Architecture Design & Film Festival Presents: A Conversation and Films About Public Art

Buy Tickets

Film details and bios:

Small Town Big Canvas: An Indiana, PA Story

2021 / 26 min / USA

Director: Bradford Devins

Dripped On The Road, a traveling artist residency program, paints 14 murals in 2 weeks in Indiana, Pennsylvania, during the Covid-19 pandemic. The project transforms the town’s visual landscape while paying homage to its local history and focusing on creative sustainability. The town accepts four artists and three program directors with open, socially-distant arms, creating a heart-warming and quirky story that demonstrates the importance, power, and impact of public art and community identity. In a time of crisis, uncertainty and division, the arts are a catalyst for breaking down barriers and uniting people from all walks of life.

High Maintenance – The Life and Work of Dani Karavan 

2020 / 66 min / Israel

Director: Barak Heymann

Israeli artist Dani Karavan has created nearly 100 environmental installations across the world. He has won some of the most prestigious international art awards and is constantly asked to speak or lecture about his groundbreaking work. Yet Karavan is far from satisfied. His monumental structures are rapidly deteriorating. His advanced age is starting to catch up with him. The political climate in his country is driving him mad, as does the film’s director, whose questions betray his infuriating artistic ignorance. In addition, Karavan becomes embroiled in a serious political and artistic conflict over his latest commission, a monument to Polish nationals who have risked their lives saving Jews during World War II. High Maintenance is a cinematic reflection of its namesake — a straightforward, yet intricate film…emotional and personal without being melodramatic, and as painful and passionate as it is humorous.

Speakers

Speakers:

Suchi Reddy founded Reddymade Architecture and Design in 2002 with a human-centric approach to design. The guiding principle of the practice is “form follows feeling,” a design ethos informed by neuroaesthetics, the study of how the brain responds to the design of our surroundings. The strong belief that good design, calibrated carefully to the human, positively influences wellbeing, creativity, and productivity informs all projects from conception to details. Reddy was appointed the Plym Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois School of Architecture, Champaign–Urbana for the Fall 2019 semester, and she has presented and lectured on the firm’s work at numerous venues, including The Salk Institute for the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture’s annual conference, the WSJ Future of Everything Conference, the AWS Summit, the University of Illinois, and the University of Wisconsin. She sits on the board of the Design Trust for Public Space, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and Madame Architect, and she is a member of the Dean’s Board of Advisors at Detroit Mercy School of Architecture.

Kyle Bergman founded the Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) in 2009 and serves as its festival director. He has always recognized the strong connection between architecture and film and ADFF provides a unique opportunity to educate, entertain and engage people who are passionate about the world of architecture and design. Now in its 14th season, ADFF has grown to become the largest film festival dedicated to the creative spirit of architecture and design. Mr. Bergman also serves as president of Pacific Rim Park (PRP), whose mission is to use the process of designing and building parks as a tool to connect people and communities around the Pacific. PRP creates public art and parks and uses the international teamwork process as a form of cultural diplomacy. Mr, Bergman has been involved with PRP since its first park built in Vladivostok, Russia in 1994.

Katie Merz – ​​Brooklyn-born and Industry City-based, Katie Merz’s work is influenced by Brooklyn, cartoons, architecture silence and the kinetic structure of things. Many media have influenced the constantly changing surfaces that are worked upon. Synthetic, clear, wearable, moving and simple.

As a kid growing up in the streets of Brooklyn, Merz have always been interested in connecting art to the to the external environment. She currently works in a very simple style that translates quickly into an easily read, pictographic language that looks like a classroom blackboard or the work of a kid on an asphalt street. This creates a convergence between graffiti, coding and the mathematical deduction of everyday language that build a two-dimensional architecture formed from words, signs and symbols.

Katie Merz‘s latest art project, A Line is not Flat, is an art project in which Merz takes over the wheelhouse, fire tower, and public seating in Courtyard 5/6, influenced by Brooklyn, cartoons, architecture, music, and the kinetic structure of things. To celebrate the launch of the project, Merz brings her interactive art event, By The Yard, to IC Design Festival this year. During the event, Merz will display her 150-foot-long art on a roofing paper scroll and the public can purchase the art by foot or yard. All proceeds will be donated to Red Hook Initiative.