THE PROJECTS

The Projects 2 is cooking! We have a new poster for showing off: art by Dunja Jankovic and fonts by...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 23:11:15 -0700

The Projects 2 is cooking! We have a new poster for showing off: art by Dunja Jankovic and fonts by Bruno Tolic. Also, the dates are announced so mark your calendars ≈

We’ve updated our website with photos from The Projects ( most of them taken by Champoy ≈ thank...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:58:27 -0800

We’ve updated our website with photos from The Projects ( most of them taken by Champoy ≈ thank youuuu! ) and press clips. A bit late maybe, but just in time for a little winter refreshment. Check it!!

The Projects featured in The Portland Mercury: SWAPPING SWEATY...

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:53:00 -0700

The Projects featured in The Portland Mercury:

SWAPPING SWEATY convention centers for workshops with local and international artists, and tables and booths for interactive art projects and house shows, new experimental comics festival the Projects focuses on collaboration, conversation, and throwing a party that resembles native Portland life. Also, it’s totally free, barring two events that we’ll get to in a sec.

“The inspiration started with my friend Dunja Jankovic,” says Jason Leivian, owner of Floating World Comics. “[Jankovic] organizes a comics festival in Croatia called Skver. That’s where the discussion started… to do something like that here in America.”

“Basically, the European comics festivals that she’s been to are very different in focus: There’s no tables where artists just sit there and sell stuff like a lot of the American shows,” explains Leivian. “So that makes a huge difference, just to remove that aspect of commerce and also to remove the feeling that to be successful you have to sell a bunch of stuff.”

Festivalgoers have a lot to choose from: painting by numbers with Igor Hofbauer, collaborative drawing with Alex Chiu and Sumi Ink Club, a choose-your-own-adventure comic installation, and even a “sad penguins” draw-in with Duskin Drum. Local comics club Gridlords is hosting “readings, interviews, and multimedia presentations” at the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) on Saturday and Sunday, and there’s even an encore presentation of DMTV, Floating World’s yearly animation festival (fuck yeah!).

The festival’s soft opening takes place Thursday night at galleryHOMELAND, with an exhibition featuring work by Croatian illustrator and poster artist Igor Hofbauer and French publishing and media collective Le Dernier Cri, who Leivian describes as the Projects’ “guests of honor.”

While the honorable Le Dernier Cri make books, prints, comics, exhibitions, videos, and albums, they’re probably best known for the fantastic, grotesque imagery that spans their canon—a frenetic tits-and-monsters quality of content described by the collective in past interviews as the visual equivalent to noise music. Apart from their exhibition at galleryHOMELAND, Le Dernier Cri will pop up throughout the weekend while also teaching a three-day screenprinting class at the IPRC as part of the Projects’ series of workshops. (Eberhardt Press will also host a workshop about bookbinding, and other learning events dot the weekend.)

On Friday night, Floating World hosts a book signing to celebrate new releases by Jonny Negron and Sammy Harkham. After the signing, Jason T. Miles, Chris Cilla, and Matthew Thurber will conduct a group interview with the artists, and later in the night, festivalgoers will head to a house party at “Mike’s Basement” to catch musical performances by Le Dernier Cri, the Tenses (members of Smegma), and Thurber. (The house party address is in the program, which you can get at the fest.)

E*Rock (Eric Mast) and his audiovisual collective Plink Flojd take over the Hollywood Theatre on Saturday night—think “animation supergroup fueled by Pink Floyd samples”—alongside Regular Music (members of Sun Angle and Panther) and Nice Nice (tickets are $7).

For Sunday’s closing party at Holocene (also $7), Experimental Half-Hour will screen some weirdness, with live music by Atole, Apartment Fox, Wild Thing, and Good Night Billygoat, who create stop-motion animations that are scored live.

As much designed for the comics-curious as for dedicated members of the picture-books community, the Projects aims to be a different kind of narrative arts festival, one distinct from the commercial conventions America has seen. And it sounds like a really fun three-day party that will cost you at most $14. Not ‘alf bad.

by Matt Stangel

The Projects featured on Willamette Week: Paint-by-numbers...

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:51:00 -0700

The Projects featured on Willamette Week:

Paint-by-numbers murals, choose-your-own adventure stories and Chinese street art—the Projects is not your little brother’s comics festival.

That’s kind of the point, explains co-organizer Jason Leivian.

“The inspiration was my friend Dunja Jankovic, who’s one of the organizers and puts together a comics fest in Croatia [called Skver],” says Leivian. “The model of European comics festivals is totally different. There’s no tables, you don’t sell books. You come and meet the artists and make art with them. Everyone crashes together in the same place. It’s a real bonding experience.”

Leivian, who also owns downtown comic store Floating World, is hoping to re-create that kind of environment in Portland: an event that is free, open and accessible to the general public, and focuses on creation rather than commerce.

He and the other organizers have recruited artists from France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and all over the U.S. to make collaborative art projects and run workshops at the three-day festival, which will also incorporate Floating World’s annual animation festival, live music, exhibitions and panel discussions.

In the spirit of the Projects, we asked artists Angie Wang and Julie Gfrörer to collaborate on a piece for this page.

by RUTH BROWN

THE PROJECTS PROGRAM

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:12:47 -0700

THE PROJECTS PROGRAM

* T H E P R O G R A M *

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 19:03:21 -0700

* T H E P R O G R A M *

~ ~ ~ ~ G R I D L O R D S s s s s s ~ ~ ~ ~ \ \ \ \ \ \ at THE...

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:31:00 -0700

~ ~ ~ ~ G R I D L O R D S s s s s s ~ ~ ~ ~

\ \ \ \ \ \ at THE PROJECTS / / / / / /

OOOOOctober 20 and 21st, 6 pm, IPRC

Pumping up 2 evenings of The Projects with readings, performances, music playing and clowning by some of the most interesting names from comics scene ( and wider ), curated by the Gridlordsssssssss!

THE PROJECTS NEWS: Projects Pop-Up Shop

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 15:17:35 -0700

THE PROJECTS NEWS: Projects Pop-Up Shop:

theprojectsnews:

You don’t have to sit behind a table – we’ll handle that!

There will be a pop up show at the IPRC where artists can sell their books and zines. However space will be limited and we require that you email us in advance to reserve a spot for your book, and also to enter your information into our…

The Projects presents: Matthew Thurber

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:59:00 -0700

Matthew Thurber is best known for his fabulistic comics. His series 1-800-MICE was the recipient of a 2010 NYFA Fiction Fellowship and in 2011 Picturebox released a collection of the issues. Inspired by literary yarn spinners like Jules Verne, L. Frank Baum, Daniel Pinkwater, and Thomas Pynchon, Thurber creates absurd adventure stories taking place in a parallel universe that reflects and distorts our own. Comics is one facet of a practice that integrates performance, music, and drawing. For the Projects festival, Thurber will create and perform an original multimedia production.

Thurber was born in 1977 in Washington State. His parents moved to an island in the San Juans when he was 5, where he began making comics, stories, and music with friends. He moved to New York City in 1996 to attend Cooper Union. Upon graduating, while working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he began producing minicomics and appearing in anthologies like The Ganzfeld and Kramers Ergot. From 2005-08 he played saxophone in Soiled Mattress and the Springs, a beloved “muzak but…aggressive” instrumental band. Thurber’s cassette label, Potlatch, I Gather, has produced several books on tape, one of which was issued in LP form by Feeding Tube Records in 2012. He performs frequently as Ambergris, and in a duo with artist Brian Belott as Court Stenographer and Young Sherlock Holmes. He lives in Brooklyn, teaches, works as a freelance illustrator, and produces a serialized webcomic called INFOMANIACS.

new flyer soon to fly the streets of portland ≈ spread the word

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 15:49:00 -0700

new flyer soon to fly the streets of portland ≈ spread the word

garvo: Diamond comics nº2 by fanzinepaper on Flickr.

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:52:04 -0700

garvo:

Diamond comics nº2 by fanzinepaper on Flickr.

A PROBLEM WITH THE NON-US KICKSTARTER DONATIONS

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:47:31 -0700

We’ve had problems with the non USA donation intentions from Europe so we figured out a way how to go around the Amazon’s complicated payment form ( non US billing address to be precise )

So, the solution is to make a donation through PayPal (via jason@floatingworldcomics.com).

The incentives on our Kickstarter page will still apply! If you have questions, please contact us directly. THANK YOU! Hvala! Merci! We appreciate your help IMMENSELY!!!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/floatingworldcomics/the-projects-experimental-art-comics-festival-in-p

The Projects presents: Le Dernier Cri

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 02:27:54 -0700

Le Dernier Cri is a legendary French publisher based in Marseille, created in 1992 by Caroline Sury and Pakito Bolino, that gathers together established illustrators from the world’s underground scenes. As they say for themselves, they: “specialize in rather disturbing sick screen and comics with a very low print run.”

Their production includes graphic editions gorgeously printed in silkscreen (sometimes in 3-D!), experimental videos and animations, and noise concerts. They have worked with Charles Burns for a bizarre companion edition of X’ed Out, and with other artists including Mark Beyer, Killoffer, ATAK, Ichiba Daisuke, and many more. The commonality of all their publications is a colorful and uncompromising artistic approach that deals with taboo topics in a direct and often shocking way and in a manner that critics often compare to Art Brut, children’s, or naive art. Le Dernier Cri translates as “the last cry” and a lot of times the work they are publishing looks like what that might sound like.

Le Dernier Cri is also known for putting on workshops around the world in which they cooperate with local authors to produce collective books of illustration.

At The Projects, Le Dernier Cri will:

+ exhibit their beautiful art brut prints and art books

+ make a couple of days of intense screenprinting workshop

+ a little video projection/noise music show

Check out their disturbing website:

www.lederniercri.org

The Projects presents: Igor Hofbauer

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 02:08:28 -0700

Igor Hofbauer is a Croatian illustrator, comics author and a poster designer whose name and unique visual expression is mainly connected to the famous Zagreb club Mocvara for which he has been designing posters and programs since the club’s beginning.

As a comics author, he was first published in the collective publication Komikaze, and subsequently his comics albums have been published in Croatia, Serbia and Portugal.

In 2004 his posters were published in The Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion, a luxury compilation of recent world rock posters, which includes the most important works of over 350 international artists. His posters have been exhibited in France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and USA.

The style of his posters and drawings is instantly recognizable, based on a combination of classic American comics and film noir, pop art, German Expressionism, and Russian Constructivism, cleverly connected by the hand of a developed drawer. Hofbauer’s comics are often surreal and nightmarish stories in strange cityscapes that will be recognized by anyone who has spent time in the concrete housing and brutish (though oddly charming) planned neighborhoods of the former Eastern Bloc.

What he says about himself:

“Well, I was born in Zagreb, lived here my whole life, in New Zagreb, to be precise – concrete skyscrapers suburb, I guess you know what kind of place – every big city has it. In primary school I started making and selling badges and posters of Snoopy and in adolescent time of primary school I made several posters for Saturday dance parties in school. Organizers were allowed 15 to 20 minutes of punk and heavy metal by school directors so I jumped in to make posters for that kind of occasions.”

Check more of his works here:

http://www.gigposters.com/designer/10000_Igor_ Hofbauer.html

We've launched our facebook page = = =

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 08:45:43 -0700

We've launched our facebook page = = = :

= = = = bunch of photos, links, public love and important info

The Projects Kickstarter - we need your help; spread the word...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 11:56:00 -0700

The Projects Kickstarter - we need your help; spread the word and donate if you can.

The Projects: A Festival of Experimental Comics and Narrative...

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:36:00 -0700

The Projects: A Festival of Experimental Comics and Narrative Arts
October 19-21, 2012
Independent Publishing Resource Center + other venues
1001 SE Division

The Projects: A Festival of Experimental Comics and Narrative Arts

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:32:00 -0700

The Projects
October 19-21, 2012
Independent Publishing Resource Center
1001 SE Division

The Projects brings together experimental artists from comics, animation, and other narrative arts for a three-day festival of workshops, exhibitions, panels, performances, projections, collaborative projects, and intensive creative mayhem! Guest artists each have a small space to curate however they please and visitors are invited to join in the fray.

The festival is a free event, oriented toward creative process, idiosyncratic expression, and inspiration, leaving behind the festival model of comics as commerce. Gone are the tables and the sales pitch – instead, a party!

CONTENT

Workshops: Various free workshops on screenprinting, animation, book-making, and more…

Panels: Conversations with artists and discussions about topics in experimental narrative arts

Exhibitions: Shows at multiple galleries and shops across the city

Side Program: Projections, performances, and music shows

Pop-up Shop: You don’t have to sit behind a table – we’ll handle that!

GUEST ARTISTS

Festival guests will each have a small space in which they are free to represent themselves or their collective the way they feel is best. This could be space for an exhibition, muraling, staging a performance, distributing their work, etc. This space will be open to the public, so it can also be the site of a collaborative project.

A little bit about the place where it all happens: PORTLAND

Portland is a small big city, nestled among the forests below Mt. Hood, our sleeping volcano. Known for it’s high concentration of cafes, bikes, food trucks, house shows, forest defenders, basement print shops, and back yard gardens — it is also home to an unusually large comics and experimental arts community.

The festival will be hosted by the Independent Publishing Resource Center (iprc.org), a DIY self-publishing center around since 1998 and a cornerstone of Portland comics. The IPRC has the largest zine library in the country and offers workshops and classes on letterpress, screen printing, design and publishing software, comics, zines, and web publishing, and many more. They also run a year-long “comics college” dedicated to the study and creation of independent and self-published comics. The IPRC is located in inner SE Portland near a complex of art galleries and artists’ studios, several outstanding restaurants, cafes and beer gardens, and within walking distance of downtown.

Portland also offers festival visitors many outstanding comics shops, America’s largest bookstore (Powell’s), excellent coffee from one of our many small roasters, outstanding micro-brewed beer, many green parks and bike paths, a big river with 8 mighty bridges, and many other delights.

GOALS:

The Projects is modeled on a new breed of European comics festivals that put creativity and connection at the forefront (festivals such as Novo Doba in Belgrade, Crack! in Rome, Škver in Mali Lošinj, Croatia, Ligatura in Poland…) These festivals create an intimate and stimulating environment for artists from different countries and generations to work together and share ideas. Fundamentally, this is not a commercial activity and, though books and objects are bought and sold, the emphasis of the event is to make art, experiment, and play.

ABOUT US: Jason Leivian (owner of Floating World Comics, organizer of the DMTV animation festival and a publisher of Diamond Comics and other books), Lisa Mangum (comics program teacher at the IPRC, owner of a little shop of curiosities called OKO, Balkan Comics theoretician), Dunja Jankovic (comics artist, SKVER festival organizer, comics program teacher at IPRC), Jason T Miles (editor at Fantagraphic Books, owner of the indy distro/publishing house Profanity Hill).