— May 12, 09:51 AM — 

Gary Wiseman Lecture

May 15 | 12:30pm
PNCA campus | Rm 201

From March 2006 to January 2008, Gary Wiseman produced 30 international, interactive performances with the help of hundreds of participants and volunteers under the heading Tea Project, in collaboration with Red 76, PICA, the Cooley Memorial Gallery (Reed College), THE M.O.S.T and Hope Hilton.

One of these events was a silent tea party held on Reed College’s campus during Portland’s 2007 TBA festival, recalling memories from Wiseman’s childhood. The Oregonian reflected on the performance,

“Does it matter in the end whether anyone knows that the house we gathered in front of was the home of a childhood friend of Wiseman’s who died? That each detail of the night, down to the distance between the stakes marking the plot of grass we shared for the night, was designed in relation to some memory. Does it change the experience in any way?

I don’t think so. I think if the night proved anything, its how much we say without ever speaking. Later, when I slept, I dreamt of people I loved with an aching vividness.”

Wiseman is currently engaged in numerous smaller scale collaborations and ongoing projects such as Personal Favorite Places N.Y, an ongoing exploration of New York utilizing the experience of strangers; Ephemeral Temple Ltd, purveyors and certifiers of high-quality, low-overhead, temporary sacred-space; Penny For Your Thoughts (with Amy Steel); and T-Folk: Granville and Reginald Sing the Sacred Songs For You, an upcoming performance work for the Artcity festival in Calgary.

Ever active, Wiseman continues to be active curator and event producer. His recent offerings include Self Projections, a video documentation, installation and short film exhibition including 24 artists from Canada, New York and Portland (April 2008) and Sacred Pop: Exploring Text and Image Through Relational Process (February 2008).

Wiseman is also a co-founder of Kitchen Sink PDX (KSPDX), along with Alicia Eggert. Wiseman and Eggert created KSPDX to encourage the exploration of long-term, social transformation in the creative community through the facilitation of interdisciplinary events and collaborations.

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