Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Uncategorized Dodekapus gets collectively conscious
Posted by Jessica Blankenship @blanketboat on Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 5:10 PM
Here’s the thing to understand about the young culture of creatives in Atlanta: The order of the day is advocacy minus dependence. Atlanta’s 20- and 30-something creative types are socially and politically active in beseeching the city to provide a more artistically nurturing environment, while at the same time feeling mostly untouched from any restrictions that a lack of that environment might impose – existing circumstances in this city might not be ideal for creative projects to flourish, but that isn’t stopping select groups of people. In that spirit, there have been a number of independent galleries, performance spaces and artist collectives springing up all over Atlanta.
The newest art/music/performance collective to join the party: Dodekapus, whose membership boasts the inclusion of “painters, sculptors, photographers, performance artists, fashion designers, videographers, lighting designers, writers, musicians, chefs, poets, dancers and multiple other artists of indiscriminate talents." Formed only a few months ago, the group is pushing forward at light speed with the seemingly inexhaustible energy of its members and a little help from their friends.
According the Dodekapus member Trevor Jones, the diversity of the group is its greatest strength: “We have 50-75 people regularly come to meetings, with a smaller, core group at the helm. That’s the great thing – everyone does something different, everyone knows someone who knows someone who can do something, and somehow, what needs to happen happens.”
The collectives, organizations, and events popping up with increasing regularity and ferocity lately tend to share an inter-disciplinary nature that, when you think about it, really just makes sense. When you’re a young, art-thing in a city that largely doesn’t give a damn (or a dime) that you’re the next great visionary artist/musician/dancer/actor, you depend on your peers. Strength in numbers, and all that. In the case of Dodekapus, you also occasionally get lucky with an outpouring of sponsorship from the likes of Sam Flax and Asahi, who are both sponsoring their launch party April 9 at Raw Space.
The April 9 event will feature music from Muet, Sonen, The Falcon Lords, The Back Pockets, and DJ Santiago Paramo a bike race, film projections, dance performances, body painting, plus all the munchies and booze you’d expect – it will essentially be 7,500 sq. ft. of everything colorful, loud, and kinetic they could think of.
Funds raised at the party will go towards the organization’s goal of achieving its 501(c)3 nonprofit status. Also to that end, gallery/performance space/base of operations for Atlanta arts advocacy, WonderRoot, has partnered up with Dodekapus and is playing an instrumental role in helping the new group. Getting legally legit is just part of their plan. In addition to an upcoming series of events, including a kids’ art stroll and the takeover of a 10,000 sq. ft. warehouse, Jones says the group would “love to eventually have a permanent space where we could house our projects and maybe have resident artists. But it would mostly be about having a place to create things and meet – our projects are mostly public and event-based.”
What’s striking about this and other collectives, independent art spaces, and organizations that have sprouted up in recent months and years is that these aren’t a bunch of directionless youth with spray paint, grasping at intellectual justification for creative rebellion. It’s all earnest, sincere, and has an undeniable mark of “we’re building this because we need to have it.” These are people who have decided to put the full weight of their education, resources, and vision for a better city into advocacy-through-art. And sometimes, this doesn’t just mean painting hundreds of signs in support of the BeltLine (although that’s happened) or initiating efforts to save public spaces (that’s also happened) – mostly, the movement is about creating their own reality in Atlanta.
When The Man neglects to give artists what they need, it’s eliciting a more proactive response these days. Angry, reactionary art is so last century. For Dodekapus and its contemporaries, perhaps suffering a lack of city-sponsored spaces and projects isn’t as much of a hardship as it is a blessing, if the result is a thriving scene of young creatives who, in the absence of pre-constructed frames as artistic outlets, are simply making it up as they go along. Couldn’t that be the freshest, most honest way for art, music and performance to evolve in Atlanta?
Collective Conscious: Dodekapus Launch Event, April 9, 8 p.m. – 4 a.m. Raw Space, 431 Fair Street. www.dodekapus.org.
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