2009 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts
presented by TransCultural Exchange

Conference Overview: Success Stories

Gozo Contemporary
Boston, Massachusetts
Photo by Dimitris Ameladiotis

During my stay in Boston I was surprised to learn of a house underground, famously known as the Nexus Machine Shop and Gallery. For me, this underground house was a chaotic museum of technology, full of wondrous machines for making things, including the standard table saw, lathe and drill press. The wealth of materials and mess of the space inspired me to make a series of work from the objects around me. Created organically from both the space and my fingers, I produced and composed these works by way of intuition and arbitrariness. During this very interesting experience, I had the occasion to think a lot about how many various objects might be put together to create endless abstract histories. Later, I wondered how much the physicality of an artwork relies on its ready-made objects and materials. How many syntheses of the materials may have previously existed? How a person could manage to be happy via the touching (feeling) of the objects? How much does the gestures (the hands' movements, manipulation) and the visual perception of one person determine the aesthetics of the objects?

&ndash Dimitris Ameladiotis (Greece), attendee
2009 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts

Haslla Museum Sculpture Symposium
Photo by Karl Saliter

I signed up for TransCultural Exchange's 2009 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts in 2008, hoping to make some contacts to travel to Asia, where I believed my work in uncut stones was a good aesthetic fit. Being invited to attend the Haslla Museum Sculpture Symposium at my mentoring session in Boston was a welcome surprise. Now, having enjoyed the symposium and a brief residency in this amazing museum overlooking the ocean, with a series of five star meals and Haslla buying all my materials, I am far beyond grateful that I decided to attend TCE. I will certainly go again.

&ndash Karl Saliter, attendee
2009 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts

"Urban Themes, Western/Eastern Cities,"
a collaborative work by Rusty Crump (US) and Gulay Alpay (Turkey)

I was quite honored to be chosen to be one of the participating artists of the Trans Cultural Exchange exhibition Here There and Everywhere. I worked with a Turkish painter Gulay Apley. I had met Gulay briefly on a recent trip to Istanbul (at the suggestion of TransCultural Exchange's director Mary Sherman). We hit it off immediately and I was very impressed with her work. Her painting is loose and free, uninhibited where my photography is more structured and controlled. We both felt that because of the "polar differences" in our work and our different cultural backgrounds that a collaboration could produce interesting results and in the process we'd have to deal with work that is so different from our own aesthetic. We looked forward to being challenged in interesting and unexpected ways. We were both pleased with the results that came out of our partnership, so much so that we hope to exhibit our work In Istanbul in 2010. Had Gulay and I not participated as partners in Here There Everywhere project we would have remained friends but probably not worked together. Now that we have, we are now investigating future venues to show our collaborative work. I have always found that taking new and unexpected challenges results in expanding your horizons.

- Walter Crump, attendee
2009 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts

Urban Themes, Western/Eastern Cities
Hovinkartano Art Centre Symposium, Finland

I was an original participant in the TransCultural Exchange's Tile Project, Destination: The World, an international tile project, promoting "collaborations between a diverse group of international artists, their communities, non-profit art institutions and the educational sector at a grass roots level." Though this project and, later, through the International Opportunities in the Arts Conferences (2007 and 2009), I connected with international artists. These contacts have led to several career expanding opportunities:

Hovinkartano Art Centre Symposium – I was invited to participate in an international art symposium (group artists' residency) at Hovinkartano Art Centre in Hovinkartano, Hauho, Finland in July 2008. The invitation came from Pirjo Heino, a printmaker and curator at Hovinkartano Art Centre. Pirjo and I met originally met through our mutual involvement in The Tile Project, and then reconnected at the 2007 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts in Boston, where she was a presenter. My art work was shown in an international group exhibition at the Hovinkartano Art Center at the end of the symposium and later in another show at the Ripustus Gallery in Hamenlinna, Finland.

Waterfall — An international collaborative exhibition, installation, and performance with Israeli artist, Karmela Berg (film maker) and Finnish artist, Pirjo Heino (printmaker), at the Nave Gallery in Somerville, MA. Waterfall grew out of an initiative of the TransCultural Exchange's world-wide project entitled "Here, There and Everywhere: Anticipating the Art of the Future." I contacted the international artists, whom I had previously met through TCE to collaborate on this project. As a result of the exhibition, the Nave Gallery (where the show was presented) sold several photos, raising money for WaterAid America. The show, which was coordinated to open with the 2009 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts in Boston, gained international exposure for the Nave Gallery in Somerville, MA.

International Artist Symposium, Croatia — September 2009, I will be going to Croatia for another artist symposium—an invitation which grew directly from friendships made during the Hovinkartano Art Centre Symposium in Finland symposium last summer. The symposium will also result in an international exhibition in Croatia.

- Ellen Schön

"Prayer Flags around the World,"
a collaborative project by Thomas Matsuda

TransCultural exchange sponsored my trip to Romania to the D. Fleiss East-West Artists Symposium. This led to the creation of Prayer Flags Around the World. I was also invited for the first International Art Book Symposium held in Cairo Atelier in December 2008. I have met artists from around the world with whom I still keep in touch with and collaborate.

- Thomas Matsuda, 2007 and 2009 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts attendee

Urban Themes, Western/Eastern Cities
"Paradise re-made"
a collaborative work by Roberly Bell
Photo by Roberly Bell

Paradise re-made is both a sculpture and a participatory artwork that becomes a field, spreading out across the city of Kaliningrad like a landscape. It moves away from the object crafted by the artist and becomes whole only through the desire of the participants. The windows of the abandoned tower are adorned with blooming flower pots. In the yard of the tower the audience is invited to take home a plant from a table of flowering plants and is asked to document its growth/bloom over the summer months, sharing this via the web. Paradise re-made merges the historic site, artwork and audience participation into a shared public performance.

- Roberley Bell (Russia), attendee
2009 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts