Panelists: Jeff Hnilicka, FEAST; Caroll Taveras; Carol Taveras Studio; Francisca Caporali, Artist and curator; Joshua Smith and Denise Kupferschmidt, More

Panelists: Jeff Hnilicka, FEAST; Caroll Taveras; Carol Taveras Studio; Francisca Caporali, Artist and curator; Joshua Smith and Denise Kupferschmidt, co-founders of Apartment Show with moderator Suzan Sherman, NYFA Description: This panel discussion aims to identify ways in which artists can navigate, and possibly re-position themselves and their practice during this changing economy. The question of “what’s next?” looms on the horizon as the economic and social structure of the art world shifts beneath our feet. But what exactly are we standing upon, and is it worthwhile for artists to maintain? Panelists Bios: Francisca Caporali, Artist Francisca Caporali is a Brazilian artist based in Brooklyn. She has a MA from MECAD – ESDI in Barcelona- Spain, and she is a MFA candidate at Hunter College - Integrated Media Arts in NYC. She has received the AAUW International Fellowship 2007/08, a 2008 LMCC Swing Space residency in NYC and the 1st OpenArt Residency in Greece during the summer of 2008. Francisca’s work has been shown in many festivals and exhibitions as: Goethe Institute, SCOPE, SmartSpace, The Anthology Film Archive and Orchard47 in NYC; UnionDoc in Brooklyn; Jeu de Paume in Paris; Gandy Gallery in Slovakia; Break 2.4 Festival in Slovenia; VideoBrasil, Wide World Film festival in Toronto and the Flaherty Seminar in Hamilton. Francisca's main interest is the collaborative process of art making, she has worked with many artists for different projects and since 2007 she is part of the Urban Homesteading Project – a collective that builds temporary living spaces in public areas out of discarded, donated and exchanged materials, as a means to create positive social interactions within a community. In the past years she has also explored the organizer role; having curated and produced shows, events, discussion panels and artist residencies. Jeff Hnilicka, Artist and Co-founder, FEAST
 Jeff Hnilicka is one of the founders of FEAST - Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics.  He currently serves as Company Manager for J Mandle Performance, a Brooklyn-based non-profit performance art company.  Before coming to New York, Jeff worked at the Walker Art Center and MASS MoCA.  Jeff is a regular contributor to Culturebot and the Walker Art Center blog.  He is a founding member of the Revolting Queers, and hosts REALLY? - a queer night in Bushwick.  Joshua Smith, Artist and Co-founder, Apartment Show Born in Houston, Texas, Joshua Smith received his B.F.A. from The College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan.  His work has been featured in various group exhibitions in Berlin, London, New York, Paris, Vienna, and more, and his most recent solo show, “If By Whiskey,” appeared at John Connelly presents in 2007. He is co-organizer with Denise Kupferschmidt, of "Apartment Show" a series of roving group shows featuring young artists. Smith lives and works in Brooklyn. Denise Kupferschmidt, Artist and Co-founder, Apartment Show Denise Kupferschmidt was born in Princeton, NJ, received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and is now living in Brooklyn. She has participated in numerous exhibitions around the US between New York, Providence, Chicago, Miami, and has had solo exhibitions in Chicago and Boston. Her work was recently the focus of a guerilla performative project hosted by Cleopatra's a New York alternative space, to coincide with the Miami Beach Basel art fair in Miami. She also recently participated in "Cleopatra's: Trade Secrets" at John Connelly Presents.  She is co-organizer, with Joshua Smith, of "Apartment Show", a series of roving group shows featuring young artists.  Caroll Taveras, Artist and Founder Caroll Taveras Studio Caroll Taveras is a Brooklyn based artist, native New Yorker. She received her Bachelor of Arts from SUNY Purchase College and came to photography while studying theater at Purchase after a childhood spent acting and performing. She was featured as one of ten Photographers in the 2006 International photography festival in Hyères. She was also awarded first prize in the Px3 fine art competition in Paris. In addition to her own Photography projects and editorial work Caroll also has been making collages for 16 years now. She has accumulated her extensive body of collage work into a self published book entitled “Surrender”. Her work has been featured in the Guardian weekend magazine, The New York Times magazine and Wallpaper. Moderator: Suzan Sherman, Editor, NYFA Current Suzan Sherman is Editor of NYFA Current, the New York Foundation for the Arts’ online arts magazine. She is also a former NYFA Fellow in Fiction (2004) and served on the NYFA Fiction Fellowship panel in 2008. She has written on art and culture for The New York Times, The New York Observer, BOOKFORUM, the Forward, and is a former editor at BOMB. Suzan has taught English at Parsons School of Design and creative writing at New York University. Her fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, BOMB, and The Mississippi Review, and the fiction anthology Lost Tribe: Jewish Writers on the Edge (HarperCollins). She has been awarded artists’ residencies from the Ucross Foundation, Fundacion Valparaiso, The Edward Albee Foundation, and Ledig House, as well as a Travel and Study Grant from the Jerome Foundation. She has just completed her first novel. Organized by the New York Foundation for the Arts, the conferences are made possible by a generous grant from McGraw-Hill. Additional support is provided by the Department of Art and Art Professions, New York University Steinhardt School of Education.
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When I was in kindergarten, my class took a field trip to a local dairy farm. That evening I tried to convince my father, who won’t even mow his More

When I was in kindergarten, my class took a field trip to a local dairy farm. That evening I tried to convince my father, who won’t even mow his lawn, that he should ditch his job at the library and invest in a tractor and some cows. It didn’t happen, but my fascination with farm life persists. So when Jennifer Cermak (CAS’93, MED’94,’98), a fourth-generation farmer who owns a small farm in central Massachusetts, invited me to try my hand, I eagerly accepted. Fellow BU Today reporter Chris Berdik wanted to come along, perhaps for moral support; he lives in Dorchester, I live in Cambridge, we spend our days staring at computer screens, so it was just as out of character for him to be rolling into Berlin Farms at 6 a.m., both of us ready to work (and make fools of ourselves). Jennifer awaited, coffee and donuts blessedly in hand, and she showed us around the 24-acre property. At first glance, she seems an unlikely candidate for farming. A pathologist at a pharmaceutical company in Cambridge, her slight build, bright blue eyes, and thick brown hair seem suited to modeling more than mucking stalls. But after a day of wrestling eggs from ill-tempered turkeys and hauling buckets of manure, I realized she’s as hardy as the animals she raises. In 1867, Berlin Farms was a booming Guernsey cow farm. Under Jennifer’s ownership, it’s been transformed into a refuge for rare and endangered livestock: Sumatra chickens, Southdown sheep, Royal Palm turkeys, and a Friesian horse. “Since the rise of corporate farming, more and more breeds that were introduced in the Colonial era are becoming endangered,” she explains. “Globally, a breed goes extinct every month.” Jennifer hopes her rare birds and livestock will bring agricultural tourism, or “agritourism,” as she calls it, to the farm. “It’s a way to preserve our rural past,” she says. “But even more important, it’s a way to protect the world’s food supply.” In an era when viruses like Avian flu threaten to destroy entire segments of the food chain, it’s important to raise breeds that are disease-resistant, she says. “Corporate chicken farms raise thousands of chickens, but only one breed,” she says. “If a virus comes through, they’ll lose their entire flock.” Generations ago, when livestock dwelled in open pastures, farmers needed hardy breeds that could withstand the harsh New England winters. That’s not the case today. Commercial livestock are housed in cramped warehouse conditions, and farmers have genetically modified different breeds into single strains that grow faster and larger in a shorter amount of time. As a result, Jennifer says, “livestock is a lot less diverse. The heritage breeds brought over by French and English settlers are too skinny and develop too slowly to be profitable on a grand scale.” ..Read full article on BU Today http://www.bu.edu/today/world/2009/07/20/young-macdonalds-hit-farm For more Boston University news and videos, check out http://today.bu.edu
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