This past weekend I made it to Grand Rapids to check out Art Prize. Art Prize made it's debut last year and was a hugh hit. What a genius idea! Gather artists and their work from around the world and set up different venues around the city to draw in masses of people. Businesses benefit, the artists show their work, and thousands upon thousands of people experience a free art exhibit as big as a city. The people vote on their favorites and the winning artist gets a fat check.
I've placed my vote for "Plan B"-- a collaborative project that several of my best friends have been involved with. It is in Ah-Nab-Awen park near the Gerald R. Ford museum (seen on the left side of the photo below).
So what is it? We are currently living in Plan A -- a world driven by oil and coal -- non-renewable resources. Plan B explores the "post peak oil world where electricity is only intermittent and almost everything used to keep daily life humming along has been made out of preexisting products and materials. A combination of very old technologies with what can be patched together out of the rubble of what has been made before, fallen apart and left behind".
They have a functional kitchen, tents made of recycled billboards, a stage that runs by bicycle power, water filtration (also pumped by a bike), chickens, rabbits, a garden, and the Wonder Wagon.
People are living in Plan B Town for the entirety of the Art Prize exhibit. My good friends have been spending most of their free time down there.
Here is a photo of my best guy friend (besides my husband of course) starting a fire to make tea.
I wanted to stay longer, but had to make it home the same day. Anyway, if you are anywhere near Grand Rapids right now -- you gotta check it out!
1 comment:
i love the post-petrocollapse project, and the whole huge art exhibit--that sounds amazing. i hope boise catches on and starts something like this because i would love to take part in it. best of luck to your friends--they get my vote.
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