farmlab Public SalonAmy BalkinFriday, November 7, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

On the Ground

About The Salon
How does does the history of land apportionment and toxic waste dump siting in California relate to climate change and emissions trading? Join Amy Balkin for a discussion about land, art, climate, and justice as they relate to her projects Invisible-5, Public Smog, and This is the Public Domain.

Amy is a collaborator on Invisible-5, an environmental justice audio tour along the Interstate 5 corridor between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Working together with Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Pond: Art, Activism, and Ideas, and artists Kim Stringfellow and Tim Halbur, the collaborators created a tour of 23 stops, each a site of geopolitical struggle on the route. These conflicts are articulated by a range of citizen-activists whose health and lives have been altered by historic and current race and class inequity in the siting and distribution of polluting land uses in California. You can download the project at invisible5.org

She will also discuss two ongoing attempts to initiate public parks – Public Smog, an atmospheric clean-air park that fluctuates in location and scale, and This is the Public Domain, is an attempt to open a permanent global commons near Tehachapi, CA. Activities to create Public Smog have included purchasing and retiring emission offsets in regulated emissions markets, making them inaccessible to polluting industries, and an attempt to submit the atmosphere for inscription on the World Heritage List.

About The Presenter
San Francisco-based artist Amy Balkin’s practice combines cross-disciplinary research and social critique, exploring how people create, interact with, and impact the social and material landscapes we inhabit.

Her projects often involve multidisciplinary collaborations with artists, activists, scientists, and others, in works that increasingly consider spatial and environmental justice, including This is the Public Domain (2001+), Public Smog (2004+), and the audio tour collaboration Invisible-5 (2006). Her most recent work is Sell us your Liberty, or we’ll Subcontract your Death (2008), a series of large-format rubbings taken from architectural signage of San Francisco Bay Area entities engaged in the local production of war.

In 2007 she traveled to the Arctic with Cape Farewell, a UK-based project to bring artists and scientists together to enhance public awareness of climate change.

www.publicsmog.org

www.invisible5.org

www.thisisthepublicdomain.org

Photo: (Top) Courtesy Amy Balkin

Farmlab Public SalonMark VallianatosPresented w/ Next American CityMagazineFriday, October 31, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

The Politics of Food

About the Salon

Next American City is a Philadelphia-based national nonprofit magazine that cover cities across the country. Our goal is to highlight what is working and not working our cities, so we can promote sustainable growth.

As part of our new event initiative, we want to visit the cities we walk about - so starting in Los Angeles, Next American City will be visiting a different city across the country each month. In each city we will be hosting a series of events to bring out like-minded individuals and engage them in conversation pertinent to the future of their city. In Los Angeles, we will kick off the first in our lecture series, "The Livable City," with a conversation about food and its role in an urban city like Los Angeles.

"Mark Vallianatos, policy director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College, will discuss Los Angeles' politicized food landscape—from the city’s agricultural heritage, food justice and the fast-food ban, to the future of food in a city transformed by immigration and global trade."

About the Opening Presentation

Prior to Vallianatos' lecture, Farmlab is pleased to welcome another pair of special guests, Los Angeles artists Charles Hachadourian & Poorang Nori, as they present their performance piece, "Toneer Lavash."

From the duo:

"Baking bread is poly-ethnic, multi-tribal ritual shared by most grain-eating peoples. Whether baked in a simple earthen oven, tandoor, or toneer, the simple act of dropping or plopping of a rolled out billet of dough on a wall of semi-porous clay or earthen conical vessel heated by a simple fire, provides a quick nourishing, tasty morsel.

"The toneer is a cylindrical or conically shaped baking oven use both in the Near and Middle East. It is buried in insulating earth where a small intake hole acts as a manifold for a wooden fire that quickly heats the vertical inner walls of the toneer. A ball of dough is rolled out and stretched on top of a cotton covered pillow that is filled with straw. The pillow then is “puffed” on to the toneer wall. After a few seconds the baked lavash bread is removed from the wall with a pointy skewer."

Thanks Everyone + See You Monday

Great thanks to everyone involved with the Chora Prints 2008 project, and to everyone who attended and participated in last night's opening reception.

The Farmlab gallery will be closed the rest of the weekend. We look forward to welcoming all of you to see the project next Mon-Fri, from 10am-5pm daily, or by appointment.

For more information, including a print gallery, print purchasing information, and photo gallery, please visit the www.chora.info website.

Thank you all again, and everyone soon.

-The Metabolic Studio / Chora / Farmlab team

Farmlab Public SalonDr. Marcus Eriksen & Anna Cummins Friday, January 23, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

"Synthetic Sea, Synthetic Me"

About the Salon

Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation discuss the issue of plastic debris fouling our oceans, entering our food chain, and ultimately winding up on our dinner plates. They will discuss their recent project to build JUNK, a raft from 15,000 bottles that sailed to Hawaii this past summer, and their upcoming voyage JUNKride, cycling from Vancouver to Tijuana to raise awareness about plastic marine debris. Learn how the rapid accumulation of plastic debris is impacting our global oceans, and what we can do to stop the plastic plague.

About the Salon Participants

Marcus Eriksen received his Ph.D. in Science Education from University of Southern California in 2003, months before embarking on a 2000-mile journey down the Mississippi River on a raft made from plastic bottles. Years earlier, Marcus had worked for several zoos and museums, founding his own company, Mission Science, in 1997, visiting hundreds of California schools lecturing on geology and paleontology. Mission Science also includes a summer field course for teachers to join him excavating dinosaurs in Wyoming, which he still does today. He also hosts "Commando Weather," a series of public service announcements about the science of weather, for the Weather Channel. He is also the Director of Research and Education for the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, studying and lecturing about the plague of plastic debris in our watersheds and in the ocean. In 2006, he won the H. David Nahai Water Quality Award in Education, presented by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board for his work with students to build an ocean-going raft from plastic bottles. In 2005, Marcus created Watershed Wonders, an educational video series packaged with curriculum materials for Junior and Senior High Schools. Episodes include "Bottle Rocket down the Mississippi River", "Coastal Wetlands and the Journey of Fluke", and "Cola Kayak and the Los Angeles River." Marcus recently published his first book, titled "My River Home" (Beacon Press, 2007) chronicling his experience as a marine in the 1991 Gulf War and his 5-month journey down the Mississippi River.

His latest adventure sent him rafting across the Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii on JUNK, a vessel floating on 15,000 plastic bottles, 30 sailboat masts lashed to form a deck, and a Cessina airplane fuselage as a cabin. The journey, 2,600 miles in 88 days, brought attention to the work of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and the issue of plastic trash filling the world's oceans. On his next adventure, Marcus and his wife, will bicycle from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico to lecture about achieving a culture of sustainability.


Anna Cummins has over 10 years of experience in environmental non-profit work, education, writing, and campaign development. She has worked in marine conservation, coastal watershed management, international environmental policy, and high school ecology instruction. She received her undergraduate in History from Stanford University, and her Masters in International Environmental Policy from the Monterey Institute for International Studies.

In 2001, Anna received a fellowship from the Sustainable Communities Leadership Program, to for Santa Cruz based non-profit Save Our Shores, coordinating bilingual outreach education and community relations. At Save Our Shores, Anna came across The Algalita Marine Research Foundation's work on plastic marine debris. She later joined Algalita's 2004 research voyage to Guadalupe Island, to collect evidence of plastic ingestion by Laysan Albatross. In 2005, Anna returned to Los Angeles, to teach ecology and organic cooking at New Roads School, coordinate Green Living Workshops for Sustainable Works, and found the Bring Your Own campaign. In 2007 she joined the Algalita Marine Research Foundation as education adviser, and spent a month on board the foundation's 6th research trip to the North Pacific Gyre.

Anna has published a number of articles and chapters on environmental themes, including a regular columns for the Santa Monica Mirror and Worldchanging Los Angeles, 2 chapters in "Proceed With Passion: Engaging Students in Meaningful Education" (Red Hen Press), and numerous sustainability-themed blogs. She is currently continuing her work on plastics education with Algalita and Bring Your Own.


Image courtesy Anna Cummins


The Public Salon Series takes place Fridays @ Noon at 1745 N. Spring Street #4, Los Angeles, CA 90012. A complimentary buffet lunch is served, on a first-come, first-served basis.

Also open for viewing and purchasing through February 13, 2009: Chora Prints 2008: New Political Posters From TJ2LA .

Farmlab Public SalonJoel ReynoldsFriday, January 23, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

"Whales, Dolphins, Sonar, and the U.S. Navy"
About the Salon

Winter v NRDC was the name of the recent controversial U.S. Supreme Court case that challenged the U.S. Navy's use of sonar off the coast of southern California. At this Salon, Joel Reynolds of the Natural Resources Defense Council (the "NRDC" in the court case name) will discuss the outcome of the case, the reasoning and the science behind the NRDC's arguments, and perhaps hypothesize about what 2009 may bring regarding the matter.

From a Joel Reynolds blog post the week prior to the arguments:

"As I wrote about previously, NRDC challenged the Navy's refusal to comply with federal environmental laws when using mid-frequency active sonar during fourteen long-planned exercises in southern California. There is no question that sonar injures and kills whales and dolphins. The Navy admitted as much in its official "Environmental Assessment" of the exercises, estimating that the exercises would significantly disturb or injure an estimated 170,000 marine mammals, including causing permanent injury to more than 450 whales and temporary hearing impairment in at least 8,000 whales.

"Nonetheless, in planning its exercises, the Navy refused to adopt common-sense measures to protect marine mammals from the effects of its dangerous sonar technology. The Navy's failures led both the district court and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to conclude that the Navy had violated federal environmental laws. To remedy the Navy's violations, while still allowing the Navy to effectively train, the district court required the Navy to adopt additional safeguards protecting whales and other marine mammals."

About the Salon Speaker

Joel Reynolds is the Director of National Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) Urban Program, the Marine Mammal Protection and So. California Ecosystem projects.

OPENING TONIGHT 10/24/08 @ 7-10PM AT FARMLABChora Prints 2008New Political Posters From TJ2LANuevos Posters Politicos de TJ a LA

Receptions & Schedule

Chora Prints 2008: New Political Posters From TJ2LA / Nuevos Posters Politicos de TJ a LA opens in Los Angeles tonight, Friday, October 24, 2008, from 7-10pm at Farmlab -- 1745 N. Spring Street #4, LA, CA 90012

Participating Artists

2cent
John Carr
Ofelia Esparaza
Ruben Esparza
Brandy Flower
Ak-Ami
Miguel Angel Reyes
Jose Ramirez

Maria del Carmen Arroyo
Mely Barragan
Alvaro Blancarte
Luis Garzon
Alfredo Gutierrez
Noni Olabisi
Roberto Rosique
Daniel Ruanova

Sandow Birk
Lauren Bon
Mark Bradford
George Herms
Hannah Krut-Powell
Qingyun Ma
Rich Neilson
Felicity Powell

About The Project

For more information, including photo gallery, print gallery, video gallery, and more, please visit www.chora.info

La Ofrenda 2008November 2-7, 2008@ Los Angeles State Historic Park

For the fourth year in a row Farmlab invites you to celebrate life by honoring our ancestors with La Ofrenda.

Walk among the field of zempoalxochitl (marigolds), enjoy the beauty of nature and the L.A. Skyline, where you will be greeted by a magical place. Inside the Anabolic Monument you will come upon a community offering, La Ofrenda. Place a picture or a name of the being that you are remembering and offer your song, words, or flowers to that ancestor.

La Ofrenda will be open to the public from Nov. 2 - 7 at the Los Angeles State Historic Park inside the Anabolic Monument during regular park hours, which are from dawn to dusk. Farmlab welcomes you.

-- Olivia Chumacero, La Ofrenda coordinator

Photo Illustration: Not A Cornfield Ofrenda 2006.

Basket Making WorkshopSunday, October 26, 2008 @ 1-4pm

Farmlab and the Tongva people, the indigenous tribe of the Los Angeles basin area, invited one and all last Sunday to an afternoon of craft and celebration featuring basket making, gourd painting, xempoalxochitl (marigold) stringing, and the opportunity to identify Southern California native plants. The celebration took place amidst Cornhenge, the metabolic monument, located on the grounds of the Los Angeles State Historic Park. All workshops were free-of-charge and open to the public.

Farmlab Public SalonBen Sullivan, Bonnie Bills, Bo Oppenheim & Caroline HeldmanFriday, October 24, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

Obama, McCain and the Sciences

About the Salon

Barring catastrophe, either Barak Obama or John McCain will be the next president of the United States. As such, he will be the single most influential figure in U.S. science funding for at least the next four years. But where do the candidates stand on the sciences, and to what extent will ideology affect their funding choices?

With the nation facing ballooning deficits, and the possibility of a risk-averse Wall Street pulling back from private sector investment, will alternative energy, stem cell research, space exploration, climate change and other important science fields be left by the way? Or will one of these two men lead the charge to a new era in U.S. science dominance?

About the Salon Participants

Panelists
Bo Oppenheim is Professor of Mechanical and Systems Engineering at Loyola Marymoung University and Graduate Director of Mechanical Engineering. He is also Director of the US Department of Energy's Industrial Assessment Center and Co-Chair of the Lean Systems Engineering Working Group, for the International Council for Systems Engineers.

Caroline Heldman is an Assistant Professor of Politics, Occidental College, Los Angeles. She has published in the top journals in her field, and has co-authored Rethinking Madame President: Are we Ready for a Woman in the White House. She specializes in the presidency, media, gender, and race in the American context. She holds a bachelors degree in business administration from Washington State University, and has worked as the General Manager for Bio-Energy Systems and a Research Manager for Consumer Health Sciences. Dr. Heldman has also been active in "real world" politics as a congressional staffer, campaign manager, campaign consultant, and political activist.

Bonnie Bills is writing her MA thesis in philosophy on the ethical obligations of science journalists. An Echo Park-based writer and editor, she spent many years developing consumer and professional books on digital photography and computer hardware and software for the publisher Sybex, and she has written about public health, women's health care, AIDS, and the environmental and social effects of technology for various print and online news publications. Her philosophical interests include critiques of scientific realism, the demarcation between science and pseudoscience, science research and social accountability, the presentation of risk and probability, bioethics, environmental ethics, and philosophy of technology.

Moderator:
Ben Sullivan is editor and publisher of ScienceBlog.com. He has written about science, health care and business for publications including the Los Angeles Times, the Economist Intelligence Unit, the New York Times Magazine and the LA Weekly. He lives in Highland Park.

Image from masspoz.com via Ben Sullivan

F.L.A.G. Moving

Here's a short video about the recent move of the Farmlab Agbin Garden (F.L.A.G.). Read here for more information about the project.

Farmlab Public SalonMarqueece Harris-DawsonFriday, October 17, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

How A Presidential Campaign Resembles Community Organizing -- On a Grand Scale

About the Salon

Join Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Executive Director of Community Coalition, as he compares and contrasts the process of campaigning for the presidency with the process of community organizing.

About the Salon Presenter

Marqueece Harris-Dawson has been a dedicated activist for more than twenty years. He completed his Bachelor?s degree at Morehouse College. Currently, he is the Executive Director of Community Coalition, a community-based organization in South Los Angeles. Marqueece is the second Executive Director of Community Coalition, following its founder, current California State Assembly Member, Karen Bass. The organization is best known for leading grassroots campaigns to close over 200 liquor stores and other nuisance businesses in South Los Angeles and winning the struggle to obtain College Prep courses for all LAUSD high school students.

For five years, Marqueece ran the Community Coalition youth project, South Central Youth Empowered thru Action, as Program Director. During that time, he led a campaign to expose the poor learning conditions at South Los Angeles High Schools. Student members of South Central Youth Empowered thru Action entered their schools, armed with disposable cameras and documented the conditions they were facing on a daily basis. They then trained to advocate for the badly needed repairs at their campuses, including leaking bathrooms and faulty lighting systems. As a result of Marqueece?s focused leadership and the students? tenacity, they won $153 million in repairs for their schools.

In addition to his work at Community Coalition, Marqueece has extensive experience in electoral politics and is a key participant in the Progressive Movement in Los Angeles. Marqueece was a delegate to the United Nations World Conference Against Racism (2001, Durban, South Africa) and the World Festival of Students and Youth (1997, Havana, Cuba) and serves on a myriad of boards, committees and organization affiliations. Recently, Marqueece received a certificate in non profit management from Stanford?s Graduate School of Business.
--from www.clockshop.org

More information about this salon to be posted soon...

F.L.A.G. On the MoveNew Volunteer Gardening Opportunities Available

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT F.L.A.G.

Six months after its inception at the North end of the Los Angeles State Historic Park, the Farmlab Agbin Garden has gone mobile. In doing so we are experimenting with one of the key functions of the garden: its ability to maintain a viable community of gardeners while moving from one location to another.

Though the move is a short one, merely to the other side of Baker St. adjacent to the Farmlab building, it allows the F.L.A.G. team to experience the garden in a very different environment. More limited sun exposure, access to rainwater from roofs, daily foot traffic from garment workers, and heavier car traffic are some of the challenges and opportunities the new site provides.

Some of the existing gardeners have reduced the size of their garden from three bins to one, making room for new volunteers to join to project.

If you are interested in gardening at F.L.A.G. please contact Jaime Lopez Wolters at jaimejuantara@gmail.com




Farmlab photos by Kate Balug

Seeding, Constitution Talk, Community CircleOctober 20, 2008 @ 8-10am

This just in from Farmlab consultant Olivia Chumacero:

"Hello co-conspirators for our planet,

October 20 @ 8-10 a.m. we are going to have a community circle that will begin seeding the amaranth and stringing xempoalxochitl, while Prof. Ides gives his talk on the Constitution and its reference to our everyday.

Volunteers from CBE, Homeboy, Chinatown TeenPost, and United Native American Involvement orgs. will be joining us that morning. These organizations have been sending volunteers throughout the summer as we worked to keep the 16 acre parksite cleared of invasive plants. In addition to the talk, and the physical tasks, there will also be live music.

Thank you everyone,
olivia"

Farmlab Public SalonCarol WellsFriday, October 10, 2008 @ NoonFree-of-Charge

Can Design Stop A War?

About the Salon

Join Carol Wells for the conversation, "Can Design Stop a War?," a topic she has presented on three continents about the power of posters opposing U.S. interventions into the domestic affairs of sovereign nations since World War II. These posters show hopes and dreams, and the pain of dreams destroyed. They document the efforts of people who refuse to remain silent and who use the power of art to inspire action. Wells will also show posters from recent and future exhibitions, including "Subvertisements—Using Ads and Logos for Protest"; "Presidential Rogues Gallery—Satirical Posters 1960s to the Present" and "MasterPeaces—High Art for Higher Purpose."

About The Salon Participant

Carol Wells is an activist, medieval art historian, curator, and poster collector. She started collecting posters in 1981 and produced her first exhibition that same year. She founded the Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG) after realizing that no collections were using posters to educate, agitate and inspire people to action, which is why protest posters are made in the first place. CSPG has more than 65,000 human rights and protest posters, including the largest collection in the United States of posters from the 1960s to the present. For more information please visit CSPG’s website www.politicalgraphics.org

Image: Environmental Action, Offset, 1969, Washington, D.C., 6338.
Image via www.politicalgraphics.org.

Farmlab To Participate in William Mead Community Beautification ProjectSaturday, October 11, 2008 @ 8am-1pm