Amy Balkin
Encyclopedia
Amy Balkin is an American artist who studied at Stanford University
and is now located in San Francisco. Her work 'combines cross-disciplinary research and social critique to generate ambitious, bold, and innovative ways of conceiving the public domain outside current legal and discursive systems.' . She focuses on how humans create, interact with, and impact the social and material landscapes they inhabit. Ultimately, one of her long-term goals is to create a physical shared space with society.
Invisible-5
is an audio commentary on land use along the highway corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles
.
The project investigates the stories of people and communities fighting for environmental justice along the I-5, through oral histories, field recordings, found sound, recorded music, and archival audio documents. The project also traces natural, social, and economic histories along the route. This project was developed in collaboration with artists Kim Stringfellow and Tim Halbur, and the organizations Pond: Art, Activism, and Ideas, and Greenaction for Health & Environmental Justice. The project is available to listen online or download from invisible5.org.
She has also proposed a project that challenges the scope and intent of current US or international laws relating to property ownership and pollution, and which are intended to expose the limitations and ideological biases of these laws. One such project Public Smog involves the creation of clean air parks created by retiring emission offsets, paired with an attempt to add the Earth’s atmosphere to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. However, these ideas have art-based roots.
is a public park in the atmosphere that fluctuates in location and scale. Built through financial, legal, or political activities, Public Smog is subject to prevailing winds and the long-range transport of aerosols and gases. When built through the economic mechanism of emissions trading, the park opens above the region where offsets are purchased and withheld from use. Public Smog first opened briefly to the public during 2004 above California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District, and is now open over the European Union through 2008. http://symposiumc6.com/speakers/balkin/
Balkin's project This is the Public Domain is an ongoing attempt to create a permanent international commons from a parcel of land purchased by the artist in Southern California. Thus far, the group has purchased 2.5 acres (10,117.2 m²) of land in Tehachapi, California
. Sharing of this land will be initiated when a juridical solution for public handover is found.
Her recent works include a Public Reading ‘Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers’ (2008), and a series of large-format rubbings of architectural signage of San Francisco-area entities implicated in war related activities and illegal domestic surveillance 'Sell Us Your Liberty, Or We’ll Subcontract Your Death' (2008).
She has collaborated with her husband Josh On on the Greenpeace
project Exxonsecrets.org and was the recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2007.
Amy Balkin joined Cape Farewell on the 2007 Art/Science expedition. Taking almost three weeks the expedition crossed the north Atlantic to the extreme frontline of climate change, then sailed south to explore East Greenland's Blosseville Coast.
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and is now located in San Francisco. Her work 'combines cross-disciplinary research and social critique to generate ambitious, bold, and innovative ways of conceiving the public domain outside current legal and discursive systems.' . She focuses on how humans create, interact with, and impact the social and material landscapes they inhabit. Ultimately, one of her long-term goals is to create a physical shared space with society.
Invisible-5
Invisible 5
invisible-5 is an art project created by Amy Balkin and Kim Stringfellow which uses the methods employed by a self-guided art gallery tour to provide a self-guided tour of the portion of Interstate 5 between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It was initially distributed on two compact discs, but is...
is an audio commentary on land use along the highway corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
The project investigates the stories of people and communities fighting for environmental justice along the I-5, through oral histories, field recordings, found sound, recorded music, and archival audio documents. The project also traces natural, social, and economic histories along the route. This project was developed in collaboration with artists Kim Stringfellow and Tim Halbur, and the organizations Pond: Art, Activism, and Ideas, and Greenaction for Health & Environmental Justice. The project is available to listen online or download from invisible5.org.
She has also proposed a project that challenges the scope and intent of current US or international laws relating to property ownership and pollution, and which are intended to expose the limitations and ideological biases of these laws. One such project Public Smog involves the creation of clean air parks created by retiring emission offsets, paired with an attempt to add the Earth’s atmosphere to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. However, these ideas have art-based roots.
Projects
Public SmogPublic Smog
Public Smog is an "atmospheric park" created by San Francisco-based artist Amy Balkin and her supporters through the use of financial, political, and legal methods. The goal of Public Smog is to "highlight the complexities and contradictions of current environmental protocols." .-The Park:The...
is a public park in the atmosphere that fluctuates in location and scale. Built through financial, legal, or political activities, Public Smog is subject to prevailing winds and the long-range transport of aerosols and gases. When built through the economic mechanism of emissions trading, the park opens above the region where offsets are purchased and withheld from use. Public Smog first opened briefly to the public during 2004 above California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District, and is now open over the European Union through 2008. http://symposiumc6.com/speakers/balkin/
Balkin's project This is the Public Domain is an ongoing attempt to create a permanent international commons from a parcel of land purchased by the artist in Southern California. Thus far, the group has purchased 2.5 acres (10,117.2 m²) of land in Tehachapi, California
Tehachapi, California
Tehachapi is a city incorporated in 1909 located in the Tehachapi Mountains between Bakersfield and Mojave in Kern County, California. Tehachapi is located east-southeast of Bakersfield, at an elevation of...
. Sharing of this land will be initiated when a juridical solution for public handover is found.
Her recent works include a Public Reading ‘Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers’ (2008), and a series of large-format rubbings of architectural signage of San Francisco-area entities implicated in war related activities and illegal domestic surveillance 'Sell Us Your Liberty, Or We’ll Subcontract Your Death' (2008).
She has collaborated with her husband Josh On on the Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
project Exxonsecrets.org and was the recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2007.
Amy Balkin joined Cape Farewell on the 2007 Art/Science expedition. Taking almost three weeks the expedition crossed the north Atlantic to the extreme frontline of climate change, then sailed south to explore East Greenland's Blosseville Coast.
Quotations
- "The domain of art risks not only being a tolerated exception, but an active site for recuperation of political activity. Like a 'public park' within a totalized system of property, the domain of art could be argued to act as a built-in pressure valve that displaces political action from real recuperation to self-limited, and so tolerated, symbolized recuperation instead. But socially engaged work doesn't exist in a vacuum, and is presented in a social and political context. And the domain of art has always been a vital place for the creation of critical counter-narratives in the context of political engagement."
- "As political and cultural awareness of global warming grows, the reading, meaning and value of the Cape Farewell voyages will also develop. I hope to return from the trip with an enhanced understanding of the Arctic as a system, and with an increased ability to speak to the impacts of climate change."
Additional References
- Down to a fine art by Anna MintonAnna MintonAnna Minton is a British writer and journalist. Born 19 April 1970, educated at St.Paul's Girls' School, London and Queen's College Oxford. Minton has worked as a foreign correspondent, business reporter and social affairs writer and has won a number of national journalism awards...
, The Guardian, January 10, 2007. - Walter and McBean Gallery at SFAI
- Public Smog
- This is the Public Domain
- Tomorrow Morning
- Southern Exposure: Amy Balkin
- Invisible 5