Spectres of Liberty is a project by Dara Greenwald (doctoral candidate, MFA 2007), Josh MacPhee, and Olivia Robinson (MFA 2004). Their hybrid work emerges from a practice that combines expanded cinema, relational aesthetics, situated and community practices, as well as media such as digital animation, video, inflatable sculpture, web, text, and print.

Please join them in Syracuse in May & June for both programming with amazing organizers, activists, and artists during May 17-June 4, and then the spectacular outdoor culminating event:

The Great Central Depot in the Open City

Saturday, June 5 (Sunday, June 6 is the raindate)

Lipe Art Park in Syracuse - a site where 5000 abolitionists gathered in the 1850s

-----------------------------

Participate, Discuss & Create

OPEN CITY WORKSHOP * May 17-June 4, 2010 * 307 Clinton Street

Open Daily noon - 6pm

May 18 6pm - Open Access, Open Art - discussion with Community Folk Art Center
May 19 7pm - Open Movement - discussion about boundaries and mobility
May 20 7pm - Open Options - discussion about Civil Rights & CORE in Syracuse
May 21 8pm - Open House Party!
May 23 4pm - Open Economy Ice Cream Social - sponsored by Milk Not Jails
May 24-June 4 Open Sessions - lunchtime interviews & discussions

Spectacular Outdoor Public Art Event

The Great Central Depot in the Open City * June 5, 2010 * Lipe Art Park
(Near corner of Fayette & Seneca; Rain Date: June 6, 2010) 

The Open City Workshop is part of a larger project called The Great Central Depot in the Open City, a public art project that explores the connections between Syracuse's abolitionist history and the present.

In the mid-19th Century, Syracuse, New York, was central to the anti-slavery movement in the United States. Called the "Great Central Depot," its residents, and those of the surrounding region, helped thousands of individuals escape slavery. Jermaine Loguen, a local Reverend and station master in the Underground Railroad, called Syracuse an "Open City" because he and fellow abolitionists spoke and published anti-slavery sentiments while openly providing sanctuary for freedom-seekers. 

The Open City Workshop, held in a downtown storefront, will be open to the public for three weeks of discussions, workshops and brainstorming. The discussions will be shared on Redhouse Radio, through video recordings and ultimately used to create Open City animations featured in a public presentation. This culminating one night, community event will respond to the question, "Is Syracuse an Open City today? What would it mean to move Loguen's Open City from the realm of metaphor to a lived reality today?"

Partners for this project include the Community Folk Art Center, The Matilda Joslyn Gage Home and the Art School in the Art School. This variable media art work is made possible, in part by the Franklin Furnace Fund supported by Stimulus funds from the New York State Council on the Arts a state agency; the Lambent Foundation; and Jerome Foundation. This project is made possible with Funds from New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Grant Program, a State Agency and the Cultural Resources Council a Region Arts Council.

*** www.spectresofliberty.com ***