A Living Library – Archive Site

Dec '17

Bernal Heights Living Library & Think Park Nature Walk Update

As we were finishing our planting and plant establishment activities with our California Strategic Growth Council Grant, the Bernal Heights Living Library & Think Park Nature Walk continued to grow and thrive, as we planted, weeded, and watered, thus accomplishing much more to beautify the diverse parks, schools, and street environments of the neighborhood. This Grant has made a huge impact on this community by transforming formerly disconnected and uninteresting areas into new places of beauty and health for all species.

Bernal Heights Living Library & Think Park Nature Park

During this period, we had the great support of San Francisco Recreation & Park Department Apprentices – very hard workers - who were able to make many additional California native drought tolerant understory plantings as well as accomplish other plant establishment activities including mulching many areas in St. Mary’s and Holly Parks.

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Posted by bonnieora in
Art, Landscape Architecture, & Systemic Design, Bernal Heights Living Library & Think Park, Bernal Heights Living Library Nature Walk, Islais Creek Watershed

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Dec '17

2017 Art + Environment Conference and Unsettled Exhibition: Bonnie Ora Sherk Presents A Living Library in Nevada Museum of Art

Since 2008, the Art + Environment Conference at the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada, led by William Fox, has been bringing together international artists, researchers, designers, architects, and scholars to create awareness about human interactions with the environment. The triennial event displays the beautiful amalgamation of futuristic artworks in the face of the rapidly changing global environment. This year, the 2017 Art + Environment Conference (Oct 19 - Oct 21 2017) was themed around the Greater West - the geographical region spanning through the west coast of Americas to Australia and New Zealand. The presenters investigated the cultural and environmental aspects of the region through the lens of aesthetics, technology, and imagination.

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Posted by bonnieora in
Islais Creek Watershed, OMI/Excelsior Living Library & Think Park

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Nov '17

Bonnie Ora Sherk and A Living Library Represented at Open Table (Tavola Aperta) in Venice Biennale 2017

As part of the 57th edition of The Venice Biennale, curated by Christine Macel, Chief Curator of the Pompidou Center in Paris, Bonnie Ora Sherk, along with Marie Voignier, another artist featured in this year’s Biennale, were interviewed by Maria Pesavento, at the Open Table (Tavola Aperta) on October 07, 2017 at the Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy.

Bonnie Ora discussed her work and installation in the Arsenale, in the Pavillion of the Earth in La Biennale, called, Evolution of Life Frames: past, present, future with the visitors, over a casual lunch at the Tavola Aperta.

Link to full video discussion on La Biennale Website:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w7wF0CFnKA&t=300s

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Posted by bonnieora in
Art, Landscape Architecture, & Systemic Design, International Branch Living Library & Think Parks

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Nov '17

Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park : June to September 2017

The Native Americans called Roosevelt Island, Minnehanonck, meaning ‘It’s nice to be on the island’. Once infamous for its prisons and asylums, the two-mile-long island in New York City’s East River, located between Manhattan Island and the borough of Queens on Long Island has slowly emerged as a home to high-rise residential buildings. Right in the middle of the town, on an L-shaped plot just south of 504 Main Street, there lies a beautiful patch of green — the Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park, an ecological artwork created by Bonnie Ora Sherk, her non-profit organization Life Frames, Inc., and community members that engages the local schools and adults; educating them about gardening, ecology, multi-arts, literacy, nutrition, and local history through hands-on, standards-based Common Core learning programs.

Bonnie Ora Sherk with a group of enthusiastic kids and their parents on Roosevelt Island Day, June 17, 2017 at Roosevelt Island, NYC

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Posted by bonnieora in
Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park

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Sep '17

Bonnie Ora Sherk and A Living Library Receive International Recognition at Venice Biennale 2017

Venice Biennale 2017

Bonnie Ora Sherk and A Living Library (A.L.L.) have been recognized and featured in one of the most prestigious contemporary art exhibitions in the world, The Venice Biennale 2017. The 57th edition of La Biennale, also known as the Olympics of the Art World, opened on May 10, 2017 and will continue through November 26, with an estimated attendance of more than 500,000 visitors. A Living Library is exhibited as a part of Bonnie Ora Sherk’s installation Evolution of Life Frames: past, present, future, in the Arsenale in the Pavilion of the Earth, dedicated to the environment, ecological, and communitarianism movements — one of the nine themed sections of the exhibition curated by Christine Macel, also Chief Curator of the Pompidou in Paris, France. Additionally, Bonnie Ora has been invited to return to Venice and La Biennale to give a public talk on her work on October 7, and then will give another public talk and workshop on A Living Library in Zurich, Switzerland on October 12 and 13th at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste / ZHdK.

Her two-part installation in La Biennale also features Crossroads Community (the farm) — a pioneering collaborative artwork involving urban agriculture, multi-arts, and environmental education — that resulted in Potrero del Sol Park, adjacent to the Chavez/ 101 Freeway Interchange. From 1974 to 1980, Sherk was the Founding Director and President of Crossroads Community (the Farm) which has been recognized as one of the first Alternative Art Spaces in the United States. Her installation includes the original drawings she made for the Park. A video featuring her and her way of working has been published on the official website of The Venice Biennale 2017.