University Circle

cleveland institute of art prof kasumi snags vimeo award
While foodies were busy scarfing down burgers in Brooklyn, judges like David Lynch, Roman Coppola and Morgan Spurlock were in downtown Manhattan picking the winners of the very first Vimeo Awards ceremony at the SVA Visual Arts Theater in Chelsea. Just nine short films were selected out of 6,500 entries submitted from around the globe.

Snagging one of those nine prizes was local artist and Cleveland Institute of Art professor, Kasumi. Her short, "Breakdown the Video," which combines old footage from the 1940s and 1950s, snagged top honors in the Remix category.

Read about the other winners in the New York Times here.

Grab a small popcorn and check out Kasumi's short film here.

pittsburgh's pop city spreads the word about fresh water
In last week's issue of Pop City (yes, it's a sister IMG publication), writer Deb Smit reported on our dear publication.

"Fresh Water launches this month with the goods on Cleveland, news as it pertains to innovation, jobs, healthcare, lifestyle, design and arts and culture," she writes." The bubbly, blue homepage comes to life each Thursday with a fresh issue featuring vibrant photography and stories on the people shaking things up and the great places to visit."

Smit even encourages smitten Pittsburghers to subscribe. Thanks, Pop City!

Read all the news that's fit to pop here.
university circle's western reserve historical society opens hands-on family education center
It's all child's play, and that's okay. Within the newly opened Kidzibits Family Education Center at the Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS), toddlers to preteens can discover fun ways to learn about the history of the region.

"History is fun when offered to children in age-appropriate ways," says Janice Ziegler, vice president for education at WRHS. 

Part of the WRHS complex at University Circle, Kidzibits offers "Backyard of History," which is geared for children ages two to five. Interactive play includes dressing up in historical clothes, shopping at a mini-West Side Market and building Cleveland's Skyline. "Backyard of History" also involves cars in the Crawford Auto Aviation Museum.

The preschool section of Kidzibits was funded by the Hershey Foundation and created in collaboration with the Montessori High School at University Circle.

In 2011, WRHS will open two other sections of Kidzibits, one designed for six-to-nine-year-olds and the other for ten-to-12-year-olds.


Source: Janice Ziegler, WRHS
Writer: Diane DiPiero
brookings institute says great lakes metros like cleveland are ideally suited for next economy
In this paper by Brookings Think Tank fellows Vey, Austin and Bradley, the Great Lakes region is described as being uniquely suited for growth in the New Economy.

"As the American economy works its way slowly out of the Great Recession, a consensus is developing among public and private-sector stakeholders that simply re-constructing our old economy, one based on highly-leveraged domestic consumption, would be a serious mistake," the report argues. "The nation must instead focus on building the next economy, one that is oriented towards greater exporting, powered by a low-carbon energy strategy, driven by innovation, and that creates opportunities for all. The Great Lakes region... could show the rest of the country the way forward to the next economy."

Citing the following factors, the report finds that the Great Lakes region, particularly its metropolitan areas, has significant resources essential to creating the next economy.

- Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois are among the top states in terms of green tech patenting, focused on new technologies in battery power, hybrid systems, and fuel cells.

- The 21 largest Great Lakes metros are home to 32 major public and private research universities, which attract substantial federal research investment. The region produces approximately 36 percent of America's science and engineering degrees each year.

- The region is rich with community colleges, which help the region's workers develop skills and credentials necessary to secure jobs in the region's industries, and in so doing maintain a pool of skilled employees to attract and support them.

Read the report here.
dynamic duo chosen as finalist in bloomberg's 'america's best young entrepreneurs'
Bloomberg Businessweek really, really likes what local medical device whiz kids Rick Arlow and Zach Bloom are up to. First came inclusion for Arlow in the pub's "25 most impressive young entrepreneurs under the age of 25." Next up for the dynamic duo was a slot as dual finalist in "America's Best Young Entrepreneurs."

Arlow and Bloom are recent grads of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., and Arlow currently is a medical student at Case Western Reserve University. The pair's medical device company LifeServe Innovations developed a tool that provides emergency medical technicians (EMTs) with a better, faster way to establish emergency airway access than the conventional cut-and-tube method.

The pair's Bloomberg entry reads: "Their device, based on the design of a viper's fang, is intended to open airways via minimally invasive procedures that can be performed in 60 seconds or less, compared to 10 to 15 minutes for a comparably effective surgical procedure."

Read the rest right here.
after years of waiting, the syrian cultural garden begins to bloom
For decades it was merely a dream, but soon, the Syrian Cultural Garden becomes a reality. Part of the Cleveland Cultural Gardens that wend along Rockefeller Park, the Syrian Garden is in progress on Martin Luther King Boulevard across from the Indian Garden. Upon completion, it will be the first of the Cultural Gardens representing an Arab country.

About 80 years ago, Cleveland's Syrian community received a garden site on which to commemorate its culture and heritage. Plagued by lack of funding followed by waning interest, the plot of land sat undeveloped for many years. But around 2007, the notion of a Syrian Cultural Garden began to once again take shape, with members of Cleveland's Syrian community becoming involved in design and fundraising efforts.

Sponsored by the Syrian Cultural Gardens Association, in collaboration with the Syrian American Cultural Council, the garden will have at its focus a series of classically inspired arches designed by University of Damascus architecture students Raghda Helal and Nagham Nano. The Arches of Palmyra, the Amphitheater of Basra, the Syrian Arch and the Arabic Fountain all served as inspiration. The history of Syria will be displayed on several granite stones along the amphitheater, according to Layla George-Khouri, one of the founders of the garden committee. Damascene roses will surround the architectural feature.

"It's going to be beautiful," says Khouri, adding that the goal is to unveil the finished garden to the public in April of 2011.

The Cleveland Cultural Gardens date back to 1926, when the Shakespeare Garden (which later became known as the British Garden) was dedicated to honor the Bard. Through the years, many other ethnic groups have planted flowers and built monuments as a tribute to the land of their ancestors. Check out this link for detailed information about all of the gardens, as well as a map.


SOURCE: Layla George-Khouri
WRITER: Diane DiPiero
contemporary art museum to get contemporary new home
It has always been a bit of an oxymoron: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland (MOCA) housed in a building with as much contemporary flair as an old-fashioned Cracker Jack box. And while visitors still came to the Carnegie Avenue location to admire the museum's growing collection of contemporary art, many surely wondered why such a gem wasn't located in University Circle with other great museums, especially the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Turns out, MOCA was wondering the same thing. The museum had been planning for ten years to leave its Carnegie Avenue location for a permanent home that reflected the cutting-edge and forward-thinking image for which MOCA has been known. That vision will soon take shape at the corner of Euclid and Mayfield in University Circle.

The new museum building will be part of a long-planned project that will bring restaurants, stores and housing to that section of Euclid Avenue.

In addition to a comfortable place to exhibit and store the museum's collections, the new MOCA building will help the museum increase its educational and public programs.

Farshid Moussavi with Foreign Office Architects of London designed the building, which will rely on clean lines and sharp angles made from glass and black steel to create a structure that promises to be as intriguing as the art displayed inside. According to the MOCA website, "The lobby is designed as an urban living room, a place for visitors to mingle, eat, shop, attend events, over the course of hours, or for brief interludes in a busy day. The building itself is a learning environment, infused at each level with education offerings that range from low tech to high tech, from contemplative to interactive, from solitary to group encounters. This building is an opportunity to provide a 21st century model of an art museum that anticipates dramatic shifts in how we learn, how we see, and how we socialize."

Jill Snyder, director of MOCA, is pleased with the multipurpose design an aesthetic appeal of the new building. "FOA's design for our building is the perfect expression of our program--one that will not only enable us to operate at the highest level, but that will also be beautiful, intriguing and sensitive to our urban surroundings and community."

The Cuyahoga County Planning Commission reports that MOCA hopes to break ground on the new museum building in late fall. The project is estimated at $26 million.


SOURCE: Jill Snyder
WRITER: Diane DiPiero