BETA Spaces (Bushwick Exhibition Triangle of Alternative Spaces)
Sunday, November 8, 2009, 12-7pm
Beta Spaces
CAPITAL B will be roving around Maria Hernandez Park from 3-5PM with our wishing tree cart – Make a wish for Bushwick, take a fortune cookie + learn about the history of Bushwick’s forests!
Wishing Tree Cart

Arts in Bushwick is pleased to present BETA Spaces, a one-day festival of independently curated, collaborative group exhibitions.
Now in its third year, BETA Spaces promotes and facilitates open dialogue among curators, artists and visitors. The free, one-day festival features hundreds of artists in over thirty curated shows. The festival takes place in approximately ten square blocks of industrial, post-industrial, commercial and residential buildings, permitting a wide range of alternative exhibition spaces including lofts, studios, galleries, street corners, restaurants, retail stores and radio stations.  This dense yet varied geographic plan furnishes visitors with an easily accessible and highly informative trajectory through a neighborhood bustling with creative enthusiasm and collaborative pursuits.
BETA Spaces is a non-traditional art festival: its framework of presenting curated thematic group exhibitions is designed to encourage conceptual integrity and interdisciplinary elasticity. Artists and curators are challenged to recontextualize their efforts and envision art works outside the white box environment of the commercial art world, or the in-process setting of an open studio. Due to the shared parameters and collaborative underpinnings of participation, the festival itself functions as a “group show” of an energetic and vibrant neighborhood. From glimpses of Bushwick’s varied histories to rooftop views, local politics to mixed-media performances, BETA Spaces offers visitors an array of options for engagement, immersion and entertainment.
Special events include a panel on public art production at Lumenhouse (47 Beaver Street) at 1pm, and the BETA Spaces After Party at Page Not Found (76 Jefferson Street), which will give visitors and artists a space to unwind and discuss the events of the day (7pm – midnight). Arts in Bushwick is also excited to partner with 3rd Ward’s Moviehouse (95 Morgan Avenue), which will screen films from 7 – 9pm.