversation using the hashtag #artsjourn. Several themes run through the finalist’s projects, including partnerships between traditional and new media and ways to foster greater participation from cultural art lovers.
  • Article

    The persistence of memory

    Published October 7, 2011 by

    By Gregory Lucas-Myers, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History You cannot describe a museum without the context of history. Go ahead, try... you can’t. When you get down to it, the duty of a museum is to make sure that the lessons of history are not only remembered,...