PLAY/GROUND 2022
Meaningful engagements with contemporary art designed to excite and unite our community.
PLAY/GROUND was created as a weekend-long series of events, featuring curated, site-specific installations by contemporary artists with a focus on the experiential, immersive, and ambitious.
Our History
2018 & 2019 In 2018, Resource:Art was hired by a Medina, NY based developer to curate and coordinate an immersive art experience inside a vacant high school. After an open call, applications from all over the country and Canada were reviewed and a final selection of about 30 artists per year were invited to participate. 800 Tickets were sold for the VIP Party and 7,000+ people visited the site over the course of the weekend in 2019.
One of the Medina images, maybe specifically that makes it look like a school?
Our History
2020 & 2021 In 2020 BICA joined the PLAY/GROUND team, and due to the restrictions of the pandemic, the event shifted to an all outdoor model based in Buffalo. Across the city and region installations that were on view for two weeks for people to explore in their own time, safely with social distance. Additional support in 2020 and 2021 came from PLAY/GROUND's cultural partner and sponsors including the Burchfield Penney Art Center, M&T Bank, Mitch Nowakowski, Buffalo Waterfront, The OSC Charitable Foundation and a long list of corporate partners, individual donors and supporters.
Organizing Partners Resource: Art is a fine arts consultancy working with a diverse array of local and international artists. Experts at curating in any environment, planning events that bring art to new audiences, encouraging community access & engagement, and growing artists career opportunities, Resrouce:Art is the founder of PLAY/GROUND.
Organizing Partners The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art is a non-profit organization dedicated to modeling the ways culture can sustain communities through focused, practical engagements with contemporary art. Through exhibitions of contemporary art, publishing the arts review magazine Cornelia, regular microgranting to artists and curators, and community and educational projects BICA seeks to grow Buffalo’s creative ecosystem into the next generation of Buffalo’s art community.
RESOURCE:ART Consulting Emily Tucker, Director of Benjaman Gallery Group, grew up in the art gallery her parents founded in 1970. She has always been surrounded by fine art and has developed a keen eye for quality. After spending years working in the financial world of New York City, Tucker took a job at Macklowe Gallery on Madison Avenue. At Macklowe, Tucker learned how to work with high-end collectors and market investment quality fine art. In 2010, Tucker returned home to Buffalo take over the family fine art gallery. Since then, she has been using her vast and varied experiences in New York to expand the family business to an international market. emilywinslowj@gmail.com
Elisabeth Samuels is a painter, curator & educator. Born in Chicago, she received a BA from Indiana University, studied at The Art Institute of Chicago, and UNC program Figline Valdarno, Italy, and received a MFA in Painting and an MA in Art Education from the University of Wisconsin Madison. For more than 25 years Samuels has worked in the fine art field using her curatorial skill set in both educational and gallery settings, as well as through community engagement. Samuels is the cofounder of Artists in Buffalo and for years was a force behind Allentown First Fridays. elisabethsamuels@gmail.com
The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art Nando Alvarez-Perez is an artist, photographer, and educator. He is the co-founder and director of the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art. His work has been exhibited throughout Europe and North America. He holds a masters in fine arts from the San Francisco Art Institute, and a bachelors in Film Studies from Hunter College. Nando has worked as a Creative Lead at Airbnb, and taught classes at the California College of the Arts, Alfred University, and the University of Rochester, and currently works as a freelance photographer. nando@thebica.org
Emily Ebba Reynolds is the cofounder and director of the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (BICA). Emily works at the crossroads of museums and cultural institutions, community organizing, and marketing. Beyond BICA, Emily works at the University at Buffalo Art Galleries as the Marketing and Communications Manager and has previously had positions at the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She holds a master’s degree in Exhibition and Museum Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Bachelors in Art History from the University of Colorado Boulder. emily@thebica.org
2022 Goals Go back to school: Classroom spaces make the perfect setting for impressive installations, as well as time-based performances and educational workshops. Increase revenue through ticketed events: We raise money to pay artists and support the production of their work. Create deeper connections with young artists: A partnership with BPS creates an easy connection to classrooms full of emerging artists!
2022 Timeline ● Site selection finalized: End of March ● Event Announced and Applications Open: April ● Artist Selection: July ● Site planning and installation: August - September ● Event: October
Play/Ground at 333 Clinton? Through a partnership with Buffalo Public Schools, we can further expand our mission to give children and young adults their first and/or most meaningful interaction with contemporary art. We’d like to stage the majority of Play/Ground 2022 at the former Performing Arts School at 333 Clinton inviting BPS students for free, curating several collaborations between artists and BPS students, and facilitating workshops with BPS students through the run of the event.
Considerations Installation time: P/G would need access to the school on several occasions before P/G22 for artist tours, etc as well as at least 1 week of daily hours prior to the opening of P/G Event: We would desire at least 3 days where we could invite 1000+ ticketed guests to visit the installations. Party: the funding of this event depends on ticket sales and the most successful point has traditionally been an Opening Event with beer, wine, cocktails, and food. If not in the school, we’d propose doing this outside the school with proper city permitting.
Engage your senses. Expand your mind. Inspire your imagination.