Shelf Location:
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona: University Library Special Collections, Bldg 15, room 4434, Remote Storage

Collection Description:

Contains two binders documenting the Envisioning the Future artistic process.  Binder 1 includes correspondence, photographs, emails, letters, sketches, and programs of the entire project.  Binder 2 includes artist statements and photographs of projects completed in January 2004.  A DVD is also included with chapters on Judy Chicago, the artists, the programs, and sample videos. 

Background

After two years in development, the exciting project, Envisioning the Future, officially began on September 22, 2003 following two weekends of lectures and panel discussion about art, globalization and the future.  Art world figures Henry Hopkins (former director of the UCLA Armand Hammer Museum and San Francisco MOMA) and British art historian Edward Lucie-Smith got the project off to an enthusiastic start.  Held at Western University of Health Sciences in the Pomona Arts Colony, these noted speakers were joined by well-known Los Angeles muralists Judy Baca and Gilbert Lujan Magu, artists Isis Rodriguez from San Francisco and Patrick Nagatani from Albuquerque, a recent recipient of the Governor’s Award for the Arts in New Mexico. 

In addition, artists, art historians and scholars from across the United States and Canada participated in lively discussions on the impact of globalization and new technologies involving both the arts and the future.  Nine facilitators trained by Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman worked directly with the 70 participants chosen to create both individually and collaboratively a variety of images of what the future might hold.  The participants and facilitators from throughout Southern California were selected through a rigorous application process.  The facilitators' intensive training was based on Chicago's participatory art pedagogy, honed over a 30-year period through arts activism, teaching, and the production of four major collaborative projects.

For the next three months, the focus of the project was the creation of art in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, digital media and the performing arts.  One team’s vision of the future included a representation of the Goddess of Pomona, which will become a legacy for the Pomona Arts Colony in the form of a monumental mural facing Thomas Plaza. 

Project idea originator Cheryl Bookout, Pomona artist/gallery director and Dean Barbara Way of Cal Poly Pomona, spearheaded this project which exemplifies an extraordinary public/private partnership, one which has brought together the art, academic and business communities of the Pomona Valley to promote the power and importance of art to educate, inspire, and promote change.

Scope and Content:

1 box, chronological order
3-ring binders, photographs, posters, cubes from the "Envisioning the Future" exhibit at the Cal Poly Pomona Downtown Center on January 10, 2004.

Container List:
Envisioning the Future Collection, UA2004/2/1-9

  1) Box 1

1. Binder 1 - includes correspondence, photographs, emails, letters, sketches, and programs of the entire project.
2. Binder 2 - includes artist statements and photographs of projects completed in January 2004.
3. Judy Chicago business card (in front cover of Binder 2)
4. Photos from the "Envisioning the Future" exhibit in original Costco envelope
5. Large photo on poster board of Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman in front of Cal Poly Pomona Downtown Center.
6. Book of Judy Chicago's artwork, signed by Judy Chicago. [Removed from Envisioning the Future collection and added to Special Collections]
7. Two cubes with photos of various people pasted on each side, some with quotes.  One cube is of women, the other of men.
8. Poster "Participatory Art Pedagogy" on poster board
9. Poster "Envisioning the Future" on poster board with photos of Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman

Processed by:
Sonia Angulo

Date Completed:
April 2004

University Library Special Collections
Bldg 15 room 4434 •  909-869-2087 • dcadamson@csupomona.edu