Farmlab Public SalonIsmail FaroukFriday September 26, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

Exploring Narratives of Spatial Justice in Johannesberg and L.A.

About the Salon
Artist and urban geographer Ismail Farouk invites you to participate in an active dialogue exploring narratives of spatial injustice in Johannesburg and Los Angeles. The discussion will inform Farouk’s work developing an online application to physically map narratives of spatial justice, while also creating collections of tags to highlight patterns of spatial inequality. Farouk hopes to connect cities worldwide by creating a common visual language for practitioners, so that they can exchange knowledge, develop alliances and mobilize collective responses to local struggles. Farouk believes that sustained visual representation of spatial injustice has the potential to advance the struggle for social justice in cities throughout the world.
Farouk’s work attempts to highlight the patterns of spatial inequality associated with the global desire to narrowly define space along lines of profit. Private-public ventures are at the forefront of this political economy of space. Represented by Business Improvement Districts, they are responsible for altering governance structures within this political economy while claiming to simultaneously improve the quality of life for those who reside in the city. In both Johannesburg and Los Angeles, privatized urban management practices have resulted in areas of uneven services and a fragmented quality of life: wealthy residents and tourists enjoy a clean, seemingly orderly city; while the poor, street vendors and immigrants are criminalized.

About the Salon Presenter
Artist and urban geographer Ismail Farouk is based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Farouk holds a bachelor’s degree in fine art and a master’s degree in geography from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. His work explores and initiates creative responses to racial, social, political and economic injustice. Using a variety of media and tactics, ranging from public performances to web-based mapping applications, Farouk aims to empower and mobilize citizens in the struggle for social and spatial justice. His work has been featured in exhibitions in South Africa, Kenya, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland.
Farouk is in Los Angeles as part of the MAK Center Urban Future Initiative (UFI), an international fellowship program dedicated to creating meaningful cross-cultural exchange about the challenges confronting cities worldwide. To learn more about the UFI fellows and their research, please visit www.makcenterufi.org.

Image: Johannesburg Eviction Carnage (2005) courtesy Ismail Farouk

Farmlab Public SalonAllan Ides + Linda PollackFriday, October 3, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

My Daily Constitution

About the Salon

More information TBA.

About the Salon Participants

Allan Ides is the James P. Bradley Professor of Constitutional Law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. Ides graduated summa cum laude from Loyola Law Schol in 1979. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clement F. Haynsworth, Jr., Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1979-80 and then clerked for the Honorable Byron R. White, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1980-81. Professor Ides joined the Loyola Law School faculty in the fall of 1982 and served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 1984-87. From 1989-97, Professor Ides was a member of the law school faculty at Washington & Lee in Lexington, Virginia. He returned to Los Angeles and to Loyola in Fall 1997. He has written extensively in the areas of Constitutional Law and Civil Procedure and is actively involved in various public service projects, ranging from civil rights litigation to the representation of individuals in deportation proceedings.

Linda Pollack studied finance and economics at Penn State University, and art at the Vrije Akademie (The Hague) and the Jan van Eyck Academy (Maastricht) in the Netherlands. She spent a decade in the Netherlands, eventually combining her art practice with broader cultural interventions through her work as a program director for the Amsterdam-based European Cultural Foundation. There she set up APEXchanges, a groundbreaking arts mobility fund that addressed post-cold war Europe's east / west cultural and economic divide. Linda also developed initiatives promoting reconciliation and civil society in war-torn Yugoslavia, with Haris Pasovic and his Sarajevo Festival Ensemble, and Macedonian rock stars "Leb i Sol", among others. It was in this period, while immersed in her civil-society building work that Linda directed her art practice to the dynamics and visual culture of (aspiring) democracies. In 1996, Linda returned to the U.S. to pursue her MFA in New Genres at UCLA, eventually receiving her MFA from the Visual Arts Department of UCSD.

In 2002, after learning of the passage of the USA PATRIOT ACT, Linda launched the project 'My Daily Constitution' as a tool to create discussion about constitutional democracy in the United States. She has held the series in Los Angeles, NYC, Seattle, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. Last year Linda developed and curated the exhibition PATRIOT ACTS for the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica. For the show, participating artists developed new works inspired by a series of dialogues with constitutional lawyers. Pollack developed her bright red, oval HABEAS LOUNGE seating installation as an accompaniment and a place based support for these events. After its six month run, the HABEAS LOUNGE migrated to downtown Los Angeles at the 7+FIG Art Space at Ernst & Young Plaza, where she created THE HABEAS INDEX, a forum of events, presentations and discussions about Los Angeles and Los Angeles issues. For the Presidential Election in November, the LOUNGE migrates east to the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center's Art Gallery, as part of the exhibition PEOPLE WEEKLY, where Linda will catalyze a series of events -- including constitution readings -- aimed to bolster civil society during this pivotal time in U.S. history.


The United States Constitution, Dunlap & Claypool, September 1787, edition of 500.

Photographed by Linda Pollack, 2004.

Farmlab Public SalonBen Sullivan, Bonnie Bills, Bo OppenheimFriday, October 24, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

McCain, Obama and Science

About the Salon

The salon will offer the perspectives of a scientist, journalist, and historian (hopefully - TBD) on the role science could play in Barack Obama or John McCain White House. With climate change, foreign energy dependence and the technology-driven economy topping each candidate's agenda, how will they use science to further their cause -- and what role will climate skeptics and Intelligent Design advocates play?

About the Salon Participants

Ben Sullivanis the editor of ScienceBlog.com; Bonnie Bills is a science Journalist; Bo Oppenheim is Director of the Loyola Marymount University Graduate Mechanical Engineering Program.

More information will be added soon to this post

Farmlab Public SalonFather Gregory BoyleFriday, August 1, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

"Creating a Community of Kinship Such that God
Would Recognize It."

About the Salon

Join "Fr. Greg" executive director of Homeboy Industries, as he shares stories about his work, and the young people he works with at Homeboy, and how it has become a strong and thriving community.

About the Salon Speaker

Read his bio.