CALL TO ARTISTS currently living in NYC

The Creatives Project: New York 2010

The Creatives Project is seeking visual artists and DJs to be the subjects of an exhibition to take place in New York this summer.

After two years of documenting Atlanta’s creative core, photographer Neda Abghari comes to New York to launch The Creatives Project on a national level. In this next phase of the Project, Abghari will feature visuals artists employing fine art techniques, yet addressing subject matter that makes them accessible to a broader audience.The DJ’s included will be included as a part of an ongoing series, photographed in their personal studios with their favorite childhood objects.

Exploring the intersections of media, culture, and fine art, The Creatives Project: NY will serve as a snapshot of the current creative movement, highlighting the meshing of high and low brow in technique, context or medium. The exhibition will include thirty portraits of the faces of New York’s creative community, while exploring how they connect and intersect within the city and beyond. Participation in the Project will provide artists with the opportunity to connect with the larger creative community – in New York, Atlanta and nationally – and will also provide exposure and access to new audiences. In keeping with the Project’s original mission, Abghari hopes to use her photography to encourage participants and audiences alike to learn about artists in other genres, find connections, and perhaps discover new inspiration that was right around the corner, but previously unknown.

The Creatives Project will be in NYC FEB 20 – MARCH 29 to collaborate and photograph twenty new faces for the summer exhibition.

there are only 5 remaining visual artists slots. we are looking individuals’ whose work is figurative in nature for this particular series.

5 of our confirmed visual artists:

http://www.debra-hampton.com
http://www.barnabywhitfield.com
http://www.marissabluestone.com
http://www.tomsanford.com
http://www.laurengibbes.com

DJ’ slots are open and ready for filling :)

If you are interested in participating, or would like more information about the Creatives Project, visit http://www.thecreativesproject.org or contact Neda Abghari at neda@thecreativesproject.org or(917) 338-6833.

About the Project

The Creatives Project is a photographic documentation of a city’s creative core. In an effort to pay homage, elevate and connect artists with viewers and with each other, photographer Neda Abghari is building a visual archive of the artists, musicians, and cultural creatives that represent a city’s creative heartbeat. Every shoot is a unique, collaborative effort between the photographer and the featured artist. Each portrait seeks to document the artist, and is framed by what makes him or her unique: inspiration, influences, history, context, likes & dislikes, and on and on. Whether using a treasured object, an eccentric article of clothing, or a specially-chosen location, the unique characteristics of each photograph act as clues in helping the viewer to understand the artist’s work, aesthetic, or sound. The resulting portrait is an intimate look that aids in visually informing the viewer about where the artist came from, where the artist is going, and where the two intersect.

Abghari has always been drawn to the creative culture and those participants who have existed on the fringe, underground, or outside of the commercial world of art and music. Recognizing the isolation that so often exists for these artists, however, she has sought ways to use her photography to connect and foster a sense of community. The Creatives Project encourages cross-pollination – between visual artists, musicians, performance artists and the audience as a whole – to bring exposure and access to the larger world of creatives existing outside of each artist’s work.

Begun in Atlanta, the project has grown beyond the city’s boundaries to connect artists and communities across the county. An online publication created for the Project features portraits and interviews with the musicians, painters, illustrators, performance artists, and others documented through the project. The words and images combine to bring the artist out from behind the work.
The Project culminated in Atlanta with a massive exhibition and event, Art + Music, in November 2009. The exhibition featured a selection of Atlanta’s hottest DJs and producers photographed in their studios with their favorite childhood objects. Over thirty life-size portraits were displayed, including the underground movers and shakers that have influenced Atlanta’s music scene, both past and present. Many of the photographed DJs performed, offering the over 500 guests in attendance a true multimedia presentation of their work. After the success of the project’s first show in Atlanta, Abghari has decided to present the project nationally in a variety of contexts, including gallery shows, events, a touring exhibition, and ultimately a volume of books. Next stop: New York City.

History of the Project

Neda Abghari is a photographer, an educator, a historian, and an Atlanta native. After living in New York City, Abghari witnessed some of Atlanta’s most talented artists moving to other cities in search of more supportive markets, and often losing a bit of their Southern identity in the process. Watching this migration, she realized Atlanta’s need for a dialogue, to create a platform, to plant a seed that would help her own city’s arts market to grow. In August 2007, Abghari returned to give back to the city that raised her, nurtured her, and gave her voice.

The Creatives Project (originally known as The Atlanta Creatives Project) was born out of a desire to show the rest of the world what Atlanta’s creative community has to offer. At the same, the Project was also developed to bring Atlanta’s creative community together. “This city is full of artistic life, passion, movement, and yet there is a gap – a disconnect – between artists working in different media, neighborhoods, venues, and markets. Atlanta’s sprawling landscape and exploding population have created a gap between the artists and artistic communities that reside within our city. We live and breathe in pockets. We’ve heard each other’s names and yet we do not know the work. Once we do, we may discover that we are each other’s inspirations. For years, Atlanta has been home to many inspired individuals who enrich our experiences and everyday lives within the city. The project aims to put faces with the many names. All facets of the city’s creative underground will be explored through this documentary. I aim to shed light on the talents Atlanta has to offer and in hopes of fostering the growth of a supportive arts market while strengthening the creative community as a whole. The beauty you are looking to find is already in your back yard. Ultimately, The Atlanta Creatives Project strives to be a never-ending visual history of our great city.”

http://www.thecreativesproject.org
http://www.twitter.com/creativespro
http://www.youtube.com/user/theatlantacreatives
http://www.nedaabghari.com