citydrift/Portland

a 72-hour meta-event in Portland, Maine
curated by Jenna Crowder, Greg Bem, Mariah Bergeron, Rob Lieber, and Irina Skornyakova
September 19–21, 2014

Over a 72-hour period, Portland experienced three days of drifts and simultaneous creation and installation of drift documentation or ephemera, including panel discussions at the citydrift/Portland hubs. citydrift/Portland concluded with an exhibition of the installed drift documentation at SPACE Gallery from September 21–October 3, 2014. citydrift/Portland participants included Portland-area artists, performers, poets, musicians, printers, dancers, writers, curators, choreographers, and more, as well as participants and drifters from across the US and the world.

citydrift was created in 2011 by artist Peter Hopkins as a meta-event qua group installation/art discourse. It also serves as an homage to, and was inspired by, Guy Debord’s Situationist concept of the dérive or drift, Jan Hoet’s 1986 project in Ghent, Chambres D’Amis, and Colin DeLand’s (1955–2002) playful reconfiguration of art gallery tropes with American Fine Arts Co., and his art fair paradigms, The Armory and Gramercy Hotel fairs.

citydrift is designed as something that can be reproduced in some variant fashion in different cities over time. The first edition of citydrift, citydrift/Bushwick took place in Brooklyn, New York, in September 2012 and involved over 12 non-profit and commercial art galleries with over 200 participants. The second edition of citydrift was citydrift/Detroit, which took place in Detroit, Michigan, in July 2013.

citydrift is not exactly an exhibition, nor strictly speaking simply an art event, rather the concept is to be understood as a collective enterprise that brings together various strains of non-traditional art practices, organized under the operative philosophical umbrella of the drift. The result is a walking exploration of the environment, outside of any normative understanding of movement (traveling to work, shop, appointments…). It is an attempt to reclaim, if only briefly, a place for art outside the universal sphere of commerce.

The purpose of citydrift is not to claim some hidden knowledge of a city, but to tease out newer understandings using all possible modalities, and viewpoints from both inside the art culture of a place, as well as those working in similar fashion outside of that place.

ABOUT CITYDRIFT/PORTLAND
Executive Curator
Jenna Crowder

Curators
Greg Bem
Mariah Bergeron
Rob Lieber
Irina Skornyakova

Advisers
Peter P. Hopkins
Katie Grace McGowan

Galleries
SPACE Gallery Annex, with special thanks to Nat May & Dora Novey-Buttfield
Zero Station, with thanks to Keith Fitzgerald
Open Bench Project, with thanks to Jake Ryan

Drifters
Ash Adams, Corey Anderson, Kerry Anderson, Mark Anderson, Tara Atkinson, Jeff Badger, Greg Bem, Mel Bentley, Chanelle Bergeron, Tom Bordeaux, Cassie Cairns, Cole Caswell, Amanda Clark, Clay Projex, Bryana Colasanti, Brittany Cook, Emma Cooper, Toni Jo Coppa, Ben DeHaan, Jackie Dunphe, Joe Dwyer, Eden Dyer, Cassie Engberg, Brendan Ferri, FOES, Claire Frederick, Deirdre Fulton, The Garage Band, Nicole Guest, Sean Glover, Jeff Gould, Julie Kuceris Gray, Jennie Hahn, Maggie Harnois, Kat Harris, Khiang Heng, Blake Hiltunen, Nicole Hogarty, Ayumi Horie, Robert Hyde, Heather Irish, Graham Isaac, Genevieve Johnson, Beazley Kanost, King Tide Gang, Christina Klein, Nathan Kolosko, Rebecca Kmiecinski, Catherine LaBarre, Rollin Leonard, Michael Libby, Looo.ch, Allison Maher, Allison McCall, Cormac McLoughlin, Michela Micalizio, Douglas W. Milliken, Johanna Moore, Ernesto Morales, Jeanne Morel, Pilar Nadal, William Norton, Denis Nye, Sean O'Brien, Kristen Ouellette, Elise Pepple, Julie Poitras Santos, Galen Richmond, Dawn Robinson, Nick Rosenblum, Benjamin Schmitt, Reba Short, Arlo Smith, Eric Spalding, Alex Steed, Kurt Steger, Stroudwater Village Association, John Sundling, The Telling Room, Steve Tesh, thinkpunkgirl, Michael Dix Thomas, Ling-Wen Tsai, Jane Walsh, Patrick Colin Walsh, Meg Willing, Saula Wit, Yihui Yao, and more.

Discussion Panelists
Christina Bechstein
Sarah Schindler
Petra Simmons
Christopher Stiegler

Maine College of Art's Master of Arts in Teaching candidates supported citydrift/Portland by documenting the process, the drifts, and the installation in SPACE Gallery Annex. With Professor Kelly McConnell, they are:
Shaun Aylward
Aimee Carmella
Ashley Earl
Tess Hitchcock
Adrienne Kitko
Meredith Leoni
Ceri Nichols
Lia Petriccione
Kate Sanders-Fleming