In its efforts to activate underutilized public spaces, the Arts Council for Long Beach (ACLB) will use the space located at the corner of Ocean Boulevard and Lime Avenue— the site of the public art installation Chantilly Clad— on Saturdays, June 11 and 18, from 2pm to 6pm, for live music, symposia, interactive workshops and more, all free to the public.
Chantilly Clad, which unveiled in August 2010, provides an open-air venue for community events and features a stage with a suspended lace canopy made from reclaimed shipping crates, crane-like armatures and woven nautical rope in a nod to the city’s maritime history.
June 11 will focus on urban gardening and will unveil the public art site’s new garden planters filled with native California plants. DJ Dennis Owens will provide the daylong tunes and local band MatteranGhost will grace the stage around 4:30pm.
At 2:30pm, the reclaimed wood stage will feature a panel of urban gardening experts including: Freya Bardell of Greenmeme, the design team that created Chantilly Clad; Captain Charles Moore, founder of Algalita Marine Research Foundation and owner/operator of Gladys Ave. Urban Farm; Julie James, the local expert on healing herbs; Adriana Martinez, a well-known guerrilla gardener and author of the blog Anarchy in the Garden; and Jimmy Ng, founder of The Growing Experience, an urban farm in North Long Beach that employs green-collar job youth.
From 3:30pm to 6pm, attendees can participate in a number of free interactive workshops. Freya Bardell and Brady Redman of Apiana Native Landscaping will facilitate a community planting of native plants on-site, thereby giving attendees the opportunity to make their mark on the public space.
Charles Moore will provide handmade, carry-away wooden planter boxes for participants to plant their own salad greens or herbs and take home. Julie James will teach how to make seed bombs, which guerilla gardeners-at-heart can throw at empty lots this autumn and watch brown dirt turn to flowering bushes. And local permaculture expert Ty Tessiere will bring worm-composting bins and show lookers-on how these wiggly creatures help the composting process.
June 18 will bring the bilingual SlangFest! featuring the nationally known Slanguage spoken-word poets from Long Beach and Wilmington in collaboration with LAXART. Two symposia will be held on this day: at 2:30 pm, Slanguage founders and four spoken-word artists will speak and perform about language and voice; and at 4:30pm, special guests MC Guess, MC Tyson, Reina, and the Slanguage Noise Band will perform original works to creatively address the topic of language and music.
Throughout the day, DJ Cheebo will spin eclectic Latin sounds while interactive workshops will be offered on breakdancing and recycled art (drawing, collage, and sculpture) by Slanguage Teen Art Council, Homeland Cultural Center, and Wilmington Enrichment Community Artist Network. The band YEPA! will take the stage at 5pm.
A free bike valet will be offered, encouraging attendees to leave their cars at home. Organizers are aiming for the event be zero-waste by composting and recycling all of the “waste” from the event.
Artistic videographers and photographers will document and interpret the events as part of the series’ interactive art slant.
“The intersection of the arts, public space, environmental sustainability and social interaction is where ‘it’s at’ in the urban arena,” said Craig Watson, ACLB executive director. “The Arts Council helps promote dialogue and civic engagement through the arts. The A Lot Symposium and Performance series is part of a temporary public art strategy that addresses the prevalence of vacant lots and underutilized spaces through site-specific temporary art and programming for each installation. Through these events, we want people to become more educated and inspired on how they can help transform a vacant lot into an attractive space for public gathering, know more about creative work being done in and around Long Beach, and learn about Chantilly Clad.”
