Inspirational Public Art: A Talk with Janet Echelman

Submitted by EDCO Collaborative

Join renowned artist/sculptor Janet Echelman for an inspiring two hour workshop with a goal of creating a collaborative art assignment to try out with students. Her current sculpture in Boston is made by hand-splicing rope and knotting twine into an interconnected mesh of more than a half-million nodes. When any one of its elements moves, every other element is affected. Monumental in scale and strength yet delicate as lace, it fluidly responds to ever-changing wind and weather. Its fibers are 15 times stronger than steel yet incredibly lightweight, making the sculpture able to lace directly into three skyscrapers as a soft counterpoint to hard-edged architecture. It is a physical manifestation of interconnectedness and strength through resiliency.

Janet will share the inspiring story of how she moved into designing net sculpture environments in metropolitan cities around the world. She sees public art as a team sport and collaborates with a range of professionals including aeronautical and mechanical engineers, architects, lighting designers, landscape architects, and fabricators.

For the second half of the workshop, she will work with participants to design an art project for their students that connects in some way to the city of Boston.

This is a wonderful opportunity for teachers to hear from an internationally acclaimed artist. Janet’s TED talk Taking Imagination Seriously has been translated into 34 languages with more than 1 million views, and Oprah Magazine ranked her art as #1 on the list of 50 Things That Make You Say Wow.

• Presenter: Janet Echelman is an artist who defies categorization. Using unlikely materials from fishnet to atomized water particles, Echelman combines ancient craft with cutting-edge technology to create artworks that have become focal points for urban life on four continents. She is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Harvard University Loeb Fellowship, a Fulbright Lectureship, and the Aspen Institute Crown Fellowship. She recently received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Visual Arts, honoring “the greatest innovators in America today.”
• Audience: K-12 art teachers and anyone else who wants to be inspired by Janet’s work
• Fee for the full workshop (1 to 3 pm): $75 per participant for teams of (4) or more; $95 per individual
• Fee for the general public attending only Echelman’s talk (1 to 2 pm: $25 per person MUST register prior to 9/10/2015.
• Location: EDCO Collaborative, Bedford
• Registration: Contact the office of Curriculum and Instruction in your district. Participants will receive confirmation details via email from EDCO once the course has been finalized.
• Register by: September 10, 2015. Registrations received after the deadline will be accepted if space is available.

About EDCO Collaborative

EDCO is a voluntary collaborative of 18 urban and suburban school districts serving the Greater Boston Metropolitan area and governed by a board of directors comprised of school superintendents and school committee members representing each of its member school districts.

All EDCO programs and services are developed and implemented through extensive consultation with staff in member school districts and other sponsoring agencies. Programs are in alignment with EDCO’s mission, reflect those priorities of EDCO’s primary constituencies, and are provided in a cost effective manner through interdistrict and interagency collaboration.

We support member districts through a wide range of services including professional development services to teachers and administrators from member and non-member school districts; special education programs for students with behavioral and emotional challenges; comprehensive educational programming to middle and high school students who are deaf and hard of hearing; special education transportation through a cost effective consortium of adjacent communities; and cooperative purchasing of utilities and other items upon request.

In addition, EDCO provides services to youth and adults through a variety of state and federally funded programs, including the Massachusetts Migrant Education Program, the Special Education Surrogate Parent Program, the Wrentham Habilitative Service Program, the Boston Public Schools Titles I & II programs, and the EDCO Youth Alternative.