PHILADELPHIA.- The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania presents the exhibit “Project Space: Soft Sites” until July 30, 2006. Curated by ICA's 2004-2005 Whitney Lauder Curatorial Fellow Sara Reisman, "Soft Sites" recognizes a new paradigm in site-specific practice that has emerged during the age of globalization. The term "Soft Sites" refers to locations where significant physical change due to natural or human cause has taken place, descriptive of locations where earthquakes have destabilized the topography, referencing certain areas of lower Manhattan after 9/11, the Southeast Asian region so devastated by the tsunami at the end of 2004, and the Gulf Coast where Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc in the fall of 2005.

Selected artworks take into account the intangible qualities of location—history, desire, identity, culture and sense of time—that, in combination, raise questions about what constitutes site-specificity. Positioning artworks in two places, the ICA's Project Space and Bartram's Garden in Southwest Philadelphia, "Soft Sites" juxtaposes mobile site-specific artworks within the gallery with artworks that respond to a particular historic site. The contrast of the two spaces raises awareness of the fluidity of contemporary site in comparison to the 250 year legacy of John Bartram and his contributions in the realm of botany, science, nature and philosophy.

Artworks in the Project Space (in some cases documentation of ephemeral artworks) address the distinctive characteristics of locational aesthetics and the ways in which these qualities have begun to erode, and the recent emergence of mobile site-specific artistic practice. Artists whose works are presented in the Project Space include Soledad Arias (b. 1959, Buenos Aires, Argentina; lives in New York City), Mary Ellen Carroll (b. 1961, Danville, Illinois; lives New York, NY), Laura Carton (b. 1969, Los Angeles; lives in New York), Lieven de Boeck (b. 1971, Dendermonde, Belgium; lives in New York, London and Brussels), Peter Dudek (b. 1952, Adams, Massachusetts; lives in New York), Seung Young Kim (b. 1963, Seoul ; lives in Seoul), Hironori Murai (b. 1962, Osaka, Japan; lives in Tokyo), and Katrin Sigurdardottir (b. 1967, Reykjavik, Iceland; lives in New York City).