Bureau of Change

Our process commissions artists and non-artists to collaborate on creative works aimed at inciting institutional change while studying social technology, digital media theory, interdisciplinary research and artistic production.

BUREAU of CHANGE was founded by Margot Herster with a group of university art students and recent graduates to create a space outside of the existing education system for collaborative practice and development opportunities with peers and mentors. Originating out of dissatisfaction with the state of higher education, BUREAU developed into a new school in the form of an atelier-style studio where an interdisciplinary group—established artists and designers, student apprentices and young artists, scholars and community experts, and the public—interact to create.

BUREAU of CHANGE produces exhibitions, participatory and site-specific experiences, workshops and public programming, made-for-internet works, and collaborations with local and international institutions for commissioned projects. We regularly exhibit at art institutions and other community-accessible spaces, as well as US|IS (Urban Sidewalk | Installation Space), our public art space at Gravier & Magazine Streets in downtown New Orleans.

City

New Orleans

Country

United States

Region

N. America

Year of Creation

2012

Featured Project

BUREAU of CHANGE: Social Services
BUREAU of CHANGE: Social Services is an interactive intervention that reframes internet-sourced imagery of current affairs and reflects an interplay between what we are shown and what we see. Onlookers reflexively respond to selfie-ready mirrored windows, rather than any specific instruction, and photograph acts of observing to post to social media. It sets up an experiment around how we portray and share ourselves in social networks relative to our own image, our immediate surroundings and projected online images of others in moments of pain.

Resources

More Information

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