SUSAN GREENE ARTIST STATEMENT
Susan Greene is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and clinical psychologist. Her practice intersects a range of cultural arenas, new media, and public art with a focus on borders, migrations, decolonization and memory. Greene’s current work involves public projects that make use of social networking technologies, in addition to, on-the-street listening stations via cell and I-Phone. Through her public art projects Greene conducts research on the intersections of trauma, creativity, resilience and resistance.
BENDING OVER BACKWARDS - PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Bending Over Backwards (BOB) is a series of poetic expressions of the high wire act that surviving and thriving in today’s world can often be. Trapeze artists are pictured in an electrifying peak moment of their craft, embodying a mixture of whimsy, pathos and a sense of extraordinary possibility in their gravity-defying feat. Their success is possible only with great coordination, tenacity, community, dedication, conviction, strength, teamwork, vision and humor, echoing some of the survival skills necessary for a viable life in the twenty first century. Thus far the BOB series has been located in the Mission, long home to a diverse population, waves of refugees, innumerable social justice associations, cultural institutions, non-profit establishments, eateries, etc. Today we all are arguably survivors of the dot COM era that forced out so many. Some of these institutions moved to the Mission, as well as, SOMA to survive. For Performing Community, BOB will thus create connections to SOMA, much like its Mission-based iteration. After Performing Community, BOB will be installed in the SOMA neighborhood and be accompanied by an Alternative Walking Tour, using Do-It-Yourself Smart Phone apps, downloadable from the Web, etc. In collaboration with Freedom Archives and Shaping San Francisco, the tour will take visitors from BOB’s installation near SOMArts to BOB at 16th Street in the Mission. Information about downloading the tour will be available online and at both mural sites, in addition to other listings.
For the duration of Performing Community, Susan Greene will create a second iteration of BOB inside the walls of SOMArts, allowing visitors to watch and engage in the process. BOB will also include an audio and visual installation created through collaborations with Shaping San Francisco and the Freedom Archives, that traces the active histories of SOMA and the Mission.