SOSfish @ MIT

Introduction

A school of "Fish" at the Stata Center are getting and giving brain food about WATER. Many beautiful fish and birds made of recycled paint and cardboard have arrived for a visit to MIT. They are on a journey to widen and deepen their (and our) understanding about an awesome and critical resource: WATER.

The school of fish and related ideas about water are growing in a colorful research aquarium (the MIT Stata Center complex designed by Frank O. Gehry & Associates) floating in fluid architectural forms.

The fish and bird forms are currently exhibiting ideas and inspirations about water. They display messages and questions on "bubbles" that have been collected and created by many people over the last decade from diverse cultures, times and disciplines. "From the mouths of the fish, to the ears of the humans, something special about WATER."

We are expanding the fish project this January. The internationally recognized artist, Cindy Snodgrass, is offering two workshops during IAP which are designed to expand our collective awareness and understanding about WATER.

The workshops use art making as both a technology and a philosophy to experience creativity and community while we float a wider conversation about WATER. The project seeks to inspire really intelligent design by looking at low tech and high tech branches of inquiry and wisdom regarding WATER.

We will look for overlaps in ideas and processes that require interdisciplinary, interdependent and sustainable architectures and economic frameworks. Models that aspire to adventures in "cosmic fishing". Cosmic fishing involves looking at water from both an artistic and scientific point of view. It means discovering connections between facts, knowledge, intuition and experience in ways that lead to new ideas and an evolving understanding of the importance of water and our relationship to it. Whenever such ideas and understandings occur to you; you have netted a cosmic fish.

The Workshops

The first project, Assist a Fish is designed to develop a mentorship/outreach program through the process of creating, building, painting, and installing an environmentally conscious school of fish. This environmental and cultural initiative will grow to include watershed groups, fishing communities, and school settings.

Students will expand a traveling art installation in a collaborative project that transforms public spaces and increases water awareness. They will be actively engaged in inventing, painting, and building new fish shapes. They will build larger fish and bird forms, and directly influence the exhibit as it morphs and travels to other locations on campus and around the community, the country, the world.

The workshop will also prepare them to participate as mentors for other students and environmental groups at MIT and in the larger community of Boston during the spring.

• No previous art experience necessary.
• Flexible scheduling, choose your own level of involvement. A six-hour time commitment is recommended if you want to mentor in the spring.
• No limit but advance sign-up required by January 18, 2006 (e-mail sosfish@mit.edu)

The second project, Fish-Mobiles, is part of an on-going traveling installation. Direct participation is simple and fun. Students, Professors, and community members are encouraged to add to the project by painting a side of a fish, or providing a message about water. The sessions are designed for those who are interested in working with the project for a brief period. If you are unable to attend the sessions you can be involved by adding new messages. Feel free to send messages for the fish via sosfish@mit.edu

• No previous art experience necessary.
• Sign-up by January 18, 2006 (e-mail sosfish@mit.edu)
• Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)

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sosfish@mit.edu
Last Updated January 2006