Kean O'Brien

Kean O'Brien -  Mapping A Genocide 2016

Kean O’Brien is an artist and educator living in Los Angeles. His work revolves around ideas of deconstructing and reconstructing masculinity, queer strategies for survival, binary systems of oppression, and the construction of identification. Kean holds an MFA from CalArts, a BFA from SAIC and is currently the Associate Chair of Photography at The New York Film Academy in Los Angeles. He is an organizer with The Los Angeles Tenants Union, which demands truly affordable and safe housing for renters by fighting for universal rent control. He has worked with the coalition BHAAAD (Boyle Heights Alliance Against Artwashing and Displacement), where he is in solidarity with the community of Boyle Heights in fighting artwashing as a form of gentrification

www.keanobrien.com

Patricia Watts

The HighWaterLine ACTION GUIDE is based on a public art project addressing Climate Change by Eve Mosher. Presented by ecoartspace as part of an Art & Ecology Learning Guide Series addressing environmental issues through replicable social practice art projects. Funded in part by The Compton Foundation.

Patricia Watts is a pioneering curator who has worked for twenty-five years with artists who engage the natural world in their art. She has a visionary entrepreneurial approach to curating that supports transdisciplinary, collaborative environments. She is the founder and west coast curator of ecoartspace, a nonprofit platform for artists addressing environment issues since 1999. Watts has curated over thirty art and ecology exhibitions including: Contemplating Other (2017); Enchantment (2016); FiberSHED (2015); Shifting Baselines (2013) at Santa Fe Art Institute; MAKE:CRAFT (2010) at the Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles; ECOlogic (2009); and Hybrid Fields (2006) at the Sonoma County Museum, Santa Rosa, CA. She also curated and project managed a site-specific permanent public art installation entitled Cloud House (2016) by Matthew Mazzotta at Farmers Park in Springfield, Missouri. Since 2009, Watts has conducted two hour video interviews with pioneering ecological artists including Jackie Brookner, Buster Simpson, and Bonnie Sherk. She has also written Action Guides presenting replicable social practice projects by artists who work in the public sphere. Watts has a studio masters degree in Exhibition Design and Museum Studies Certificate. She enjoys curating and designing exhibitions that are spatially and visually engaging, and create a context for deep, compelling stories. Watts has an established voice as both a writer and a speaker, and has written numerous essays for publications and given dozens of lectures and panel talks internationally.

http://patriciawatts.blogspot.com