Home. Space. Place.

Round 30 Artists’ Installations
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 28th; 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM

(Houston, Texas)- March 26, 2009 - Project Row Houses (PRH) is pleased to announce its opening reception for Round 30: Home. Space. Place. The artist installations will be on display from March 28, 2009 through June 21, 2009 at 2505 – 2517 Holman Street. The Opening Reception is free and will be held Saturday, March 28th, from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM. In addition to the Opening, there will be an Artists & Community Talk on Thursday March 26th, featuring all the Round Artists, at 6:30 PM at 2521 Holman Street, Houston, TX 77004. The public is invited to have an interactive dialogue with the artists about their work.

Round 30: Home. Space. Place.
Project Row Houses has invited seven exciting local and national artists to engage with the Third Ward and greater Houston Community in the creation of new installations in the Artist Project Houses. The theme, Home. Space. Place. focuses on concepts that are centered in the Third Ward community and others that are generic to all urban neighborhoods. These include ideas of home, identity, culture, struggles and perseverance. Some artists will draw upon the historical significance of the shotgun house, while others will collect memories from Third Ward residents and/or create work in response to the neighborhood. All will create artifacts; capsules of visions and memories that resonate throughout the community. Installations will range from formal to more conceptual, utilizing a variety of materials and processes.

Featured Artists:

Gregory Michael Carter (Houston, TX) will create the installation Walk with Me. Through multi-layered, mixed media works, Carter will invite the viewer into his perceptions and experiences of the Third Ward as it pertains to issues of race and class.

Stephanie Diamond (New York, NY) creates a two-part installation. In It Would Look Like… (Project Row Houses) Diamond will invite area residents’ to share their visions of home utilizing her personal archives of over 200,000 photographs. In Snap Sharing, Diamond will invite area residnets to bring their own snapshots in a round table session of extrasensory perception, humor, story and myth making.

Rashida Ferdinand (New Orleans, LA) responds to the historic architecture of the shotgun house while creating a sense of memorial in her installation Lullaby. The work will reveal the tragedy and pain of her grandmother’s survival 1965 Hurricane Betsy in 1965, while also serving as a universal testament to faith, survival, persistence and love.

Lance Flowers (Houston, TX) utilizes wit and irony as he channels the people in Third Ward in his installation Can't Buy Class where he will place the “haves” and “have-nots” of the local community alongside one another in a multimedia mural created on the interior walls of his installation space.

Cynthia Giachetti (Baton Rouge, LA) will engage the residents of Third Ward in the creation of her intricate textile installation Building Ground, as she pays tribute to her passage of time here at Project Row Houses and memorializes her Third Ward experiences.

Lisa Qualls (Houston, TX) utilizes the images and forms from people within Third Ward and greater Houston communities in her installation Spirit Level. Looking at how the shotgun house serves as a symbol of home, Qualls’ work will honor Houston neighborhoods and the memories of the residents.

Stacy-Lynn Waddell (Chapel Hill, NC) will utilize her artistic process of burning, branding and singeing in her installation Call-n-Response. Waddell will explore some of the contradictions and misunderstandings of American history in her “call” inviting the viewers to “respond”.

In conjunction with Round 30:

Project Row Houses presents Yinka Adeyimi, a Yoruba artist from Nigeria, in his first solo exhibition in Houston, My Houston Turning Point. Yinka juxtaposes the traditional customs of batik, paintings on rice paper and bead mosaics with his own contemporary style. His artworks are an uplifting blend of Western Culture and mythological beliefs of the Yorubas. The exhibition can be viewed at 2521 Holman St., Houston, 77004.

About Project Row Houses

PRH was founded in 1993 as a result of discussions among African-American artists who wanted to establish a positive, creative presence in the Third Ward community. Our work is founded on the principle that art and the community that creates it changes lives. Thus, the mission of Project Row Houses is to create community through the celebration of art and African American history and culture.