DWELL, an installation by Simone Mantellassi & Zena Gurbo

I am excited to share with you the art of two up and coming young artists, Simone Mantellassi and Zena Gurbo. Their work is a marriage of the minds and the heart. This tandem exhbition explores their surreal domestic inquiries in Zena's oeuvre, small functional dwellings based on family, friends homes...and Simone's, small drawings and paintings that number up to 500+ that construct an environment of interior states of being that are frozen into frames of visual poetry.
Together they show us that "home is where the heart is."

Having read parts of Susan Stewart's book, ON LONGING, and Gaston Bachelard's, THE POETICS OF SPACE, these artists give us a post-modern commentary on life and love in the
21st Century that are very much in keeping with these books that have been a barometer for
art, literature, philosophical thinking for me and other artists like one of my favorites, Anne Hamilton.

Simone has shown in two biennials, The Everson Museum, where he won first place in 2006, The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and in 2008 again at The Everson. Goggling Simone's work,
his kudos are listed.

Zena has designed sets for The Foothills Theater in Upstate, NY, her small dwellings function as stage sets to my eye, perhaps she is setting the stage for future play named "DWELL"...she also is very involved in the community of art and artists in Oneonta, NY. She currrently cooridinates arts, education and exhibitions at ARC in Oneonta, work she finds challenging and rewarding.

Please join us on June 6th, 6-9pm to welcome them both to our home, and to hear the musical stylings of up-and-coming group "Ones Left Behind" ...tentatively to be held in the East Theater.

Chris Bahr

BCC Student Films - May 20th at 8:00pm

Conversations at The Art Mission is proud to announce an evening with the student filmmakers of Broome Community College on Tuesday, May 20th at 8:00pm. Students from the Advanced Video and Digital Filmmaking classes will screen and discuss their work.

We will be featuring the work of Jake Hotchkiss, Sean Van Iderstine, Matt Pisani, Casey Staff, Gregg Bae, Alice Sounthala, Mike Micha, Cody Controis, Alyssa Krause, Todd Harmon, and more!

For more information, please visit www.artmission.org or call 607.722.6914

Art Mission/Magic Lantern Plug on WBNG

To promote the Magic Lantern Movie Festival this weekend, Mark Levy and Karen Kucharski made an appearance on WBNG, Channel 12. Great job to both of them!



The festival was also featured on the Saturday news at 11:00pm.

BU Senior Thesis Films - Phenomenal Success

I'm starting to think that Binghamton might have an actual indie film scene. We had record breaking crowds for the Binghamton University Senior Thesis films, running the programs in BOTH THEATERS simultaneously (and keeping the filmmakers busy with Q&A's in both).

I was really impressed with the quality of all the films, and it was great to hear the filmmakers' perspectives on their projects. Thanks everyone for making it an amazing two evenings! And support the local film scene!

An angle on Kelly McCossan's "Untitled Installation"

BU Senior Thesis Films - NOW TWO NIGHTS!!!!

Conversations at the Art mission featuring the Binghamton University Thesis Films will now take place over TWO EVENINGS. That's right. The creative output from BU is just TOO MUCH for one evening. So please join us for both programs.

Tuesday, April 29th @ 8:00pm featuring
"Untitled Installation" by Kelly McCrossan
"Diner" by Jack Wilson
"Detune" by Ryan Lee
"The Apparatus Clean" by Sean Cunningham
"RAE" by Casey Puccini

Wednesday, April 20th @ 8:00pm featuring
"Untitled" by Laura Bennett
"SEAK" by Andy Simek
" Juggernaut" by Nick Bongiorno

BU Senior Thesis Films - April 29th at 8:00pm

Conversations at the Art Mission is proud to present an evening with Binghamton University Seniors and their Thesis Films. Please join us on April 29th at 8:00pm to meet the filmmakers and watch their films.

Filmmakers Forum Rocks the Art Mission!!!!

Conversations at the Art Mission experienced another round of record crowds and our first event in the West Theater! It was a fantastic evening of experimental film and I want to thank all the filmmakers who were involved and everyone from the community who joined us.


I also want to offer a farewell to Jake Stephens, co-founder of Conversations, who is heading off to New Zealand to work at WETA. Good luck Jake! We'll miss you.