Hi all,

Thanks for the great update. I think immigration and environmentalism are great topics. They raise a lot of issues. Now I think the task for next week is to hone in on specifically what you mean by these issues.

Things are still a bit broad but once you find key examples, eventually the collaborative process will be more organic. In the list of artists you came up with, can you give me specific projects? It's a great working list, and I think I might be able to contact some of the artists about contributing work, BUT this only makes sense if the work fits within the context of the group show. Curating a show undergoes various phases. Sometimes some artworks fit and a few weeks later they seem to contradict with others. It's a perpetual editing process, but a fun one.

For November 9th:

I want each of you to find "case examples" for each theme, or theme intersections. Find works by either the artists you mentioned below or other artists. Take a picture of the piece or just pull the image from the net and email us all the image and a few statements about how you feel this work fulfills the criteria. In these texts describe the work, how it makes you feel, and what do you think it is doing. The text does not have to be yours. It can be a compilation of text written by a previous curator or pulled from the artist's statements. But most importantly, I want you to connect the themes to the art by looking, reading, and thinking through the actual art. This will then help you and all of us try to find out the various artistic operational modes available when discussing 2 big themes such as environmentalism and immigration.

This requires a lot of time reading and digging through journals, the internet, libraries. Use keywords such as borders, ecology, sustainability, landscape, immigration, diaspora, migration, politics, bio-politics, etc. Be creative and juxtapose your word choice.

Sometimes, projects just strike you on an aesthetic level, other times you find projects conceptually strong and unique.

****I want each of you to email 3 works with text BY FRIDAY (you can use the artists we discussed or other ones). I will do the same.

Refer to these websites if you want to find new artists

Artists Space
http://afonline.artistsspace.org/
You can use a keyword search as well as search regionally.

White Columns
http://registry.whitecolumns.org/
White Columns is a gallery space here in NY.
http://www.e-flux.com/
E-flux is a world wide listserv of upcoming and previous shows. You can use the search to find previous press realases and look at older curatorial projects. This is a good place to find artists in group shows.

Art Pace has an archive of previous projects, but no keyword search.

Also check Houston, Dallas, San Antonio galleries and the artists that show there. They should have images as well as staments/reviews.

http://channel.creative-capital.org/topic_13.html
This webpage is a list of grant recipients that have applied to Creative Capital (one of the largest national funders for the arts). Creative Capital started a grant program for artists engaged in art and the environment. Here's a link to all the winners. There is some great projects here. Read up on them and if find you them striking (aesthetically, conceptually, politically, poetically) begin researching them using the net or see if you can find any additional information in the library from them.

Good luck,

Steve Lam