Around Town: Hot Walls

This fall, artists across Baltimore will be lighting up night skies and local buildings. Luminous Intervention, an activist new media collective, announces the eight participants for HOT WALLS, their upcoming projection series showcasing the work of local Baltimore artists.

The collaborative projections will explore local issues as well as celebrate neighborhood and cultural achievements. The series will begin with a bang, as legendary Baltimore musician DJ Blackstarr will present a compilation of videos at a block party. The pieces will also include a celebration of Black historical artists in Reservoir Hill (LOVE the Poet, 2011 Baker b-grant Award winner), animations discussing the role of corner stores in West Baltimore (Emily Chow Bluck), and a collaborative video documentary with Latin business owners in Upper Fells (Michelle Gomez). Up-and-coming artists Tanya Garcia and Valeria Molinari will present a study on the role of Machismo in their communities, while relative newcomer Michelle Faulkner will add humor to the series with a satirical take on fast food. The series will end with an introspective look at water from MICA professor Jann Rosen-Queralt.

HOT WALLS is a series intended to highlight the substantial local talent across Baltimore, where artists will be given the opportunity to experiment with a new and exciting medium. “We have found that large-scale projections are attention grabbing and can gather people together for sharing stories, envisioning creative futures, inspiring critical discussion, and voicing concerns,” said Zoe Bachman, a Luminous Intervention member.

The artists represented in the series hail from a variety of backgrounds and areas of expertise. “While public arts programming in Baltimore often can get stuck picking from the same small handful of well-connected artists, we’re very proud to be representing an incredibly strong and diverse crew of artists,” said Dan, another Luminous Intervention member. “This series is very artist-driven. We had some minor criteria in mind, but basically we were looking for what would make for exciting and insightful public projections.”

Known for their use of large-scale video projections, Luminous Intervention regularly creates and collaborates on guerrilla art pieces that address a range of local and national issues. The group’s topics include diverse subjects, including fair labor practices in the Inner Harbor, indefinite detention of Guantanamo detainees, and equality of marriage for all. But the new series is a new kind of collaboration for the group. “Collaboration with community groups has been part of our mission from the beginning. Now that we are more experienced, we want to share our knowledge with other artists and support them in spreading their own visions,” says Bachman.

The series will kick off on September 30th and continue through November 15th, with approximately one projection per week. Stay tuned as future events are announced via our website and our Facebook page. Events will begin at sundown.

www.hotwalls.luminousintervention.org