 Mission
Pond is an 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to providing a forum through which experimental artists may share ideas and foster a mutually beneficial relationship with the larger community. Our goal is to offer an accessible place for individual and community groups to develop and execute ideas in a non-competitive atmosphere.
History
In the wake of San Francisco's dot-com
bust and the shuttering of alternative art and activist
spaces, Pond was founded by Steve Shada and Marisa Jahn
who opened its doors in 2001. Until 2005, Pond operated
as a gallery,
event,
and
meeting
space
that
showcased
the work of over 200 international artists and organizers
through exhibitions, lecture series, public art projects,
education workshops, one pancake party, and one haircut
party. In 2005, Steve Shada and Marisa Jahn moved
to the East Coast and shifted Pond's programming towards
less gallery-centric based projects. In
2009, Pond received the inaugural curatorial fellowship
from
The Elizabeth
Foundation in New York City, from which it now operates
its various projects.
Since 2001, Pond has produced projects in museums,
festivals, and public places in Serbia,
Estonia, Croatia, Canada, Honduras, Taiwan, and North America.
Venues include: The Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia),
The American Embassy in Serbia (Belgrade,
Serbia), MoKS (Estonia), Mama (Zagreb), Western Front (Vancouver), Eyebeam
(New York), the MIT Museum, and
in San Francisco at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the
San Francisco Art Institute,
the Asian Art Museum, the Commonwealth Club, and more.
We
are an all-volunteer organization!
Co-Directors/Co-Founders:
Marisa
Jahn & Steve Shada
Volunteers:
David Forster Rudolph, Mai Le, Blair
Randall, Brian Eby, Anna Steiner, Chris Bassett, Matthew
Erickson, Michael Smit, Paul Chasan, Amy Berk, Colleen
Bazdarich, Shady Lanes, Andrea Lambert
Eric Zassenhaus, Marijke Jorritsma, Chris Baum
|
 |
Press
Pond's work has been reviewed in Art in America,
Frieze, Punk Planet, NY Arts Magazine, Clamor, San Francisco
Chronicle, the Fader, Artweek, Cluster (Italy), Metropolis,
the Discovery Channel, NPR, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
(CBC), San Francisco Weekly, Bay Area Guardian, Sirp (Estonia),
Frieze, and more.
Awards
Pond has received awards and grants such as CEC
Artslink Award in 2005 to travel to Estonia, a CEC Artslink
Award in 2009 to travel to Tajikistan,
the 2009 inaugural curatorial fellowship at the Elizabeth
Foundation (NYC), the Headlands Center for the Arts, and
a 2007 Award from the Serbian Embassy. Marisa
Jahn is a 2008-9 artist in residence at the MIT Media Lab
(Tangible Media Group).
Bios
Steve Shada (b.1976,
American mutt) and Marisa Jahn (b.
1977, Ecuadorian-Chinese American) and are artists/curators/writers
whose work explores the collaborative authorship and
distributive intelligence of surrounding people and
situations.
They write, “We are interested in the way that collective
authorship shifts the production and interpretation
of art towards an appreciation of process, context,
and re-invention.” In 2000, Shada and Jahn co-founded
Pond with the goal of creating a space for a politically-responsive
and adventuresome art.
As an art educator working with mostly underrepresented youth, in 2003,
Jahn received two out of five national awards for curricular excellence
by Boys & Girls
Clubs of America and was recognized by UNESCO in 2006 as a leading art
educator. Shada is involved
as an
activist and organizer in post-Katrina New Orleans. In New York,
Jahn and Shada have worked with various grassroots organizations such
as Reverend Billy and The
Church of Stop Shopping (www.revbilly.com)
and
I-Witness
Video
(www.iwitnessvideo.info),
an organization dedicated to shedding light on the growing injustice
of police misconduct in the United States.
Jahn received a BA from UC Berkeley and an MS from MIT;
Shada is self-taught.
|
