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When people speak about the basic needs of humanity, they often list food, water, clothing, and shelter. Perhaps because of this, many within architectural theory have speculated on "the primitive hut," meaning the first instance of shelter, and thereby the first example of architecture.

As human beings, we need more than just shelter: Many of us have instincts to belong to a place. This may be particularly true in America with our legacy of land ownership and its connection to power, but it goes deeper than that. My wife grew up in a family that was continually moving (she went to 6 different schools before graduating from high school). After graduating, she has lived in several states and abroad. For years she has had an intense longing to feel at "home". Since we have been married she rarely, if ever, expresses this need. It may be because she has given up in the face of our adventures, but I hope it is because she feels a sense of contentment and place within our marriage.

Looking at my own roots, I pause at the moment my graphic designer-cousin helped me develop my first architectural portfolio after my first internship. It has been since then that I have seen the world as a series of connections--either potential or actualized. I remain excited to acknowledge the possibilities of collaboration. Still, this worldview is a two sided coin. While it is thrilling to see potential connections everywhere, it is saddening to occasionally see those potentials go to waste, whether due to personal conflicts, unwilling attitudes, busyness, overextension, or other incompatibilities.

I am a curator because of my awareness of these connections. My ability to see the cohesive and shared ideals of those around me is most compelling and has the most potential when it regards creative individuals who are open and willing to try new things. When I see a trend I want to celebrate it and help it to develop. This is the easy part. The hardest part of the process is finding a place for these collaborations to happen. You can have the best idea and the most cohesive group, but if the atmosphere and circumstances aren't just right then nothing may ever come from that potential.

Realizing the impact that space and atmosphere have on a cohesive social group has inspired me as a designer. I am interested in dynamic spaces. A large part of our life is place. Modernism is obsessed with kinetics, motion, and the machinery that makes it possible, but avante garde art realizes it primarily through metaphor, choreography, and capturing motion through successive frames (i.e., film). There is a push to literally and explicitly realize kinetic expression. Much of this is born out of the digital revolution, but has deep roots in the past. I seek to enhance our spatial experience by incorporating and embracing the kinetic experiential possibilities of a space. In itself, this pursuit is a relatively young one. Thus, I put out a call for entries and gathered a substantial and impressive collection of work that is expressly interested in kinetic composition. That is what TIMEless is: a multidisciplinary collection of artist and creators who are creating in four dimensions.

Just as my exhibition creates a forum or catalog of artists working on the same idea, Art Haus SLC is interested in harboring conversations and collaborations in Salt Lake City specifically. In order to do so, Art Haus SLC needs a home, a space, an atmosphere. The only way that will be made possible is through your generous contribution through supporting its mission on Kickstarter.


Guest blog by:
Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Co-curator of TIMEless - An exhibition exploring the 4D possibilities of space which will open this fall in Salt Lake City as a part of the programing of Art Haus SLC.

Let's take a minute to talk about Community. Isn't Abed insightful? And Jeff's speeches! Annie's hair. The pure genius of that one episode where they rolled the dice a whole ton. Let's also talk about those communities where there are no magical (racist) trampolines. Just regular trampolines and soft undertones of racism that usually have nothing to do with trampolines.

I grew up with a community that made me the person I am today (and if you are wondering, the person I am today can be summed up in one word: awesome).  This place was in Amarillo and the community was the local theatre, Amarillo Little Theater.  This was the place where I learned what it was to accept and be accepted because you're unique and your ideas are crazy and potentially awesome. It was a place where I learned that there was such a thing as Beauty with a capital B and it could be shared and sought after by a group of people.  It's also where I learned about love, the kind you give to people because they are desperate for it, because they'd do anything for you, because you've lived in empty spaces together dreaming things into the world that didn't exist before. 

This is my first and most personal experience with community.  We are everywhere now, LA, Chicago, New York, to name a few and we are still defined and driven by that small town in Texas that made our hearts and heads go BA-boom.  Now the world is our community.  I've been around the world and crossed continents and I've seen people all searching for the same things, I would call the search one for God while others might say Beauty, Truth, or Story but we all mean the same thing.

My own community was based in a small town but the world is much more open now. We can build a community from Texas to New York.  From Utah to London.  From Los Angeles to Eastern Europe.  You might ask why even bother doing this?  (and how can we do this?) And to you I would say, "Because it's stinking awesome! That's why."  But also because I think we are all hungry for each other in some way and we all have a little piece of the puzzle in what we are searching for.  I might call it joy and find it in jumping through the air but maybe in Cambodia they'd call it faith and find it through their feet hitting the floor.  Let's blow the world up a little by making it a smaller place.  We have the technology to do it, so why not give it a go already?

Now why art?  Because the earth without art is just 'eh' (that's a popular poster I like to quote when I can feel the need to really rile up a crowd).  I think we all want to create and we are all creative people.  Think about your day- did you make something exist today that didn't exist yesterday? A piece of text, a thought in someone's head? Well hello fellow artist, nice to meet you.  What are we supposed to do in the course of a day other than create? The end product might be different for "artists" but we are all guilty of the creative process.  But what can artists do when they are able to bring their communities together from around the world?  What kind of new community can we create? What stories, truth, and holiness can we find in this newly expanded and yet accessible space?  Aren't you curious?  Think of it like this: what do you get when you put an installation artist from LA in a digital space with a choreographer from Japan and a painter from Utah?  Well, hell, I don't know but I'm dying to find out.

By: Sara Moncivais
Go here to make this crazy/awesome rant a reality.

**Sara would also like to mention the overuse of the word "awesome" in this post.  She would like you to know that dictionary.com defines awesome as "very impressive."  Now if you can think of a better word to use, Sara would like to know.  Cause very impressive just doesn't cut it and her other alternative is "dynamo."

The Art Haus SLC is excited to launch our Kickstarter campaign this week to all our friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.  Within hours we had several donors promise almost $200 to our cause.  It was incredible to know that you have such faith in us and our vision and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

We are currently at 6% of our goal and have 31 days to go.  Please help us reach our $5,000 goal by June 24th.  All of the funding goes directly to upcoming programs to benefit members of Salt Lake City and surrounding communities.  Please check out our campaign at http://kck.st/KEKnIy and donate.  

We are officially kicking off The Art Haus SLC this week by activating our website, registering as a 501(c) and getting set up on all several different social media websites.  

We want to get the word out about our plans to create a space in downtown Salt Lake City next year that will bring exciting and new contemporary arts to the community members.  

Please help us by getting the word out and checking out our events page to see what you can do to be a part of the movement.

We will also set up our kickstarter infomation shortly so you can help The Art Haus SLC bring programming and events to everyone in the downtown community.