artsed4all Art & the Environment, Community, Literary Arts, Music, poetry, STEAM, Visual Arts

Del Sol Quartet & The Last Hoisan Poets: THE JINGWEI BIRD

THE JINGWEI BIRD explores the complexity of climate change and our relationship to the planet through multi-disciplinary performances with Del Sol Quartet and The Last Hoisan Poets.

“THE JINGWEI BIRD” weaves brand-new music by Asian-American composers with powerful bilingual poetry, using storytelling and mythology to deepen our understanding and awareness of the nature around us.

“THE JINGWEI BIRD” is a mythical creature that appears in the Shan-hai jing, The Classic of Mountains and Seas, a Chinese classic text (third century BC to second century AD) and compilation of mythic geography and beasts. The story of the Jingwei Bird involves Nüwa, a girl who is drowned and transformed into a bird, determined to fill up the sea one pebble at a time to protect others from perishing as she did. The story captures the importance of perseverance, even against seemingly impossible odds, and reminds us of our vital connection to the planet.

References to the Jingwei Bird can be found in the poetry carved by Chinese immigrants into the barrack walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station.

THE JINGWEI BIRD features poetry written and performed by Genny Lim & Nellie Wong of The Last Hoisan Poets.

Poets Nellie Wong, Genny Lim & Rumi. May 2022. Photo by Mark Shigenaga

Continuing the collaboration begun with The Angel Island Project, Chinese-American poets Genny Lim and Nellie Wong join the quartet to create this new program of music and poetry exploring themes of eco-futurism, climate change, and our relationship to the planet. By immersing audiences in the sound of the music, delicately woven together in conversation with the poetry, the artists acknowledge the importance of community storytelling and the sharing of cultural knowledge across generations.

THE JINGWEI BIRD music, by Asian-American composers who draw on their cultural heritage, will be curated and performed by the Del Sol Quartet.

Benjamin Kreith & Hyeyung Sol Yoon, violins; Charlton Lee, viola; Kathryn Bates, cello. Photo: AFW Productions.

Fascinated by the feedback loop between social change, technology, and artistic innovation, the San Francisco-based Del Sol Quartet is a leading force in 21st-century chamber music. They believe that live music can, and should, happen anywhere – whether introducing Ben Johnston’s microtonal Americana at the Library of Congress or in a canyon cave, taking Aeryn Santillan’s gun-violence memorial to the streets of the Mission District, or collaborating with Huang Ruo and the anonymous Chinese poets who carved their words into the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station. Since 1992, Del Sol has commissioned and premiered thousands of new works.

THE JINGWEI BIRD features musical compositions by Kui Dong, Erika Oba, Huang Ruo and Meilina Tsui.

The Jingwei Bird @ Seaplane Lagoon Promenade

FREE public performance – SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 2023, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm; Seaplane Lagoon Promenade, 1801 Ferry Point, Alameda, CA

Presented in partnership with DOER Marine, a free outdoor performance by the Del Sol Quartet & The Last Hoisan Poets will be held at Seaplane Lagoon Promenade in Alameda on Saturday, August 19, 2023, from 1pm – 2pm.

Those attending the 8/19 Alameda performance were also invited to stop by the Deep Ocean Explorer Store, located at 650 W Tower Ave, Alameda, CA 94501, a short walk away from Seaplane Lagoon Promenade for a special pre-performance talk with artist Leon Sun and Liz Taylor of DOER Marine presented at 11:30am, with light refreshments to follow at Seaplane Lagoon Promenade picnic area #1, 12:30pm-1:00pm.

Program: JINGWEI BIRD @ Seaplane Lagoon, Alameda, Friday, August 19, 2023

DOER Marine Store located at 650 W Tower Ave, Alameda, CA 94501

Based in Alameda, California, DOER Marine (Deep Ocean Exploration and Research) was founded in 1992 by Dr. Sylvia Earle as Deep Ocean Exploration and Research, a marine consulting firm. The company is now headed by her daughter, Liz Taylor along with subsea specialist Ian Griffith, who expanded the firm’s scope and capabilities to include ROV and submersible support services. DOER Marine committed to changing the way we think about oceans, and the creatures who call them home. Partnership with DOER Marine will support our project efforts to engage audiences in Alameda and San Francisco more deeply in thinking about their relationship with water, including our Bay and ocean.

The Jingwei Bird @ NEMS SF Chinatown PACE Center

FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 2023, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm; NEMS Chinatown PACE Center, San Francisco, CA

North East Medical Services (NEMS) will host a performance on Friday, August 18, 2023 at their Chinatown PACE Center (Program for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) as part of promoting well-being and community for the elderly. NEMS is one of the largest community health centers in the United States targeting the medically underserved population. Based in San Francisco, the non-profit community health center offers comprehensive health care services to a variety of patients, a majority of whom are uninsured or low income. NEMS offers linguistically competent and culturally sensitive health care services in many languages and dialects, including English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Toishan, Vietnamese, Burmese, Korean, Spanish, and Hindi.

Program: JINGWEI BIRD @ NEMS San Francisco Chinatown, Friday, August 18, 2023

COLLABORATING ARTISTS

Leon Sun is a San Francisco based printmaker, photographer, painter, and writer. His art came out of the anti-war and social movements of the 1960s and 70s. He had always wanted his art to be socially relevant. Up until the 1990s he worked as photographer and graphic designer for Left publications while holding down various “day jobs.”

He first learned screenprinting in 1979 at the Japantown Art and Media (JAM) Workshop in San Francisco. He has printed continuously up to the current period. His work was based mostly in the Asian American Movement, but he has also contributed to international solidarity actions.

Around 2000 he began to relocate his art from political activism to spiritual practice. He took a break from the visual arts and began to teach himself landscape art. He spent three years building a garden informed by Buddhism, Asian and indigenous cultures. This experience did much to formulate a new orientation for his art. In 2013 Sun set up his own print studio and began to produce art that expresses his love for nature and concern for the environment.

Leon Sun was born 1948 in Shanghai, China, migrated to Hong Kong in 1957 and moved to the United States in 1966. He lives with his wife Karen and their dog Rocky in San Francisco and works out of his home. His work has been shown nationally and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Explore Terrastories: “JINGWEI’S JOURNEY”

Explore a world of sounds & stories gathered with The Jingwei Bird.

Explore Terrastories allows you to access the maps of communities who have chosen to make a selection of their stories public. We are grateful for Terrastories support of our collective exploration to discover and preserve the sounds & stories gathered on Jingwei’s Journey!

Visit: https://explore.terrastories.app/community/jingweis_journey

Terrastories are audiovisual recordings of place-based storytelling. This application enables local communities to locate and map their oral storytelling traditions about places of significant meaning or value to them.

Terrastories is entirely free and open-source, built with principles of offline-first and data sovereignty, and aligned with the following two UN Sustainable Development Goals:

Explore Terrastories offers a whole new interface that is similar to the one used locally but is open to anyone interested in navigating it online or offline. Most Terrastories users are Earth Defenders and Indigenous peoples like the Wayana in Suriname, the Aparai, Isolados Akurio, Isolados do Rio Citaré, Katxuyana, Tiriyó e Wayana in Tumucumaque territory in Brazil, or the Haudenosaunee community at the Six-Nations Reserve in Canada. However, uses have also expanded to diverse kinds of communities, such as that of the Chinese diaspora community that extends from China to the Bay Area in San Francisco.

These and other communities are nurturing Explore Terrastories as a new growing window to a diversity of place-based stories that they consider important to share and position in this shared map. As Rudo Kemper, founder of Terrastories explains,

“This is a way to visualize a different kind of traditional knowledge, which can be stories, poetry, and song. It is also about visibility and representation, with the ability to control what gets represented”.

— Earth Defenders Toolkit, “Explore Terrastories!”

artsed4all Art & the Environment, Arts Education, Community, Family Art Workshop, Music, poetry, Technology, Visual Arts

We The Arts: Civic Season 2023

We The Arts: Civic Engagement Through Art is an ArtsEd4All project taking place from June 17 – July 4, 2023, in celebration of Civic Season 2023.

From Juneteenth to the 4th of July, we invite you to participate in the third annual #CivicSeason through self-guided public art visits in San Francisco, as well as in-person and online events that invite civic engagement through the arts. We’re teaming up with hundreds of history museums and sites across the country through @HistoryMadeByUs, in partnership with the next generation shaping our democracy to launch a new tradition that makes room for all of our stories – and write the next chapter together.

Read the Civic Season Report: The Art of Changemaking for more about ArtsEd4All’s participation in Civic Season 2022.

JUNETEENTH at Healdsburg Jazz

FREE – Saturday, JUNE 17, 2 pm – 8 pm Healdsburg Plaza, Corner of Healdsburg Avenue and Matheson Street, Healdsburg CA.

Healdsburg Jazz Festival kicks off its 25th Anniversary Season with Juneteenth. Enjoy free music and arts & crafts workshops!

Healdsburg Jazz is proud to present a diverse range of music, art, culture and education in honor of this holiday, free to the public in the Healdsburg Plaza. Our Juneteenth performances celebrate the wide range of Black music and art including gospel, early blues, New Orleans jazz, funk, R&B, spoken word, and straight ahead modern swing.

FREE JUNETEENTH Celebration in the Healdsburg Plaza with the Charles McPherson Quintet featuring Terell Stafford, Randy Porter, Akira Tana, and Marcus Shelby, vocalist Martin Luther The Real McCoy, The Robin Hodge Williams Gospel Choir, MJ’s Brass Boppers, Healdsburg Jazz Poet Laureate Enid Pickett and KCSM’s Greg Bridges.

Educational Activities – Families and young people are invited to join ArtsEd4All in the plaza to learn more about Juneteenth and check out the exhibit celebrating 25 years of Healdsburg Jazz Festival. Fold a zine, make a flag, pinwheel, fan or decorate your own musical shaker at the art table. This year, the public is also invited to join teaching artist Amelie Anna Hinman for music workshops at 2:30 pm-3:00 pm and 4:30 pm-5:00 pm to play and learn about the origins of a variety of percussion instruments.

Imagining “TOMORROW” with DWeb Camp

The Internet Archive is an American digital library with a mission to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge. DWeb is a global network of builders and dreamers working to create a better, decentralized web. The goal of DWeb Camp is to create a collaborative space for people to connect, learn, share, and have fun as we work towards building a better, decentralized web.

Del Sol Quartet’s DWeb Camp 2022 performance inspired The DWeb is an Ensemble Piece” which uses music as a metaphor for cooperation.

At camp, Del Sol Quartet and composer Erika Oba conducted an open workshop demonstrating the give-and-take process that goes into creating and performing a new musical composition. Erika’s composition, “Behold the Sea,” is inspired by a story of friendship between two artists, Bill Zacha & Japanese artist Toshi Yoshida which resulted in a sister city relationship between Mendocino, California (USA) and Miasa, Nagano (Japan). Continuing the tradition, Erika and the Del Sol Quartet are using music to highlight the importance of building friendships and networks of community in order to protect the water and environment to help build a better world.

Composer Erika Oba invited DWeb campers to make music using stones in the dry bed of the Navarro River.

This plaque, dedicated in a community ceremony held on July 4th, 1982 reads, “The citizens of the sister cities of Mendocino, California and Miasa, Japan dedicate this plaque to the peaceful pursuits of the peoples of the Pacific Basin and to the protection of its environment that all living things there-in may exist in perpetual harmony.”

The Plastic Pollution Coalition’s Global Webinar dives deep into the challenges that plastic pollution poses to our oceans and our bodies.

Register for the global webinar: https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/event/ppc-webinar-062223

FREE on ZOOM – Thursday, JUNE 22, 12-1 pm PT | 3-4 pm ET.

This year at DWeb Camp, we’re tuning into the Plastic Pollution Coalition’s global webinar, Plastic-Free Seas: Diving Into How Plastic Impacts Health, Climate, and Our Oceans, on Thursday, June 22, 12-1 pm PT | 3-4 pm ET. On June 22, we will dive deep into the challenges that plastic pollution poses to our oceans and our bodies, how polluted waters disrupt the “Blue Mind” mental health benefits we gain from access to healthy oceans and waterways, and how we may restore our planet as well as our own physical and mental well-being.

Joining the conversation will be “Her Deepness,” Sylvia Earle, President & Co-Chair of Mission Blue and National Geographic Explorer in Residence; Wallace J Nichols, Marine Biologist & Author of Blue Mind; and Imari Walker-Franklin, PhD, Research Chemist at RTI International & Author of Plastics. The panel will be moderated by Plastic Pollution Coalition CEO & Co-Founder Dianna Cohen.

“Tomorrow” is a LARP!

DWeb Camp is using imaginative live action role play to dream of a better internet.

Build new networks and find your flow in Nature.

FREE – Saturday, JUNE 24 (or anytime, anywhere, as you please)

Technologists at DWeb Camp are hosting a LARP Worldbuilding session, using play to imagine how the Internet of Tomorrow might be transformed for the better. A LARP is a a live-action role-playing game in which a group of people enacts a fictional scenario (such as a fantasy adventure) in real time typically under the guidance of a facilitator or organizer.

Here are some ways to play along and join in the DWeb Camp experiment.

UNPLUG– Take time out from the Internet and spend time recharging with a walk in nature.
– Reflect upon your relationship with technology. Make a list of the ways that technology has changed your your life – for better and for worse.
– What might be different? Are there aspects about your relationship with the Internet that you would like to change? “Think Different” was a slogan created for a 1997 ad campaign for Apple.
LEARN– What is the Decentralized Web?
– What are some important real world challenges that the DWeb aims to address?
– Read the DWeb Principles which define the values of a decentralized web based on enabling agency of all peoples and learn about the origins of DWeb Camp
ENGAGE– Design your DWeb Alter Ego (with or without technology!)

“A Place for Poetry” with The Last Hoisan Poets

Anytime, in-person or virtual, FREE exploration of San Francisco public art

Take a poetry tour of the public spaces at the de Young Museum in San Francisco with The Last Hoisan Poets.

Write a poem with The Last Hoisan Poets.

Poets Genny Lim, Nellie Wong, and Flo Oy Wong — trace their roots to China’s Hoisan villages. They conduct special poetry readings in English and Hoisan-wa (a.k.a. the Toisanese/Taishanese Chinese dialect), to pay homage to their mother language which is at risk of fading from collective memory.

A Place for Poetry is a collection of poems by The Last Hoisan Poets inspired by the de Young Museum’s art and architecture. “One Eye” is a community poem begun by The Last Hoisan Poets, inspired by the sculpture of Ruth Asawa. The Last Hoisan Poets welcome poet of all ages and abilities to write a cinquain of their own. Listen to Asawa’s Gift to San Francisco, an audio tour sharing stories from the Asawa family. Take an ASL Tour of the Asawa sculpture installation the de Young Museum docent Jim Brune.

“When you put a seed in the ground, it doesn’t stop growing after eight hours. It keeps going every minute that it’s in the earth. We, too, need to keep growing every moment of every day that we are on this earth.” — Ruth Asawa

The book Your Brain on Art by Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen shares that “neuroarts” is the transdisciplinary study of how the arts and aesthetic experiences measurably change the body, brain, and behavior and how this knowledge is translated into specific practices that advance health and wellbeing. The Aesthetic Mindset Index is based on a research instrument called the Aesthetic Responsiveness Assessment or AReA,developed by Ed Vessel, cognitive neuroscientist and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany. The authors invite you to take the short survey, and then take it again in a month or two after you’ve had time to go out in the world and build your aesthetic mindset.

San Francisco is home to one of the largest and most diverse public art collections in the country. All city residents, workers and visitors have access to world-class art in everyday settings. Here are additional resources that will introduce you to some of the most engaging public art that San Francisco has to offer.

This Civic Season, discover your story.

Join 400 cultural and civic institutions across the country for the third annual Civic Season, a new summer tradition for learning and action co-designed with Gen Z, the future inheritors of our democracy. Civic Season unites our oldest federal holiday with our newest, going beyond hot dogs and fireworks to invite meaningful reflection on our country’s past and our role in shaping its future.

artsed4all Community, Film, Media Arts, Music, Technology

Mission: JOY Finding Happiness in Troubled Times

Enjoy a FREE screening of Mission JOY: Finding Happiness in Troubled Times from December 9th through the 11th, in recognition of Human Rights Day 2022.

Every year on 10 December, the world celebrates Human Rights Day, the very day when, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR consists of a preamble and 30 articles that set out a broad range of fundamental human rights and freedoms to which all of us, everywhere around the world, are entitled. It guarantees our rights without distinction of nationality, place of residence, gender, national or ethnic origin, religion, language, or any other status.

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

https://www.un.org/en/udhrbook/

Deeply moving and laugh-out-loud funny, Mission: JOY is a documentary with unprecedented access to the unlikely friendship of two international icons who transcend religion: His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu. In their final joint mission, these self-described mischievous brothers give a master class in how to create joy in a world that was never easy for them. They offer neuroscience-backed wisdom to help each of us live with more joy, despite circumstances.

To access the screening room, use the link in the box below:

https://www.filmplatform.net/impact-event/mission-joy-artsed4all/
Invitation code:
MJA-AE4A

Click “Register” and enter your email address and the event invitation code MJA-AE4A. You can return as many times as you like during the screening window by clicking “Event Login” and entering the same email address and invitation code. If you have trouble registering, please see the FAQ section within the screening room.

Inspired by New York Times bestseller The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, the film showcases the exchange between these two Nobel Peace Prize winners that led to that book.

Consisting largely of never-before-seen footage shot over 5 days at the Dalai Lama’s residence in Dharamsala, the film invites viewers to join these luminaries behind the scenes as they recount stories from their lives, each having lived through periods of incredible difficulty and strife.

With genuine affection, mutual respect and a healthy dose of teasing, these unlikely friends impart lessons gleaned from lived experience, ancient traditions, and the latest cutting-edge science regarding how to live with joy in the face of all of life’s challenges from the extraordinary to the mundane. Mission: Joy is an antidote for the times.

Watch the film and participate in the BIG JOY Project! MissionJOY.org/BIGJOY

Just 7 minutes a day for 7 days to create more JOY for yourself: The Mission: JOY Team worked with top researchers from UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, Harvard and 14 other universities to identify micro-actions–called Acts of JOY–that we can each do to create more JOY for ourselves in the moment. They’re quick, easy, and can be done by anyone of any age anywhere.

Sign up here and try out one Act of JOY a day, and at the end of 7 days, you’ll receive a free, individualized JOY Report that will show you which Acts were most beneficial for you. You will also be part of the world’s largest-ever citizen science project on JOY, helping scientists unlock the next level of discovery about how we can all feel more JOY!

“Joy manifests in human rights victories, the fighting for a just cause, and in the songs and artwork of social protest. Joy is transgressive of current conditions, and a force to bring people together to realize our potentials.”

— William Paul Simmons, Making the case for a more joyful approach to human rights, OpenGlobalRights.

Del Sol Quartet: The Joy Project @ DWeb Camp 2022

The Del Sol Quartet brought The Joy Project to DWeb Camp at Camp Navarro, Mendocino, where a globally diverse community of builders and dreamers gathered in nature to tackle the real world challenges facing the web and to co-create the decentralized technologies of the future. The quartet plays Sam Weiser’s composition, Let Joy Wash Over You as You Fall Asleep, and campers are invited by composer Erika Oba to gather rocks from the dry riverbed to create a soundscape together.

Scenes from DWeb Camp 2022, Del Sol Quartet #3 by Paul d’Aoust, Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Creative Commons License

Del Sol has commissioned a body of short musical works written to give joy. As a gift to the community during these times, they are performing these pieces in numerous free concerts at public settings around the Bay Area — parks, schoolyards, open-spaces — where people can soak up some musical “joy” while safely practicing social distancing in the open air.

Sign up on Del Sol’s “Joy List” for the latest information regarding future performances.