Steve Lambert, Capitalism Works For Me! True/False, 2011. Courtesy the artist.

Musagetes and Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area (CAFKA) are delighted to announce the first Big Ideas in Art and Culture Lecture of 2012: artist and creative activist Steve Lambert on May 22 at 7. Steve will be introducing us to his practice–some of his better-known projects are a “Special Edition” of The New York Times, which preemptively announced the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan following the 2008 American election and SelfControl, an application which blocks grownups from distracting websites so they can get work done. He has collaborated with well-known art collectives such as the Yes Men and the Graffiti Research Lab, and other organizations such as Greenpeace. Admission is free.

We’re running a bus trip from Guelph to the lecture! The bus will leave from 193 Woolwich Street (Macquarie House) at around 6 to be at Kitchener City Hall with enough time to unload and settle in before the lecture. The bus is free, and you can reserve your spot at stevelambertbus.eventbrite.com or call 519-836-7300 x 103.

For more information about this lecture, please visit cafka.org/lectures.

SWIFT is a bird’s eye view on change, unintended consequences, displacement, adaptation and resiliency.
DodoLab is an art- and design-based program led by Lisa Hirmer and Andrew Hunter that researches, engages and responds to contemporary community challenges, with a particular focus on the natural world, social systems, built environment and cities in transition. They employ creative public interventions that are truly collaborative, that evolve out of dialogue and critical reflection, and that strive for tangible and meaningful outcomes. DodoLab is interested in the barriers to adaptation and change, and in engaging the public in public. The expanding human presence fuelled by European colonization of the Americas caused the rapid decline of the chimney swift’s natural habitat. It was luck and chance, mixed with a certain irony, that created the opportunity for a new home for this species in the chimneys of homes and factories. Habitat transformation is in the works again, along with human-induced changes to the environment. Across Southern Ontario, chimneys have been knocked down (no longer needed and often a safety hazard due to their state of decay) or capped (for conservation reasons), and so the swift finds itself at another crossroads, displaced and homeless.

As part of 1mile2, DodoLab will work with individuals and groups in Guelph to develop a combination of design/build strategies and creative interventions to attempt to address the plight of the chimney swift and to explore what we can learn through a community-based and interspecies dialogue. DodoLab wants to explore what can be done to assist chimney swifts who migrate to 1mile2 to adapt to current changes in their environment and, by extension, to explore wider issues about adaptation, change and displacement in the community.

DodoLab will launch the first phase of its SWIFT project this October with a series of interventions in the core of Guelph using printed material, shareables and public action. The goal of this phase is to creatively raise public awareness about the plight of the endangered Chimney Swift and to begin to explore parallel ideas and narratives about the challenges of adapting to change in the broader community. This phase of DodoLab’s work will be the basis of a community-based design/build workshop program in the spring of 2012. Stay tuned for details of where to find DodoLab and how you can connect with them in October.