The Container Project began in 2005 when the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts approached Jorgen Staal, president of J. Staal Storage Solutions, to see if he would be interested in entering into an experimental partnership. A number of collaborations grew out of this first request -- involving the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, as well as a wide array of artists who share an interest in re-using shipping containers in various ways. In the Fall of 2005, Jorgen Staal agreed to donate several used shipping containers for use at the University and The Container Project was officially begun. The participants (local artists, students from area high schools, students from UCSB, and others) have been exploring potential alternative uses for the containers ever since. The project has seen several manifestations; in each case the result has been a direct response to community interests or needs. The various projects are outlined below and in the projects link.

UC Santa Barbara/UC Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA) Open Container class. Responding to the need for alternative affordable housing in Isla Vista, students in UCSB’s Art Department were involved in a year-long exploration of the possibilities for new types of housing in their community.  They worked with campus architects, county planners, land-use consultants and internationally recognized architects who specialize in alternative design to think through this problem.  The Open Container class gave the students an opportunity to work to transform a shipping container into an affordable dwelling unit. 

Labor Exchange exhibition/exhibition space. A second container found a temporary home behind the Santa Barbara Museum of Art as part of Santa Barbara’s month-long celebration of contemporary art, Off Axis. As part of the programming for the exhibition Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China, local artists transformed the container into a temporary installation entitled Labor Exchange: How Much for a Buck?  Participating artists included Calico Brown, Tiffany Chung, Jennifer Figg, Mike Godwin, Billy Hood, Cleveland Motley, Jennifer Vanderpool and Kim Yasuda. In response to the dynamic issues surrounding the container and its pivotal influence on global trade, labor and the distribution of cheaply manufactured goods, artists were each offered a $100 commission to generate works of art that utilized materials purchased at ‘dollar stores’.  A cinema screening space was also created within 'the box' which  featured the film Mardi Gras: Made in China (2005, David Redmon). The film traces the Mardi Gras beads manufactured by laborers in Chinese factories to the festive streets of New Orleans.

Mobile Arts Lab I: The Tamayo Mobile. In September 2006, the container was remade again under the guidance of master artists Bob DeBris and Carolyn Allen. Sponsored by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the College of Creative Studies' Arts Institute, an outreach program for local elementary through high school students, the container was transformed into a wandering art gallery and tribute to Rufino Tamayo, whose work was featured in the SBMA exhibition: Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted. The transformation included murals made for the exterior of the container, poems written in response to Tamayo's art, plywood figures, photographs and films all responding to or commenting on Tamayo.  The Tamayo Mobile as it has fondly been dubbed, was the centerpiece of SBMA's community celebration kicking off  the exhibition and has now traveled as a 'mobile arts lab'  to nine different sites throughout Santa Barbara county (jointly arranged by The Container Project board of directors in conjunction with various community partners): these include the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, McKinley School (Santa Barbara), La Cumbre Jr. High (Santa Barbara), Community Day School/La Colina Jr. High (Santa Barbara), Isla Vista Teen Center (Isla Vista), El Camino Jr. High (Santa Maria), Guadalupe Cultural Arts and Education Center (Guadalupe), Mary Buren Elementary (Guadalupe), and People's Self Help Housing, Riverside Townhouses (Guadalupe). In each of these locations students have had the opportunity to work in and on the container, creating art work of their own and entering into conversation with the work of their peers.

CONFERENCE: November 8th, 9th & 10th, 2007: The Traveling Box: Containers as the Global Icon of our Era . On November 8th, 9th and 10th UC Santa Barbara's Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and the Center for Work, Labor and Democracy will be hosting The Traveling Box: Containers as the Global Icon of our Era. This international conference will explore the social, economic, and cultural impact of the shipping container and containerization. The Traveling Box conference brings together an interdisciplinary group of practitioners and scholars with expertise in geography, sociology, history, urban planning, architecture, art and business logistics. The 25 plus speakers will discuss the impact of containerization on the urban landscape, national consumption patterns, distribution and port security. In addition to the conference, we will have a number of special events, including keynote addresses by noted author Marc Levinson (The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger), architect Jennifer Siegal of the Office of Mobile Design, and a film screening and Q&A session with filmmaker Allan Sekula (Lottery of the Sea). There will be several modified containers on display - one that has been transformed into habitable space, another that has been turned into a 'mobile arts lab'. The events will culminate on Saturday the 10th with a tour of the Port of Los Angeles, led by Dave Arian, past president of the ILWU.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: 2007 Open Up the Box Competition: Call for Proposals
Over a period of two months in 2005, the UC Institute for Research in the Arts  demonstration project Open Container took place as part of a class taught jointly by Professors Kim Yasuda and Dick Hebdige of UC Santa Barbara. With a small budget for supplies and donated materials from local shipping company, J. Staal Storage Solutions, two shipping containers were transformed into a modular dwelling unit. A third container served as exhibition space for the proposed design prototypes. The course was a research and studio exploration of the transportable and residential mobility of container culture, with a focus on reuse and sustainability. UCIRA and J Staal Storage Solutions would like to open up opportunities for others to devise and execute equally dynamic and innovative research and design experiments. Engaging affordability and sustainability as themes for this inaugural competition, participants are asked to use two 20-foot shipping containers as the raw material to create attractive, functional and eco-friendly designs as possible solutions to the affordable housing question. The sponsors seek a building that will be mobile, functional and beautiful.  Successful designs need to prove both cost and energy efficient as well as conform to current local zoning and building codes. This competition offers visibility and recognition to the winning proposal and a chance to see the project realized in three dimentions in a key location on the UC Santa Barbara campus. read more >

Moble Arts Lab II -- UC Santa Barbara artists Jane Mulfinger and Billy Hood (under construction now!) The Mobile Arts Lab II, currently under construction, is part of an ongoing project that converts shipping containers into 'mobile arts labs', takes those labs to schools and community centers within the city of Santa Barbara to provide arts experiences for underserved youth, and employs professional artists in residence at each site. The project builds on the success of the first mobile arts lab – The Tamayo Mobile – this time undertaking the theme: mobile media/mobile environments. Upon completion the lab will visit at least the following five (5) sites: Franklin Community Center, Harding School, Santa Barbara Teen Center, Casa de la Raza, and the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Barbara, in addition to an ongoing display site at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. read more >

Isla Vista / West Campus Interventions
Projects include two temporary container structures next to the now-condemned Cameron Hall on UC Santa Barbara's West Campus, and the extreme makeover of the Isla Vista Bakery. read more >

site photos:
Kim Yasuda
Beatriz Barragan Horn
Janine Stengel