Free Community Trainings

Community Technology Trainings:

The Pillsbury House has partnered with the Minneapolis Art on Wheels to
create a permanent Mobile Broadcast Unit (MBU) which community members can check out for community art activities.

The MBU is equipped with a small, powerful video projector, networked
technologies, and an optional laptop with custom real-time video software.
Learn how to take advantage of the MBU) to produce and exhibit your own
community art projects in your neighborhood.

Trainings will be held Thurs. May 27 and June 3 from 4:30 pm—6 pm at the
Pillsbury House. The trainings are the same on each date. MAW artist Andrea Steudel will lead the workshops.

Things that will be covered during the 90 minute training sessions:
· What is this? What is it intended for? What are some examples of things people have done?
· How to I check it out, what is required to borrow equipment?
· Basic hardware configurations, what the components are and how to connect them all.
· Software – LiveDraw program and other general questions about outputting things to a projector.
· A simple group art project to walk people through using LiveDraw.
· Additional questions people may have.

Space will be limited so please email or call to RSVP for a session.
Contact: Mike Hoyt / 612-787-3655 / hoytm@puc-mn.org

For more information and examples of past projects visit:
Minneapolis Art On Wheels - http://minneapolisartonwheels.org/
Pillsbury House Youth P.A.C. blog - http://youthwonderpac.blogspot.com/

BIKES!

Some of the Youth PAC crew on their new (used) bikes from FullCycle. Each participant earned a bike for their hours of commitment to the project.

Video from the Minneapolis Mirror.

Created and edited by the Minneapolis Mirror, news, views and opinions of everyday people.

SUCCESS! WHAT A GREAT NIGHT...

Our large public event was a success! A crowd of 80+ people braved a cool spring night to share in the welcoming of Karagoz, a 20 ft. tall shadow puppet from Turkey.

Thank you all for attending and supporting the Pillsbury House and the Youth PAC! We will be posting images and video clips from the event.

SHADOWS WITH NO CAPITAL: IS THIS HOME?

“Shadows with No Capital: Is This Home?” will be a nighttime public art event held to conclude the Twin Cities’ visit of two luminous, travelling puppet explorers from across the world! Art work created by a group of Pillsbury House youth during a three-month collaboration with Minneapolis Arts on Wheels (MAW) will welcome them to the Powderhorn and Central neighborhoods.

This event will begin at the Pillsbury House with a community barbeque. This will be the start point of a giant puppet procession to the projection site-where the youth’s creative art work about their community and their ideas of “home” will be shared. The art work will integrate shadow puppetry, poetry, and stop motion video. All community members are invited to participate!

This FREE community art event will be held on Sat. May 8th, 2010 rain or shine.

Times & Locations:

7:30pm -Community Barbeque at the Pillsbury House

8:30pm -Begin puppet procession to Projection Site

9:00pm -Presentation by the Youth P.A.C. (Projection Art Crew) at 34th St and Elliot Ave. S.

MAW Ambassadors: Andrea Steudel, Sinan Goknur.

MAW Artists in Residence: Bart Buch and Kyle Loven

Guest Artists: Anton Jones, Peter Haakon Thompson, Pramila Vasudevan, Katrina Dikkers.

This project is made possible by funds from the Central Area Neighborhood Development Organization (CANDO) and the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA).

Pillsbury House

3501 Chicago Avenue South

Minneapolis, MN 55407

612.824.0708

www.puc-mn.org

Youth P.A.C Stop Motion Expeditions

REVEALING CENTRAL...

On Tuesday April 13, artist Peter Haakon Thompson led a photography project with youth loosly based on a project created by his friend and artist Harrell Fletcher.

The basic format was having youth walk through the neighborhood collecting stop-motion images of things they found interesting, or things that people had told them in previous interviews with neighborhood residents. The youth worked with digital cameras and tripods collecting stop-motion shots of objects, locations, people, landmarks, animals, and anything that caught their eyes. They used their hands to slowly reveal the images they wanted to highlight.

Back in the artlab, Andrea patched them together to create beautiful short movies. We hope to post them soon. This project was super fun and really had the PAC engaged in the creative process.

April 6th & 9th - Mapping Portraits + Neighborhood Interviews

This week we continued to work with mapping systems and the live-draw software. Andrea and Sinan helped take portraits of youth and they created a digital wall map, using their faces to mark their homes on the grid. We talked about place, home, and asked them to describe what they see and hear when standing in their front door.

On April 9th, the P.A.C. broke into three groups with the artists and staff. The group assignment was to have youth conduct neighborhood interviews of residents. We collected 20 one-on-one interviews of our immediate neighbors by walking the streets of Central and Powderhorn neighborhood.

During the interviews the youth asked people where they live, where they were born, where they call home, how long they have lived here, if they know their neighbors, and what was their favorite and least favorite thing about their neighborhood. The youth also took portraits of the community members they met.

It was so great to see the youth break out of their shells and connect with people on the streets. Almost everyone we approached agreed to be interviewed. The youth loved this activity and really got into the interview process.

Here is a short stop-motion video that shares some of the photos and answers of the Youth P.A.C.'s neighbors.

Projection in Dance Studio: 04/06

West Bank Social Center workshops

Early on in the workshop process we visited the West Bank Social Center where Andrea helped us create a layered digital garden. This process was a great introduction to the "live-draw" software being used throughout the project.


Youth created their favorite fruits and vegetables which were animated and transposed to the digital mural. Later they created a whole colony of insects and birds to play in the moving landscape.

3rd Youth P.A.C. Workshop

On March 25, 2010 Youth P.A.C. held their third workshop at the Pillsbury House. This week the youth were asked to write a poem about where they come from. Kurt Mattsen- who facilitated the workshop- read one of the poems he had written from the prompt, "I am from..."

Once the youth had written the poems a projection performance was set-up where the youth's performance of the poem was captured by the computer camera and projected on the wall. The youth individually read the poetry; resulting in a dual performance of projection and spoken poetry.

Poetry Written by Youth P.A.C.

"I am from swing sets which sway back and forth. People racing into the fields making a crunch noise every step"

"I am from people you like to read a lot because my mom everyday reads me a book."

"I am from the the pencil I first wrote with...

I am from the floor that I had my first step..."

"I am from the sounds I hear from my mom and dad every morning..."

"I am from my neighborhood in Chicago Ave. where it smells bad on some days and good when you want it to."

"I'm From"

2nd Workshop with Youth P.A.C.

On March 19, 2010 the 2nd Workshop of Youth P.A.C. was held at Pillsbury House. A hip-hop poetry/spoken word teaching artist Anton came and led a workshop with the youth inspiring them to write creatively about their community and neighborhood. Anton works within schools and a variety of arts organizations around the Twin Cities, and encourages youth to write creatively about their lives.

The workshop began with a few community-building exercises.

Afterwards Anton asked them to write down five places in their neighborhood that were important to them. After this, the youth were asked to pick on of those places and to describe five smells which they experience in that place. Out of the five smells they were asked to pick one, and then to write down five sounds which personified and described that smell.

Then the youth were asked to "grafitti" their poem on a large piece of white paper.

They were asked to write their chosen place in the neighborhood down on the paper, and then to describe that place through not only writing down the words, but working to write the words down in a style that described the feeling, texture and emotion of the word.

The "grafitti" poem resulted in a collaboratively created image that represented the community the youth experience everyday.

In reflection the youth were asked to interview each other about they new skills they had learned within the workshop, and what they learned about each other. They presented their interviews by telling about the other person they had interviewed. Some of the youth's answers were;

"learned how to draw grafitti"

"learned about new people"

" I learned that a lot of people love their homes"

"learned about poetry"

First Workshop with Youth P.A.C.

On March 12, 2010 Youth P.A.C. held their first creative workshop at the Pillsbury House. Approximately 9 youth attended and participated in ensemble-building activities, along with an activity involving projection asking them to reflect on their neighborhood and city.

A map of Minneapolis was projected on to a piece of white paper, and the youth were asked to identify their homes and their favorite landmarks and then to draw them on the white sheet of paper. The activity resulted in a collaboratively created map drawn through the perspective of the community present at the workshop.

Youth figuring out where the home is on the map.

The youth used the projected map to identify their homes, schools and favorite landmarks- like the lakes and parks.

The youth worked together as a group to find the major landmarks, streets and highways on the map.

In reflection the youth talked about how much they enjoyed the activity of creating their own map of the Twin Cities.

Pillsbury House and Full Cycle

Pillsbury House

Full Cycle Shop-Full Cycle is a free bike program which helps homeless and street dependent youth age 23 and under learn how to build and maintain their own free bikes. Full Cycle will be collaborating on the Youth P.A.C. project to help construct a mobile projection unit for the Central Area Neighborhood.

Full Cycle also sells a variety of bicycles that have been refurbished by interns.

Youth P.A.C.Collaborators and Funders

Youth P.A.C. is a collaboration between Pillsbury United Communities, the Full Cycle Shop at Pillsbury House and Minneapolis Art on Wheels, funded by Central Area Neighborhood Development Organization (CANDO) and Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA).

http://www.puc-mn.org/

http://minneapolisartonwheels.org/

http://www.candompls.org/

http://www.cura.umn.edu/

Youth P.A.C. (Projection Art Crew)

Youth P.A.C. (Projection Art Crew) is a mobile public art project involving youth and adults from Central neighborhood. Youth P.A.C.will bring together participants in Pillsbury House programs with neighborhood residents to work with Minneapolis Art on Wheels (MAW). A series of creative work sessions will lead to a participatory, nighttime, outdoors, public art event that utilizes traditional art making (puppetry, drawing, poetry), combined with advanced technology(live video collaging, large-scale video projection).