The Baltimore Development Cooperative wins the $25,000 Sondheim ARTSCAPE Prize in 2009. (NO, that is NOT a bag of money).
Mayor Sheila Dixon and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts are proud to announce that Baltimore Development Cooperative is the winner of the 2009 Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize. The coveted $25,000 prize was presented by Mayor Dixon at this evening’s awards ceremony at The Baltimore Museum of Art. Works of art by the prizewinner and five other finalists are on view at the BMA until August 16.
Mayor Shiela Dixon, Scott Berzofsky, Dane Nester, Nicholas Wisniewski, and BMA Director Doreen BolgerThe Baltimore Development Cooperative (BDC) is an artist group with an interdisciplinary practice that uses the strategies of art, research, and activism to critically engage with urban spatial politics. Co-founded in 2005, the group has produced tours, exhibitions, workshops and site-specific projects in public space. The BDC is dedicated to the analysis of neo-liberal urbanism and the invention of alternatives based on social, economic, and ecological justice in the city. The core members of BDC are Scott Berzofsky, Dane Nester, and Nicholas Wisniewski.
For the 2009 Sondheim Prize Finalists exhibition, BDC created Participation Park, a two-part multi-media installation. Outside on the terrace in front of the BMA is a colorful geodesic dome with seating that invites viewers to create their own experience; whether listening to music, eating, or talking. In the exhibition galleries is a cardboard sculpture of Baltimore’s downtown landmarks on bulldozer tracks.
