CHAISE ILE by installation artist Roy Staab
Saturday, December 17, 2011 from 2-4pm
Bayou Bienvenue, Corner of Caffin and Florida Avenue in the Lower Ninth Ward
A Studio in the Woods (ASITW) and Lower Ninth Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development (CSED) present CHAISE ILE, an artwork by ASITW resident artist Roy Staab. Staab is a pioneer in site-specific environmental art installations and will use Bayou Bienvenue as the background for an original piece joining waters and woods in a unique artwork, stating that his work “imposes geometry on nature.” The bayou platform from which you view this installation, was built from a neighborhood grassroots effort in partnership with several universities. It has been instrumental in reconnecting the community to their physical environment. One of the only wetlands within Orleans Parish, it is a place where it is possible to see firsthand the loss of the cypress swamps. CSED and its partners are working to establish a pilot program to regrow the cypress forest as a model for replication statewide.
Roy Staab was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and received a BFA from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In 1983 he started to make works in/over water — large works, using only natural materials gathered from near by. He has received various awards including a Japan/American Artist Exchange Creative Artist Fellowship, Pollack/Krasner Grant, Gottlieb Foundation Award and the Joan Mitchell Award. He has constructed these ephemeral installations all over the world including Central Park in New York, Alvar Aalto Museum in Finland, Royal Botanical Gardens in Canada, and Yokohama Museum of Art in Japan. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee recently presented a retrospective of his work, Roy Staab: Four Seasons/Four Corners, in the INOVA Gallery. To see more of Roy’s work, please visit http://www.astudiointhewoods.o
Roy is the third ASITW Ebb & Flow artist-in-residence at A Studio in the Woods. Ebb & Flow is a 6-week residency based on the premise that Southern Louisiana can be seen as a microcosm of the global environment, manifesting both the challenges and possibilities inherent in human interaction with urban and natural ecosystems. We ask artists to describe in detail how the region will affect their work, to propose a public component to their residency and to suggest ways in which they will engage with the local community. A Studio in the Woods, located in the Louisiana wetlands, has observed firsthand the dynamic nature of this rapidly changing territory which in turn affects the entire northern hemisphere. We envision this as a powerful context for the exploration of critical thinking, the development of new ideas and strategies, and using the creative process as a catalyst for social change. Ebb & Flow Residencies are sponsored in part thanks to generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, The RosaMary Foundation and The Surdna Foundation. This program is supported by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council. The grant is administered through the Arts Council of New Orleans.
