Works by artist Angela Willcocks are featured in the latest “My Pasadena” installation that will be exhibited on a series of banners at Pasadena’s Central Library and on Pasadena’s Metro buses.
Titled “Blotnbyte,” the temporary public art project also includes an interactive audio component accessed via mobile devices or through the website. These audio interviews are of Northwest Pasadena residents and are augmented by sound recordings made by the artist.
Willcocks says the series of audio stories and portraits is the product of her collaboration with the residents of Northwest Pasadena.
“Stories are an essential part of culture, they connect and create a sense of place and community,” Willcocks writes on SideStreet Projects’ website. “Contextualized stories can link communities. So by collecting personal experiences as audio stories, and creating interactive spaces on public transport, and mobile devices, through huge public wall drawings, and on the web the local stories will give us a glimpse of different place, connecting disparate peoples, while exposing a commonality.”
Samples of the portraits and audio stories Willcocks assembled can in fact be accessed through a blog the artist started, which now forms part of the latest “My Pasadena” installation, www.blognbyte.com.
Some of Willcocks’ subjects include 16-year-old boxer Fatima, Fausto dela Torre and other boxers at Villa Park Gym who are recorded as they do their workouts.
Willcocks also worked with staff at Perrys Joint Café and Mothers’ Club Pasadena to produce the series.
Angela Willcocks is an Australian native who eventually settled in Long Beach, where she has become known as a social practicing artist – a type of artist who immerses herself in a community and partners with locals to produce art that benefits that community.
As an artist, Willcocks said she is influenced by her experience as an immigrant.
“I work with people who are disenfranchised,” she said, referring to undocumented immigrants and others who struggle to “get a sense of place.”
In addition to working with the North Long Beach community, Willcocks teaches art at regional universities and city colleges, and exhibits her artwork nationally.
“My Pasadena” is Pasadena’s project for the Civic Center that creates a continuous series of events and changing artworks from September 2015 to September 2016, transforming the Civic Center into a creative, vibrant public forum and expanding community awareness of and relevance to the contemporary role of government.
The project is run by the city’s Cultural Affairs Division, which along with partner SideStreet Projects, was given a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town public art project award.
For a full schedule of all “My Pasadena” projects and dates, visit www.cityofpasadena.net/arts or www.sidestreet.org/mypasadena.
