The living room furnishings of Miami residents Mindy Nelson and Keith Waddington were relocated to The Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, and in their place an environment was created to accommodate a series of salon gatherings that they will be hosting...

SALON COLADA: MIAMI

A commissioned project for the exhibition Convention at The Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, May 21 - September 13, 2009 / curated by Ruba Katrib / watch the Salon Colada VIDEO (by Jacinto Astiazaran)

08.07.09 - check out Keith's webpage about the project here

05.25.09 - the video by Jacinto Astiazaran commissioned by MOCA for the exhibition is now online here

05.21.09 - exhibition opening at MOCA

05.20.09 - first Salon Colada event!

05.11.09 - story in the Miami Herald

05.02.09 - story in the Biscayne Times

04.30.09 - Follow Keith and Mindy's salon blog here.

04.25.09 - The Miami Salon hosts will be Keith D. Waddington and C. Mindy Nelson of Coral Gables, FL:

Keith Waddington and Mindy Nelson are scientists, art and nature enthusiasts, and, with more than a few adopted cats, live in Coral Gables.  They garden for butterflies and promote both plant and animal diversity in their tiny yard.

Keith is a Professor of Biology at the University of Miami; he teaches courses in animal behavior, process in science, and a new course in ArtScience.  His current drive is to remove general barriers that exist between artists and scientists in hopes of stimulating new ideas, and ways to address problems and break new ground.

Mindy is an ecologist and animal behaviorist currently working as a contractor for NOAA on the prevalence of fish abnormalities in the St. Lucie River and factors affecting those abnormalities.  She has also worked on reproductive behavior in fishes, and behavior and aging in honeybees.  She is interested in environmental conservation, animal welfare and the visual arts.

Here are some early thoughts from them on the project:

“The Miami Salon Project will be a challenging and unique experience for us.  On the one hand, we are not daunted by the idea of giving up our living room contents even though many of our belongings were gathered over many years.  We know the experience of leaving our “stuff” behind for stretches of time and it is liberating!  And we relish the idea of new and functional furnishings to facilitate our salon discussions and activities.  The bigger challenge for us will be to reach out to new people and old friends and provide a stimulating platform for ideas and discussion and interaction in a salon format.  We hope that the salon topics we choose will be of interest to many people with divergent expertise. 

We view the Miami Salon Project as an exciting opportunity to meet and interact with new people, hear and discuss new ideas, and build community that we hope will live beyond the salons.  We hope that we will be able to share our expertise in some areas, collaborate with experts in other areas, work on shared missions with neighbors and friends and strangers and have fun doing it.  Some of our ideas are small and local in scale, such as-learning new recipes and new ways to garden in South Florida, exchanging ideas about promoting wildlife in our own yards, generating plans for pedestrian transportation safety in our community, and others more broad such as laying groundwork for an ArtScience collaborative.”

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04.21.09 - local hosts have been selected for the Miami Salon project! more information coming soon.

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03.20.09 - open call: looking for an adventurous miami resident eager to start a series of salon gatherings at their home...

Dear Miami,

For a project at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), North Miami, I am seeking the collaboration of an adventurous local resident. They will organize and host a regular series of salon gatherings at their home during the run of the exhibition from May 21 – September 13, 2009. I will work with them to strategize their new salon series, but the events will be entirely organized by the host, with guests of their choosing.

The selected resident will have the entire contents of their “living room” relocated in exactly the same arrangement in the MOCA galleries for the run of the exhibition. I will develop and design a very simple seating system that is conducive to the social salon gatherings to furnish their vacated living space.

Museum visitors will be invited to make themselves comfortable in the transplanted “living room”. A video will be produced about the household, their lives in the living room before the project, and during a few of the salon events. This will then be presented in the museum galleries, along with snapshots, invitations and other ephemera from their events. They will also be invited to keep a diary of their experiences to be posted online and printed in a 'zine.

If you are up for the challenge, excited by the possibility of turning your lives upside down for the summer and eager to open up your house to new possibilities, send a few photos of you and your “living room” with a very brief message describing why you would want to do this, to studio-at-fritzhaeg-dot-com. Please pass this on this to anyone in Miami that you think might be interested. I will be visiting to meet with candidates on April 21st.

Warmest Regards,
Fritz Haeg

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This project coincides with the release of The Sundown Salon Unfolding Archive published by Evil Twin Publications, a 400-page book documenting the salon events I hosted in my Los Angeles geodesic dome from 2001-2006.

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CONVENTION
Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami
MAY 21 – SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

Convention takes as its premise the predominance of mega cultural events such as conventions, festivals, fairs, carnivals and other social gatherings in an international society.  In a city such as Miami, where a convention center is continuously being filled with various social and professional groups, notably Art Basel Miami Beach in the winter, this exhibition explores the impact of this phenomenon on a city. Convention takes an unconventional, critical and humorous approach in considering the historical models of world fairs and the latest flourishing of international biennials and contemporary art fairs in relation to the museum. The exhibition investigates these formats as sites for contemporary art. By taking place in the summer months, Convention is active, challenging conceptions of Miami as a seasonal city. Convention is curated by Ruba Katrib, MOCA Assistant Curator.

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