Finding Refuge in Refuse at the Albany Bulb Landfill. Exhibition debuts at SOMArts in SF, February 12, 6-9PM, 2015 Curators: Robin Lasser (lead artist) with Barbara Boissevain and Danielle Siembieda Albany Bulb Community Advisors, Andy Kreamer and Amber Whitson Sponsors: F3 and Associates, SOMArts, San Jose State University, General Graphics
Andy Kreamer, educator, film-maker and former Albany Bulb Resident: Where Do You Go When it Rains? Digital film, 1 hour 5 minutes 2009-2014. This film is written, produced, directed, and edited collectively by Jimbow the Hobow, Katherine Cody, Chester Mounten, Phyl Lewis, Amber Whitson, and Andy Kreamer. It is important to recognize that without a ‘Subject’ of a film there would be no film; the characters are the authors. And since this film is unscripted every time someone speaks they are writing, producing, and directing the film by overseeing their own actions. All participants edited the film by viewing hours of footage and deciding what to include and exclude. We hope that viewers will be moved to legalize being alive on planet earth by watching this glimpse of daily life conversations about common sense at the Albany Bulb. When will the people with so much stop harassing those with so little? Everyone in the film was forced by police to leave the Bulb and live in much more degrading circumstances ever since.
about the library:
This library was built from abandoned boats that had washed ashore mixed with trash found at the Albany Bulb. The only materials used in its creation that were not found on the Bulb were nails and screws. Before construction began, the building was dedicated to all homeless people who have passed on. It has served as a home, bar, community center, movie theater, concert hall, and homeless shelter for new arrivals to the Bulb while they built a camp of their own. Countless people visited the library over many years, some expressed their love of the place in a guestbook started by Jimbow the Hobow, for which a traveling Canadian later made the beautiful cover. Jimbow and Andy made the library together in a location that Jimbow had lived off and on for the past 20 years. The first version was made in one month, and additions and expansions never ended up until the final day when the library was burned to the ground in an unknown circumstance.