MUSEUM OF ART AND DESIGN AT MDC PRESENTS THEPANEL DISCUSSION AND WORKSHOP CITY LAB: TRANSFORMING CITIES THROUGH INNOVATIVE CULTURAL ACTION

Miami, FL, March 18, 2019Museum of Art and Design (MOAD) at Miami Dade College (MDC) will present City Lab: Transforming Cities through Innovative Cultural Action, a panel discussion and workshop that explore how thinking like an artist can improve urban life through collaborative and cross-disciplinary projects. Speakers will include Marcus Faustini, Marcos García, and Osvaldo Sánchez; the moderator of the panel will be George Yudice. The panel discussion will take place Wednesday, April 3, and the workshop Friday, April 5.

Based respectively in Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, and Mexico City, the art and culture activists Marcus Faustini, Marcos García, and Osvaldo Sánchez lead initiatives modeled on the methods of art that enable local inhabitants to transform their cities by operating outside of the boundaries of traditional professions or disciplines. The resulting projects have generated innovative ways to improve urban life at the local level by having neighborhood residents identify issues to be tackled, and then collaborate with professionals and non-professionals alike; all the parties bring different sets of knowledge and skills. We can see these initiatives as putting into practice the French philosopher Jacques Rancière’s observation that art consists of a third element, existing between the two parties of artist and spectator, and owned by no one. In these cases, however, the third element or the art might be said to be the aesthetic process itself, the mediation by which residents, professionals, and artists discover cross-disciplinary ways of working together that might not otherwise have emerged. Conventional collaborative art projects and professional approaches to urban problems generally lack this complex synergy.

Faustini, García, and Sánchez will discuss their respective initiatives and the context of their local urban environments, as well as the new types of cultural institutions they direct, in a panel on the evening of April 3, moderated by Miami professor George Yudice. On April 5, the three directors will lead a workshop on creative approaches to citizen empowerment. While considering specific tactics and methodologies relating to Miami, the workshop will focus on exchanging ideas with residents, and initiatives that seek to transform the cities in which we live.

City Lab: Transforming Cities through Innovative Cultural Action is the first program in MOAD’s A City of the People series, which will take place at multiple locations throughout Miami from April to December of this year. A City of the People will feature a wide range of art experiences, screenings, readings, and public programs that explore what it means to exist in, and as, an urban community. While offering an introduction to the cross-disciplinary, cutting-edge programming to follow, City Lab will initiate discussion on art’s capacity to reimagine civic life.

A theater director, filmmaker, writer, and activist based in Rio de Janeiro, Marcus Faustini currently coordinates Agência de Redes para Juventude (Agency of Youth Networks), which provides favela residents with platforms for inventing creative projects that develop their talents while bettering their neighborhoods and the city at large. These projects might encompass anything from starting a business that provides a needed service to helping launch a campaign to elect a young person from the favela to municipal office.

Marcos García is Artistic Director of Madrid’s MediaLab Prado, which he describes as “a citizen laboratory of production, research, and broadcasting of cultural projects. It explores the forms of experimentation and collaborative learning that have emerged from digital networks.”

Osvaldo Sánchez is Artistic Director of inSite/Casa Gallina in Mexico City’s Santa María la Ribera neighborhood. A former director of the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, the Museo Tamayo, and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, he now facilitates projects proposed and carried out by local residents, whom he describes as forming a collective “body exposed to conflict, entropy, and resistance, and obliged for that very reason to constantly generate new imaginaries and desires.”

Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Miami, George Yudice (moderator) is the author of The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the Global Era. He is currently working on a book about new types of initiatives that foster collaborative citizen innovation, both within and outside art settings.

All programs take place in the second-floor galleries of MOAD. These programs are free and open to the public.

In April 2018, the Museum of Art and Design, Miami Dade College’s flagship museum, reopened with a renewed belief that art and design can change our communities and the world. MOAD offers groundbreaking exhibitions and programs that explore the challenges and opportunities we face locally and globally. Its programming convenes leading artists, designers, and thinkers to address the urgent questions of our time. MOAD strives to be a catalyst for action and a place that empowers people to rethink and remake their city. As the museum of Miami Dade College, MOAD follows its lead in operating throughout the city. Based in Downtown Miami’s Historic Freedom Tower, MOAD considers itself a Museum Without Boundaries. Its programing takes place in many neighborhoods, inviting everyone to be a part of the conversation. MOAD’s aim is to foster a reimagined Miami, built by and with its citizens.

WHAT:              City Lab: Transforming Cities through Innovative Cultural Action Public Programs

WHEN:             Panel Discussion: Wednesday, April 3, at 7 p.m. | Workshop: Friday, April 5, 7 – 9 p.m.

WHERE:           Museum of Art and Design at MDC

Freedom Tower

600 Biscayne Boulevard

Museum Hours: Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 1 – 6 p.m., Thursday 1 – 8 p.m.

Museum admission: $12 adults; $8 seniors and military; $5 students (13–17) and college students (with valid ID); free for MOAD members, MDC students, faculty, and staff, and children 12 and under.  Accessibility challenges: please call (305) 237-7710 for details.

For updates and a full schedule of events, please visit http://www.mdcmoad.org/.

Press Contacts: JWI PR—Jessica Wade Pfeffer: 305-804-8424, jessica@jwipr.com; or Juliana Gutierrez: 305-991-4259, juliana@jwipr.com.