PAA Awarded 2010 Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative Grant!

The Philadelphia Art Alliance has been awarded a Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative (PEI) Grant for an exhibition by The Miss Rockaway Armada entitled Let Me Tell You About a Dream I Had, scheduled for the Fall of 2011.  Here is a full description of the project along with photos and videos of previous Miss Rockaway Armada projects:

The Philadelphia Art Alliance will commission Let Me Tell You About the Dream I Had, a new installation by artists’ collective The Miss Rockaway Armada, which will both challenge traditional notions and parameters of museum display and engage the community with outdoor components, specifically the construction of a flotilla of boats that will travel up the Schuylkill River from Bartram’s Gardens to the Walnut Street docking area. The boats will then be transformed to travel by land and reach selected destinations in the University City and Kensington neighborhoods of Philadelphia.

Miss Rockaway Armada from their 2006 journey down the Mississippi River

The Miss Rockaway Armada has been recognized for its highly-engaging mobile constructions, museum installations, performances, and vaudeville-style theatre.  The collective’s charmingly ramshackle brand of assemblage reflects on sustainable ways of living and addresses environmental issues associated with renewable resources and the handmade.

The Miss Rockaway Armada will explore the maritime history of Philadelphia with a series of flotilla trips down the Schuylkill as well as performances and installations at community sites throughout the city, resulting in community interaction that is both entertaining and educational.

For more information about the Miss Rockaway Armada, visit their website: http://www.missrockaway.org

For more information about The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage through the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, visit their website:  http://www.pcah.us

PEI Planning Grant Awarded to PAA!!

We are very pleased to announce our recent award of a planning grant through the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative (PEI) for an upcoming exhibition involving the Miss Rockaway Armada (MRA).   Although this is only the first of many stages to bring this exhibition concept to life, we figured it best to let you all know about what we are up to.  Here is a description of the proposed exhibition:

“Let Me Tell You About The Dream I Had” by The Miss Rockaway Armada will present a newly commissioned installation throughout the galleries of the Philadelphia Art Alliance, along with musical and theatrical performances, and a mobile outdoor component for the exhibition. The indoor and outdoor elements will address the unique features of the historical building as a residence, as well as its relationship to Rittenhouse Square, and will explore the resurgence of interest in the handmade and the ways in which it expands current definitions of what is craft.

The Miss Rockaway Armada is a group of performers and artists from across the country, including members of other artist collectives such as the Toy Shop Collective, Visual Resistance, The Amateurs, The Floating Neutrinos, among many others. Formed in the summer months of 2006, the Armada converged in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to construct a flotilla of rafts that journeyed down the Mississippi River in 2006 and 2007. With the intent to create a new sustainable mode of travel as well as to present programs regarding arts and environmental issues, the project stopped in towns along the river to present musical performances and vaudeville variety-theater. The artists described the goal of this two-year project as “a live-by-example approach to creating change within American culture by soliciting dialogue around subversive and constructive ways of living.”

three musicians perform a vaudeville style show during the journey

Here is video of the floatilla:

“Let Me Tell You About the Dream I Had” will focus on three issues that appropriately meshes the mission of the PAA with the impetus behind the activities of the collective. First, the exhibition will be specific to Philadelphia and its history. Because the PAA is situated across from Rittenhouse Square, early discussions have considered investigating the rather adventurous and inventive personality of David Rittenhouse, the renowned 18th century astronomer, inventor, mathematician, surveyor, and scientific instrument craftsman. However, additional interests specific to the history of the City will also be taken into consideration. Second, the collective will consider the historical features of the PAA building as an aesthetic launching point for both the indoor and outdoor components of the exhibition, making the unique aspects of the building a focal point of the installation. Initial ideas for the outdoor component have included a bicycle-powered vaudeville theater that could travel and perform for other communities in Philadelphia. Third, the project by The Miss Rockaway Armada will be exemplary of the new grass-roots approach to craft that has re-surfaced within the last decade, which has deep roots within craft history. With a focus on community and political activism, this movement has ties to the earliest goals of the Arts and Crafts movement of the 19th century. William Morris hoped to create a brotherhood of designers and makers who would pursue the ideal of creating “utopian communities” by creating “art made by the people and for the people, a joy to the maker and the user.” This social reform aspect is the driving force behind such collectives as The Miss Rockaway Armada. Their goal through their projects is basic and calls for fundamental social change:

“We want to create: to invent a new sustainable way to travel, to demonstrate different ways of living and moving that are friendlier to the environment and to each other, to indulge in that essential urge to make something out nothing. We want to meet people: to learn from new folks along the way, to teach what we know, to share our art, our music and our performance, and to make new friends. Finally, for adventure: to reclaim and reinvent the old American urge to strike out and discover the vast, mysterious land we inhabit and see it for ourselves.”

We will be posting more details on this whimsical new exhibition as soon as we can so check back soon!  Next up in exhibitions news, the coming Fall 2009 exhibition.  Stay Tuned!!