2011.03.26: March 26, 2011: Mongolia RPCV Jessica Moon Bernstein has exhibition, "Ourrubberos," at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Mongolia: Peace Corps Mongolia : Peace Corps Mongolia: Newest Stories: 2011.03.26: March 26, 2011: Mongolia RPCV Jessica Moon Bernstein has exhibition, "Ourrubberos," at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art

By Admin1 (admin) (98.188.147.225) on Friday, April 22, 2011 - 7:58 am: Edit Post

Mongolia RPCV Jessica Moon Bernstein has exhibition, "Ourrubberos," at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art

Mongolia RPCV  Jessica Moon Bernstein has exhibition, Ourrubberos, at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art

Bernstein says two years spent in Mongolia with the Peace Corps also informed and inspired the piece. At the time, the central Asian nation has just emerged from the clutches of Communism and had embraced the free market. There was little available to buy and when Bernstein returned to the United States, she was astonished by the offerings when she went to buy some ibuprofen. "There were so many selections. Some cheaper, some with more pills, some fast-acting, some long-lasting. It was overwhelming. I started to consider this glut of product on this planet and all the packaging involved," she says. But she returned to Mongolia every couple of years thereafter and was distressed to see the waste that the market economy had begun to generate. With no infrastructure to handle the garbage, the country has become littered with everything from animal bones to plastic packaging, she says. "It got too sad for me, finally, and I've not been able to go back," she says. The dual impressions of excess and waste led her to think about giving new life to human-made materials. The idea for "Ourrubberos," Bernstein says, is "to take something synthetic and bring it back to life."

Mongolia RPCV Jessica Moon Bernstein has exhibition, "Ourrubberos," at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art

Totally tubular: Artist filling BMOCA walls with bicycle inner tubes

By Alex Stein For the Camera

Posted: 03/26/2011 01:34:15 PM MDT

Caption: Artist Jessica Moon Bernstein with her exhibition, "Ourrubberos," at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. The piece is constructed entirely of bicycle inner tubes. Photo: Mark Leffingwell

The walls are, literally, covered with rubber. Pieces and strips of worn, mostly black bicycle inner tubes that spill around corners, across floors. The curious smell of rubber pervades the room, which has been all but consumed. Sound is muffled, swallowed.

And Boulder artist Jessica Moon Bernstein isn't even finished with her quirky installation, "Ourrubberos," in the upstairs gallery at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. She plans to continue adding rubber to the piece until the show ends in late June. In its current stage of development, it occupies about half of the space.

"We are thrilled with the idea of an installation that is not considered complete just because the exhibition has opened," says Petra Sertic, associate curator at BMOCA. Something about the media and work itself strike Sertic as organic, even alive: "You have a dark soft covering, undulating in biomorphic shapes, indicating that it might continue to grow."

It's an interesting choice of media, admits Bernstein 42. She happened upon it after she grew tired of painting and "making art to match people's couches." She took a three-year break, returning when she received a scholarship and residency at the Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass.

"During the residency, I was like a kid, again, experimenting and playing with materials. I found inner tubes there in a junk closet. I am a cyclist, so the tubes caught my eye. I began to collect more," she says. "Originally, I was stapling them to the walls, but soon I began incorporating panels of chicken wire, weaving the inner-tubes through the panels, like weaving a rug. My fantasy was to fill an entire room."

By June, that fantasy may well have come true. Bernstein's title is a play on the ancient image of Ouroboros, the serpent that eats its own tail. The piece is a kind of cyclical rebirth of the humble, utilitarian bike tire tube, which otherwise would wind up in a landfill or by the side of the road somewhere.

Bernstein says two years spent in Mongolia with the Peace Corps also informed and inspired the piece. At the time, the central Asian nation has just emerged from the clutches of Communism and had embraced the free market. There was little available to buy and when Bernstein returned to the United States, she was astonished by the offerings when she went to buy some ibuprofen.

"There were so many selections. Some cheaper, some with more pills, some fast-acting, some long-lasting. It was overwhelming. I started to consider this glut of product on this planet and all the packaging involved," she says.

But she returned to Mongolia every couple of years thereafter and was distressed to see the waste that the market economy had begun to generate. With no infrastructure to handle the garbage, the country has become littered with everything from animal bones to plastic packaging, she says.

"It got too sad for me, finally, and I've not been able to go back," she says.

The dual impressions of excess and waste led her to think about giving new life to human-made materials.

The idea for "Ourrubberos," Bernstein says, is "to take something synthetic and bring it back to life."

Bernstein, 42, was raised in Ohio by a Nicaraguan Arab mother and an Irish German Jewish father, she received a BA in International Affairs and Visual Arts and an Master's in bilingual and multicultural education from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She says she has been interested in art as long as she can remember. She studied art history and studio arts at the Instituto Internacional in Madrid, Spain before entering the Peace Corps.

"In second grade my art teacher selected one of my drawings for a nationally distributed calendar. It was an abstract. Not by intention, I don't think. Kids don't tend to understand abstraction, but a lot of their art looks abstract," she says.

Bernstein knows about kids and art: She is an art teacher at High Peaks Elementary School in Boulder. And, she says, many kids seem to share her fascination with society's detritus.

"Kids love trash. I bring them plastic lids, plastic bags, junk of all kinds. Whatever cannot be recycled. We make mosaics, sculptures, purses, finger puppets, bracelets, rings and whatever else the imagination can conjure and the material can sustain," she says. "Last year we gathered the bags that wrap newspapers, green, yellow, blue, orange, white, and hung them as wind socks on string outside the school."




Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: March, 2011; Peace Corps Mongolia; Directory of Mongolia RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Mongolia RPCVs; Art; Exhibits; Colorado





When this story was posted in April 2011, this was on the front page of PCOL:




Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers RSS Feed

 Site Index Search PCOL with Google Contact PCOL Recent Posts Bulletin Board Open Discussion RPCV Directory Register

Peace Corps: The Next Fifty Years Date: March 8 2011 No: 1513 Peace Corps: The Next Fifty Years
As we move into the Peace Corps' second fifty years, what single improvement would most benefit the mission of the Peace Corps? Read our op-ed about the creation of a private charitable non-profit corporation, independent of the US government, whose focus would be to provide support and funding for third goal activities. Returned Volunteers need President Obama to support the enabling legislation, already written and vetted, to create the Peace Corps Foundation. RPCVs will do the rest.

March 1, 2011: The First PCVs Date: February 27 2011 No: 1495 March 1, 2011: The First PCVs
Bob Klein writes: First PCVs Arrive in Ghana 22 Feb
Hugh Pickens says PC to Win Nobel Peace Prize 22 Feb
Patricia McKissick sees history unfolding in Cairo 12 Feb
Bruce Rosen Leads Lawsuit Against Iran 10 Feb
Claudia Jayne teaches Sewing in Fiji 9 Feb
Michael Snarskis Discovered Ancient Civilizations 4 Feb
John Freivalds writes: Egypt compared to Iran in 1970's 2 Feb
Ted Poe to investigate PCV Sexual Assault Victims 31 Jan
Peter DiCampo takes Flashlight Portraits of Ghana 25 Jan
Lyn Wright Fogle says Learning new Language Transforms Us 25 Jan
Shanti A. Parikh Examines Structures of Gender Inequality 21 Jan
Ann Sheehan writes: Hearing Sarge sent me to Africa 20 Jan
Laurence Leamer writes: I remember Sarge as he was 19 Jan
Jim Fedako writes: What stands in way of rebuilding Haiti? 17 Jan
Peace Corps Evacuates PCVs from Niger 17 Jan
Sean Smith quits Hollywood for Peace Corps 17 Jan
Peace Corps Malaysia Prgoram to be Re-instated 15 Jan
Brian Buckley co-owns Innisfree Poetry Bookstore 13 Jan
Rob Prince writes: Tunisia explodes 13 Jan
Pancho Lane writes about Colombia 1 12 Jan
Erik Thompson brings Micronesians to Minnesota 24 Nov
Alan Guskin helped lay foundation for Peace Corps 4 Nov

How Volunteers Remember Sarge Date: January 18 2011 No: 1487 How Volunteers Remember Sarge
As the Peace Corps' Founding Director Sargent Shriver laid the foundations for the most lasting accomplishment of the Kennedy presidency. Shriver spoke to returned volunteers at the Peace Vigil at Lincoln Memorial in September, 2001 for the Peace Corps 40th. "The challenge I believe is simple - simple to express but difficult to fulfill. That challenge is expressed in these words: PCV's - stay as you are. Be servants of peace. Work at home as you have worked abroad. Humbly, persistently, intelligently. Weep with those who are sorrowful, Care for those who are sick. Serve your wives, serve your husbands, serve your families, serve your neighbors, serve your cities, serve the poor, join others who also serve," said Shriver. "Serve, Serve, Serve. That's the answer, that's the objective, that's the challenge."

PCV Murder Investigated Date: January 18 2011 No: 1477 PCV Murder Investigated
ABC News has investigated the murder of Benin PCV Kate Puzey. Read our original coverage of the crime, comments on Peace Corps actions, the email Puzey sent her country director about sexual incidents with Puzey's students and with another PCV, the backstory on how RPCVs helped the Puzey family, and Peace Corps' official statement. PCOL Editorial: One major shortcoming that the Puzey murder highlights is that Peace Corps does not have a good procedure in place for death notifications.

Jan 9, 2011: Push for the Peace Corps Date: January 9 2011 No: 1464 Jan 9, 2011: Push for the Peace Corps
Rajeev Goyal Pushes for the Peace Corps 20 Dec
Denis Dutton founded Arts & Letters Daily 2 Jan
Jim Carter promotes organ exchange 29 Dec
Bob Hollinger embraced the Toyama-ryu style of karate 27 Dec
Anthony Siracusa is Riding a bike around world 27 Dec
Marianne Combs writes: Another Upheaval in Ivory Coast 25 Dec
Kathy Rousso documents weaving methods in Guatemala 24 Dec
Ramsey Nix writes: Christmas in Mongolia 23 Dec
Leanne Moore writes: Coming Back to America 23 Dec
Cancer Victim Linda Lahme dreams of Africa 23 Dec
The RPCV Who Changed American Parenting 22 Dec
Dick Holbrooke at the Peace Corps 22 Dec
Mahlon Barash publishes "Imágenes del Perú" 20 Dec
Susan Luz writes "The Nightingale of Mosul" 18 Dec
RPCV arrested in alleged Sandinista 'Land Grab' 17 Dec
Peter DiCampo captures village life in Ghana 16 Dec
John Coyne writes: Peace Corps Prose 16 Dec
Kathleen Stephens presses China to rein in North Korea 15 Dec
Greg Parsley writes: PC taught me to bypass bureaucrats 14 Dec
Pat Waak writes: Peace Corps Pays Off 8 Dec
David Matthews wins NATO medal for work in Afghanistan 7 Dec
Ralph Bolton wins award in Anthropology 9 Nov

Memo to Incoming Director Williams Date: August 24 2009 No: 1419 Memo to Incoming Director Williams
PCOL has asked five prominent RPCVs and Staff to write a memo on the most important issues facing the Peace Corps today. Issues raised include the independence of the Peace Corps, political appointments at the agency, revitalizing the five-year rule, lowering the ET rate, empowering volunteers, removing financial barriers to service, increasing the agency's budget, reducing costs, and making the Peace Corps bureaucracy more efficient and responsive. Latest: Greetings from Director Williams

Join Us Mr. President! Date: June 26 2009 No: 1380 Join Us Mr. President!
"We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. And we'll reach out to other nations to engage their young people in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all humanity," said Barack Obama during his campaign. Returned Volunteers rally and and march to the White House to support a bold new Peace Corps for a new age. Latest: Senator Dodd introduces Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009 .



Read the stories and leave your comments.








Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

Story Source: Daily Camera

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Mongolia; Art; Exhibits

PCOL46940
91


Add a Message


This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Username:  
Password:
E-mail: