Shared
Vision exists to demonstrate the power of participatory public
art to engage the public on a mass scale as collaborators
in the work, building a sense of ownership and connection.
The goal is to empower the community as a whole to become
participants in urban, social, cultural and economic regeneration.
His six public murals in downtown Frederick
near Washington D.C. draw tens of thousands of visitors to
the city annually, and have appeared in hundreds of newspapers
and magazines across the United States and in several foreign
countries. They are frequently published here and abroad in
educational materials for the classroom, including a new art
history textbook, a physics textbook, and other publications.
In
the historic district of Albany, New York , Mr. Cochran has
designed several monumental works (www.insynergy.org)
that will be integrated into the exterior architecture
of a new 26-story mixed-use cybercenter. He worked closely
with the project architect and many area organizations, as
well as a number of nationally respected scholars, historians,
artists and others to define and anchor this vision, called
Insynergy. This project includes the following three works:
- Sky Loom is a 17-store tall
holographic light shaft. Mirrors redirect sunlight down
the tower's shadow side, where holographic glass weaves
the light into changing patterns of light and color.
- Covenant
Park
in front of the tower is a public park designed as an interactive
artwork that reveals the history of the land in innovative
ways.
- Weaving Wall is a four-story
painted illusion that depicts the weaving of materials linked
to the early cross-cultural trade on the site and text expressing
the dreams of thousands of people. Art glass panels within
the weaving project patterns of sunlight, color, and text
onto interior walls and illuminate Covenant Park at night.
Mr.
Cochran's artworks have won six national awards, including
the Project of the Year award form the International Association
for Public Participation (2001), the Project of the Year award
from the American Public Works Association (1999) for Community
Bridge , and the Award for Excellence from the American Glass
Association for Volunteers (1990), a carved glass mural. Cochran
was recently nominated for the Common Ground award in the
arts by Search for Common Ground, an international organization
that has used his work as a demonstration model in other countries.
Mr.
Cochran travels and lectures widely. In recent years he was
the keynote speaker at the Communiversity Conference in London
, England and at the annual conference of the International
Association for Public Participation in Vancouver , B.C.,
and has spoken at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design
and the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington D.C. At Hood
College , he was the inaugural speaker for the Social Visionary
series in 1998 and returned in 2001.
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