Collective Magpie, Globos. Installation view of exhibition Eureka at The New Childrens Museum. | Photo: Courtesy of The New Childrens Museum.
The projects of Collective Magpie may be rooted in ideas, but these artists also know how to create something that yields a sense of visual wonder. This is the case with their hot air balloon in gold paper at The New Children's Museum in downtown San Diego, which measures about 37 by 25 feet. It's a startling sight, very nearly defying logic since it looks so fragile and yet remains aloft in the museum's cavernous space.
You might think, gazing at this balloon, that Collective Magpie itself is large. Not so. It is actually a consortium of two: Tae Hwang and MR Barnadas. But the assumption would be half right, since true to the form of earlier projects, they are inspired by the notion of works that need the efforts of many. The balloon itself is the product of numerous workshops in Tijuana and San Diego (begun in February 2015), constructed one carefully made triangle at a time. You can get an idea of the method itself in the videos available for viewing on their website. These workshops will continue because more balloons remain to be made; the project will culminate with the launch of balloons from both sides of the border in Tijuana and San Ysidro in the Spring of 2017.
Call these and other works by Collective Magpie a form of social intervention; categorize them as examples of art as social practice. But when they were undergraduate students at the Art Institute of Chicago, between 1996 and 2001, Hwang and Barnadas weren't paying attention to such labels. Their inspirations were American polymaths like Buckminster Fuller and Charles and Ray Eames. In fact, Fuller's famed geodesic dome is one inspiration for the structure of the balloon, as an engaging video that accompanies their installation at The New Children's Museum explains.
They just found the disciplines to facilitate what they wanted to create, says Hwang, pinpointing the essential quality of Eames and Fuller.
The same can be said of Collective Magpie, which graduated from UCSD with an MFA last year. Hwang and Barnadas were admitted as a collective, a first for the department. And they produced all of the work for the degree as, well, a collective.
The hot air balloon is an object that has long fascinated them. Their project, entitled Globos (Spanish for balloon), began with an invitation from The New Children's Museum to be part of the current, long-running exhibition, Eureka. The six-artist show -- named for the state motto, since all works are about some aspect of California --- continues for several months.
For the Globos workshops, participants have been making sections of the balloon along with the artists. Hwang and Barnadas don't view this project as a simple gesture of uniting people on both sides of the border that separates Alta and Baja California, though it takes a critical look at the dividing line between the American part of California and the portion that resides in Mexico. The workshops, the museum installation and the scheduled launch underscore the tensions and complexities that envelop the region, even as the project itself transcends the border.
Consider one group of workshop participants: the Deported Veterans of America. In spite of having served in the American armed forces, they cannot enter the U.S. But that hasn't loosened their emotional bounds with it. Workshop participants have a choice of stamping their contributions with Hecho en Mexico or Made in the U.S.A. In spite of being exiled, they insisted on stamping their sections with the second label.
Collective Magpie, Globos. Performance/object, gold tissue paper, string, air. Dimensions variable.
Neither Hwang nor Barnadas are native to California. Alta or Baja. Yet it was clear to them, when they came to San Diego to attend UCSD's graduate program in visual arts in 2012, that the border was, as Barnadas put it, the elephant in the room.
Both artists cosmopolitan biographies and family histories emphatically make them sensitive to the dynamics of a binational region: Hwang's family emigrated to Memphis from South Korea when she was 10 and Barnadas grew up mostly in Canada though her mother came from Trinidad and her father from Peru. But both felt, at least at first, it could be presumptuous to create work about a region where they had just arrived.
It took the convergence of an invitation from the Children's Museum to create a work about California with the centennial of the Panama-California Exposition (in Balboa Park) to yield Globos. Their thoughts veered toward the notion of an arbitrary divide between Alta and Baja California as well as the historical connection of the Paris World's Fair of 1878 with the hot-air balloon.
Connecting these conceptual dots inspired them. As did their introduction to the traditional way of making balloons in Mexico that they learned from Miguel Angel Mendoza. Globos de cantoya, as they are called, involve the use of silk paper and have roots reaching back to the third century CE in China.
Collective Magpie, Giant Paint by Numbers. Performance/object, canvas, paint. 6 by 40 feet. Participatory action held at The Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, Canada. | Photo: Jason Bird.
Collective Magpie has its roots in Chicago. Hwang and Barnadas met on their first day as undergrads at the Art Institute in 1996, when they each helped each other drag luggage into the dorms. Their friendship was instant and their first collaboration was to co-direct a gallery for undergraduates to exhibit work.
After graduating from the Art Institute, each did intriguing jobs and projects before forming Collective Magpie. Hwang worked for seminal conceptual artist, Lawrence Weiner, for more than a decade in New Work; Barnadas vent
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
Collective Magpie, Globos. Installation view of exhibition Eureka at The New Childrens Museum. | Photo: Courtesy of The New Childrens Museum. 
