San Francisco, Calif., September 1, 2011—The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts is hosting the contemporary artist Harrell Fletcher as the Capp Street Project artist in residence for the fall 2011 semester. During his residency, Fletcher will collaborate with another artist, Travis Souza, on a project in which over the course of four weeks, Souza will walk the 432-mile route of the proposed high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Fletcher and Souza will host a culminating discussion about the project on Friday, September 30, 2011, the day Souza walks into San Francisco. This event is free and open to the public and will take place at 7 p.m. in Timken Lecture Hall at California College of the Arts, 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco.

During his walk, Souza will undertake research on the rail line and its proposed path. He will collect the ideas and opinions of many farmers affected by the project, thus “recovering” data that would otherwise perhaps not exist about the relationships that exist today between the urban and the rural, the need for food and the need for transit. He will traverse at one point his family’s farm in the Central Valley. While walking, he will regularly post updates on his progress at wemaketheroadbywalking.com.

Fletcher is also teaching a course in CCA’s Graduate Program in Fine Arts this semester, and he and his graduate students will travel to meet Souza at various points along Souza’s journey. Fletcher and his students will collaborate on the walk and research, examining the history of the Central Valley, walking as an art activity, and the proposed railway. In the weeks after the concluding public event on September 30, they will undertake additional student-led walks and discussions in various parts of the Bay Area.

About Harrell Fletcher
Harrell Fletcher has a longstanding relationship with California College of the Arts. He graduated from the MFA program in 1994 and is one of the seven artists featured in the Wattis Institute’s current three-year program The Magnificent Seven. He is largely known as Portland’s most important contemporary artist. His work often defies conventional academic and artistic expectations and assumes the form of social interventions. He is perhaps best known for Learning to Love You More (2002-9), in which he and his collaborator Miranda July asked the general public to respond to simple assignments, which were later posted on the web and published in a book (the piece was acquired by SFMOMA in 2010). His work has been presented locally at SFMOMA, the de Young Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He recently opened the People’s Gallery (a year-long extension of the People’s Biennial) with Jana Blankenship and Jens Hoffmann in San Francisco’s Mission District. Fletcher is a professor of art at Portland State University in Oregon, where he founded the Art and Social Practice MFA concentration.

About Travis Souza
Travis Souza is Fletcher’s MFA student in the Art and Social Practice MFA program at Portland State University. He is based in Glasgow, Scotland. His work is concerned with the relationships and activities of work, creativity, learning, and knowledge production, and it involves a variety of collaborations with both art and non-art entities and individuals. He has collaborated with galleries, universities, a brewery, the Glasgow City Council, public foot traffic, families, and artists. Some of his projects have involved brewing beer, a pop-up school, competitions, forum events, provisional sculpture, and improvised actions in public spaces. His work and projects have appeared in Germany, Ireland, England, Scotland and Portland, Oregon.

About the CCA Wattis Institute
The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts was established in 1998 in San Francisco at California College of the Arts. It serves as a forum for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary art and curatorial practice. Through groundbreaking exhibitions, the Capp Street Project residency program, lectures, symposia, and publications, the Wattis Institute has become one of the leading art institutions in the United States and an active site for contemporary culture in the Bay Area. For more information about the Wattis Institute, visit wattis.org.

About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts (CCA) is noted for the interdisciplinarity and breadth of its programs. It offers studies in 21 undergraduate and seven graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, master of fine arts, and master of business administration degrees. With campuses in San Francisco and Oakland, CCA currently enrolls 1,850 full-time students. Noted alumni include the painters Nathan Oliveira and Raymond Saunders; the ceramicists Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, and Peter Voulkos; the filmmaker Wayne Wang; the conceptual artists David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim; and the designers Lucille Tenazas and Michael Vanderbyl. For more information about CCA, visit cca.edu.

CALENDAR EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE:

Friday, September 30, 2011, 7 pm
The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts presents a
Discussion with Harrell Fletcher and Travis Souza
California College of the Arts, San Francisco campus
1111 Eighth Street (at 16th and Wisconsin)
Cost: Free
Info: 415.551.9210, cca.edu/calendar, wattis.org

PRESS CONTACTS:
Brenda Tucker 415.703.9548 btucker@cca.edu
Allison Byers 415.703.9541 abyers@cca.edu

PUBLIC CONTACT: cca.edu/calendar, wattis.org