Studio 1, A Tiny Mobile Art Studio, Posts Up At 10th & Market

Studio 1, A Tiny Mobile Art Studio, Posts Up At 10th & MarketPhotos: Brittany Hopkins / Hoodline
Brittany Hopkins
Published on June 17, 2015

If you've walked by 10th and Market with "your eyes up and your phone down" this week, you may have spotted a little wooden trailer with its doors wide open, beckoning you to stop and come a little closer. The 65-foot, solar-powered mobile workspace is called Studio 1, and it'll be parked in Mid-Market from now through the end of July. Designed by artist David Szlasa, it's being supported by the Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation, the Planning Department’s Living Innovation Zone Program and the Arts Commission. 

Each week, a different local artist will take up a week-long residency at Studio 1, engaging passersby with visual and performing art. This week's resident is collage artist Andrea Bergen, who's also behind the latest Art on Market Street poster series, Party Animals. Her scenes of brightly-colored cuddly animals celebrating City Hall's centennial are currently displayed on Market Street's bus shelters from the Embarcadero all the way up to 8th Street.

We caught up with Bergen yesterday inside the tiny art studio; so far, she said, turnout has been great. While she hasn't done anything like this before—and isn't a performance artist, like many of the other artists taking over the workspace this summer—she said she's doing what she'd normally do in her Mission District studio. At that particular moment, that meant making scorpion necklaces. 

Bergen has plans for each day of her residency. Today (Wednesday), she'll be snapping photos of dogs from 1-6pm, and creating a collage throughout the day. Tomorrow, she'll be hosting a pizza party from 12-12:30pm, and on Friday, she'll help kick off City Hall's Centennial Celebration with a mini-party of her own, from 5-8pm.

Here's a quick rundown of the artist lineup for the rest of the summer:

June 22-26: Sheldon Smith – The choreographer and media artist will create a new video, performance or a combination of both, with the help of passersby.

June 27: inkboat – The physical theater and dance company will perform in and around Studio 1 as part of the larger performance project 95 Rituals, which honors the 95th birthday of local post-modern dancer Anna Halprin.

July 6-11: Jesse Hewit – The local choreographer will explore having, giving, or showing faith by writing daily sermons, conducting group singing practices, and more.

July 13-18: Katrina Rodabaugh – The artist and writer will focus on her slow-fashion project, Make Thrift Mend, hosting artists and sustainable fashion advocates for workshops, conversations and public engagement around sustainable clothing and handmade wardrobes.

July 20-25: José Navarrete – Combining movement, theater, art installation, multimedia and site-specific environments, the performance artist will explore topical issues like "racial profiling and state brutality, genetic modification of native crops, the commodification of water, cultural colonization, and the human response to overwhelming disaster."

Dates TBA: David Szlasa and Sara Shelton Mann – Szlasa, the creator of Studio 1, will join choreographer Sara Shelton Mann to turn the workspace into a time capsule exploring Mann's 40+ years of performance history.

More details on each artist-in-residence can be found here. And for the ins and outs of Studio 1's mission, history and technical specifications, check out the video below, created by Szlasa.