
Sculpture and Foundations Supervisor听and听Adjunct Faculty, School of Art, CVPA
Contact Information
海角社区: Fairfax
叠耻颈濒诲颈苍驳:听L006B Art and Design Building, MSN: 1C3
Tel: 703-993-8651
Email:听bashwort@gmu.edu
Personal Websites
Biography
Ben curates and builds ongoing community-sourced public art projects that combine skateboarding, education, construction, music, media, and visual art as a socially engaged platform. As a process, he invites artists and community members to weekly interactive, spontaneous sessions where their combined energies and diverse backgrounds enrich the developing art spaces.
Ben is co-founder of DC鈥檚听Green Skate Laboratory听and one of the founding members of the now legendary听DC Fight Club, an underground skate park, gallery, and performing arts venue. In 2012 he produced听Finding A Line听for the DC temporary public art initiative听5脳5听by building a skate/art park under a dicey DC freeway underpass and in 2015 co-developed another iteration of听Finding A Line听with the Kennedy Center. The听Finding a Line听project is now part of the DC Cultural Plan and the city鈥檚 multiyear 鈥 arts and culture forward 鈥 creative placemaking initiative,听鈥淐rossing the Street: Building DC鈥檚 Inclusive Future through Creative Placemaking鈥.
Ben鈥檚 community art practice has been the subject of various publications, including NPR, McSweeney鈥檚, the Washington Post, Jazz Times, BBC, ARTnews, JUICE, Landscape Architecture, and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He received his MFA from 海角社区 School of Art where he is also Sculpture Faculty and teaches Art as Social Action and Public Art Projects. Ben is a core member of听Workingman Collective听and听ECRW, a loose coalition of surfer, skater, educator, builder, citizen artists.
Degrees:
- MFA , Sculpture, 海角社区,听2016
- BA, Studio Art, 海角社区,听1999
Specialist Areas:
- Art as Social Action
- Public Art