The BMA Selects Baltimore-Based Artist Phaan Howng and Blue Water Baltimore for Next Commons Collaborations

Phaan Howng
Phaan Howng (American, b. 1982) is a painter, sculptor, installation, and performance artist based in Baltimore. She received an MFA in multidisciplinary art from the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she is faculty language learning instructor. The multidisciplinary artist has been awarded residences at Windy Mowing, Halifax, VT (2015); Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia (2012); and Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT (2005). Howng has also received honors for her recent work and has given artist talks regionally. Her latest solo and group exhibitions include Biological Controls: If It Bleeds We Can Kill It at School 33 Art Center, Baltimore; Strange Genitals, Art F City, Brooklyn; Satellite Art Show, Miami Beach; and Instigate. Activate: No Place, No You or Me, Arlington Arts Center.

Blue Water Baltimore
Blue Water Baltimore’s purpose is to use community based restoration, education, and advocacy to achieve clean water in Baltimore’s rivers, streams and harbor, so that citizens of the Baltimore Region will enjoy a vibrant natural environment, livable neighborhoods, and a healthy, thriving Inner Harbor and Chesapeake Bay. Blue Water Baltimore fills a unique role in the Baltimore area as a not-for-profit organization that uses a holistic set of programs to meet the great challenges of improving water quality. From arts and education, to storm water management projects, to legal and legislative advocacy, they effect change on the ground. In addition to restoration activities, they involve citizens in the passage of strong legislative and regulatory policies that result in long-lasting, sustainable outcomes.

IMAGINING HOME
The inaugural exhibition for the BMA’s Patricia and Mark Joseph Education Center brings together more than 30 works from across the BMA’s collection to explore the universal theme of home. Visitors will discover paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, textiles, and works on paper from Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands, as well as four miniature
rooms, plus a variety of interactive features presented in three thematic areas: Façades & Thresholds; Domestic Interiors; and Arrivals & Departures. Interactive features include Home Stories videos that reveal an individual’s or family’s experience living with a reproduction of a work of art for a month. Another group of artworks has Soundscapes that immerse visitors in the place where the object was made through authentic audio recordings. The BMA’s Go Mobile smartphone guide has been expanded with 40 new stops with original content for artworks in Imagining Home.

JOSEPH EDUCATION CENTER COMMONS
The Commons reflects the voices and creativity of Baltimore. Adjacent to the gallery in the Education Center, the Commons features a year-long Commons Collaboration inspired by the theme of home featuring artwork by an artist/artist team working in conjunction with a non-profit organization. In this space, visitors can also fill out Postcards from Home with their responses to questions posed in the exhibition. Then postcards will be mailed to another visitor whom they’ve never met. They may write their own address on a return label to receive a postcard as well. Select postcards are featured on the BMA’s blog. The Commons also hosts Open Hours on the third Saturday of the month. These events are organized by anyone who wants to propose an activity connected to the theme of home that promotes a sense of sharing and exchange.