Sculpture and Foundations SupervisorandAdjunct Faculty, School of Art, CVPA
Contact Information
Campus: Fairfax
ܾ徱Բ:L006B Art and Design Building, MSN: 1C3
Tel: 703-993-8651
Email:bashwort@gmu.edu
Personal Websites
Biography
Ben curates and builds ongoing community-sourced public art projects that combine skateboarding, education, construction, music, media, and visual art as a socially engaged platform. As a process, he invites artists and community members to weekly interactive, spontaneous sessions where their combined energies and diverse backgrounds enrich the developing art spaces.
Ben is co-founder of DC’sGreen Skate Laboratoryand one of the founding members of the now legendaryDC Fight Club, an underground skate park, gallery, and performing arts venue. In 2012 he producedFinding A Linefor the DC temporary public art initiative5×5by building a skate/art park under a dicey DC freeway underpass and in 2015 co-developed another iteration ofFinding A Linewith the Kennedy Center. TheFinding a Lineproject is now part of the DC Cultural Plan and the city’s multiyear – arts and culture forward – creative placemaking initiative,“Crossing the Street: Building DC’s Inclusive Future through Creative Placemaking”.
Ben’s community art practice has been the subject of various publications, including NPR, McSweeney’s, the Washington Post, Jazz Times, BBC, ARTnews, JUICE, Landscape Architecture, and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He received his MFA from George Mason ĢAV School of Art where he is also Sculpture Faculty and teaches Art as Social Action and Public Art Projects. Ben is a core member ofWorkingman CollectiveandECRW, a loose coalition of surfer, skater, educator, builder, citizen artists.
Degrees:
- MFA , Sculpture, George Mason ĢAV,2016
- BA, Studio Art, George Mason ĢAV,1999
Specialist Areas:
- Art as Social Action
- Public Art