Started in 2008, senseofplace LAB has created art projects/works that are intent on making visible the value that is already within a place, to experience each place as a location of worth. Projects used art and architectural strategies to produce a layered set of identification markers to recognize what imbues each location with a ‘sense of a place’.
senseofplace LAB started an archive via a senseofplace LAB FB page/ It is a contemporaneous flow of media through the lens of ‘place’ – organized as a curated research archive. For use by educators, artists, architects, urban planners, academics – connected through a relationship to ‘place’. This page is current. There are also current senseofplace Instagram and Twitter accounts.
The theoretical area that has most influenced my art works are the Situationists. While reading texts such as The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem and Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography by Guy Debord, I identified with the term “situationist” as someone who creates artistic situations (or uses social engagement processes) as a tool for the “liberation of everyday life” in order to negate the pervasive passivity that accompanied the ‘spectacle’ or our focus on commodity consumption. Their term ‘psychogeography’ refers to how places affect us, with the dérive being a strategy for experiencing place outside of our usual prescribed movements. senseofplace LAB projects are meant to cause a shift in how we experience – and communicate that experience of – places that matter to us. Supporting people to be proactive in relation to place, and in seeing place as more than a commodity.
My hope is that an active experience of place empowers people to experience their environment more deeply. Everyone has a relationship to a place (s), and I utilize this truism as a way to invite people to be more ‘present’ where they are. – Laura Halsey Brown, Artist/Founder of senseofplace LAB.
/// senseofplace LAB art projects ///
2018-2019
MODGU (Mobile Data Gathering Unit)
2017
Data Collection, Online experimental media project for Instagram
Shelton Farm Handkerchiefs, Summer 2017
2016
Fiction Science Gallery, San Francisco, CA Almost Family exhibition.
Point Reyes National Seashore Residency Point Reyes, CA
Architecture as Pedestal. San Francisco, CA Interactive temporary public project
Hayes Valley Art Works San Francisco, CA Interactive temporary public project
Parking Lot Art Fair San Francisco, CA Interactive temporary public project
2015
Surplus Space Portland, Oregon a commemoration in several parts: an investigation of our relationship to a place (Surplus)
Solo project (with collaborators Eric Nielson, Gabe Flores and Michelle Wood)
Markings (Dear Developer) Large scale public art project installed for 3 months at the 16thMission BART plaza, San Francisco, CA
Made possible by a ‘Caltrans Environmental Justice: Context Sensitive Design Program’ grant
Market Street Prototyping Festival Portal Exchange: Public engagement installation on Market St, San Francisco, CA
In collaboration with Gensler Architects
AIA San Francisco Presentation as part of Placemaking conference
Focal Point Gallery, London UK ‘Graphics Interchange Format: 25 Years of Focal Point Gallery’. Radial Shadow gifs
stART-up Art Fair, San Francisco, CA with ASC Projects senseofplace LAB boutique. Photo installation
Cities+Schools, Berkeley, CA Guest panelist for a student presentation
2014
SOMArts, San Francisco, CA Placed/Displaced exhibition. breathing in place: 3 part engagement installation
SOMArts, San Francisco, CA Day of the Dead exhibition. Markings (DOTD): engagement installation
NOWSF Festival Spotlight on the Panhandle: series of 3 public engagement projects in San Francisco, CA
2013
SF Hidden Waters Public engagement project in San Francisco, CA. In collaboration with Eric Nielson
Converting Oakland Waste into Dialogue…Curatorial project about/in Oakland, CA with 5 local artists
Markings_Kezar ∆ Public engagement project in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
Nomadic Nature in Situ Worked with local artists to create 4 seasonal public interventions, in the Presidio, San Francisco, CA
2012
Artopia, San Francisco, CA – One of 10 Finalists for Masterminds Grant
Residency with MilkBar at Sunshine Biscuit Factory in Oakland, CA. Created interdisciplinary installation: 5/7/5
2010
Bike Rack as Public Art design contest. In collaboration with San Francisco Bike Coalition
Article for Urban Notes section of SPUR magazine
/// Articles/Reviews about senseofplace LAB projects ///
2016 John Metcalfe Take a Smell Tour of San Francisco’s Presidio Park, CityLab/The Atlantic
2014 Caille Milner, Putting the Pain of Gentrification to Good Use, SF Chronicle
2014 Robin Cembalest, 101 Women Artists Who Got Wikipedia Pages This Week ArtNews.com
2012 Jonathan Curiel, The Destination Artist, SF Weekly