An Odyssey

Nicole Krauch

Nicole is leading a group exercise in dactylic hexameter, a poetic form used in classical epic poetry. In addition, she is performing Book X of Homer’s The Odyssey.

Nicole Krauch is currently a graduate student at University of California, Berkeley, studying to earn her MA in education. Even though Nicole has a background in dance and choreography, she is rapidly becoming more interested in the use of voice and narrative in performance. Her performing heroines include: Ruth Zaporah, Pina Bausch, Anna Halprin and Deborah Hay.

Cómo Andaremos Pocho/ How will we walk in lost heritage?

Anthony Carrillo

Anthony has considered the history of Angel Island: from the indigenous inhabitants, to Spanish conquest, to American military installation, to immigration station, and finally to California State Park. He will be reading a short story from his forthcoming novel Cómo Andaremos Pocho/ How will we walk in lost heritage? a collection of related, father-son stories that take place over 200 years on the same stretch of beach in Southern California.

Anthony Carrillo is a San Francisco based author.

Early Territory

Minnette Lehmann

Minnette reads from her memoirs about growing up during the Great Depression. She tells of her older brother who died before she was born, her relentless praying for god to bring him back, and her overall loss of faith when at five years old, her younger sister was born instead.

Minnette Lehmann is a Bay Area artist currently showing her artwork at the Richard Taylor Gallery, San Francisco, California.

Mammoths or Widows from a Fairly Good Spot

Isaac Amala & Liz Simpson

Isaac and Liz have made their own viewfinders to place beside the existing viewfinders at Angel Island State Park. Look through their viewfinders to see the existing vistas replaced by artists’ renditions of alternative histories and unmoored landmarks. Standing beside the viewfinders, the artists whisper stories of unfulfilled promises and instruments of progress.

Isaac and Liz have collaborated for five years, having received their Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees from California College of the Arts (and Crafts). Their past performances have charted the real estate potential of an isolated ghost town with fierce optimism, intimidated an art critic, and staged a demonstration that promoted existential crises as pragmatic alternatives to commercial art.

Isaac is a San Francisco based installation artist who has exhibited his artwork in California and Europe.

Liz is an Oakland based installation artist whose work employs sculpture as well as alternative photographic processes. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States. Liz is also a garden designer and horticulturalist, committed to reintroducing native California flora into Bay Area gardens.

WE UNITE, GROW & STAND

Satoru Nihei and Amber Hasselbring

Satoru and Amber designed and produced pin back buttons symbolizing unity and new beginnings. This button reminds us that if we support each other we grow stronger.

Satoru Nihei runs a design studio Beautifool where playful exploration seeks and creates meaningful dialogue within our diverse culture. He resides in New York.

Chen Family Taijiquan

Debbie Au

Debbie leads a group through a series of silk-reeling exercises that benefit the body’s joints and assist in proper body alignment. These exercises are fundamental to understanding more advanced forms of Chen Family Taiji.

Debbie is certified to teach Chen Family Taijiquan by Grand Master Chen Qingzhou, a 19th generation direct descendant of Chen Family Taijiquan and the Chen Family Taijiquan School in Wenxin, China, the birth place of Chen Taiji.

Collapsed in the act of just being here

Lori Gordon

Gordon's text-based artist’s book presents a series of questions and thoughts she has compiled about the state of current affairs. While mulling over her fears and anxieties about invasion, occupation, war and global warming, Gordon attempts to counteract these fears with affirmations about peace, connection and love. In the last few pages of the book, Gordon invites the reader to correspond with her about their own apprehensions and aspirations. 

Lori Gordon is a San Francisco based artist whose work investigates the structure and power of belief systems; she is attempting to decipher both humanity’s and her own connection with the universe. Gordon is interested in setting up situations that deviate from the expected, weaving together aspects of the paranormal and performance, to explore the gap between coincidence and intention. Much of her work attempts to make the ineffable visible. Through her work, Gordon questions the reductive notion that a person can exist in the world without faith, and she demonstrates that art itself cannot function without the willing participation of a faithful audience.

Photographic Documentation of the Festival

Karle Fried

Karle is the official photographer for the Angel Island ART & ECOLOGY Festival. She will follow the group as they experience the day’s events.

Karle Fried is a photographer, whose work has been described as raw, emotional, sexual, beautiful and disturbing all at once. Karle’s photographs have been included in BIG Magazine, Dwell, American Photography and Nursery Rhymes of the Female Mind. Karle earned a BFA in photography from California College of the Arts in 2003 and a degree in International Studies and Anthropology from Michigan State University in 1995.

TBJ Productions Video

Benjamin Jones

Ben is the official videographer for the Angel Island ART & ECOLOGY Festival. He will follow the group through the day’s events.  

Born in London, England, Benjamin Jones has been playing music and making films since he was in his early teens. He has participated in most aspects of the music and film industry including management, recording, publicity and marketing. A graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, he double-majored in Film/Digital Media and Community Studies. While studying there, he received funding to produce a documentary film that was shown at film festivals across the country.

Program Map

Isabelle Le & Amber Hasselbring

The program map provides a detailed festival route as well as the event schedule.

Isabelle Le is a San Francisco based artist. Multifarious and variegated are her interests; Isabelle divides her time in pursuit of building bridges, discovering and planting roots, as well as creating new color stories, textures, and patterns in her artwork. In 2004, she received her joint degree BFA in Fashion Design from the California College of the Arts and Crafts and the University of San Francisco.

Angel Island ART & ECOLOGY Festival

Over the past three years, Amber has developed several collaborative projects: I STAND, 2004, Art on BART, 2005, and this year the Angel Island ART & ECOLOGY Festival. These public works have connected the community and gradually lead to recognizing improvements in our environment.

Amber Hasselbring is an artist living in San Francisco. Since earning her BFA in Photography from Maine College of Art in 2002, Amber has initiated a photographic/travel piece addressing concerns about the Colorado River watershed and has collaborated with Amy Stacey Curtis on an artwork entitled SOUND EXCHANGE.

Thank you to the artists for donating your time and skills, and thank you to Dave Matthews and the staff at Angel Island State Park. Additionally, thank you volunteers, advisors and specialists: Lorna Brod, Sarah Burns, Josiah Clark, Kevin Cunningham, Mike Dyar, Greg Gaar, Stephen Gresch, Letty Huerta, Nicole Krauch, Andres Larin-Baranda, Alan Miller, Mark Ostapiak, Jenny Selgrath and Nancy Vicknair. A special thank you to Steven Leiber.

Thank you sponsors William Laven Photography and Karen Thrower for your financial support.

On October 29, 1977, artist Lynn Hershman's Floating Museum invited several women to create site-specific performance and installations on Angel Island in a piece titled (H)errata. This was an ingenious protest to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's first site-specific exhibition titled Installation and Performance Pieces: Golden Gate National Recreation Area, that included only men.

For more information email: amber@art-eco.org
or call and leave a message at 415-786-4957