Meet the Artist :: Urban Scout

The concept for this show came to me after reading an article about Urban Scout in an issue of Readymade Magazine. Urban Scout is the alter-ego of Peter Bauer, a native of Portland, OR.

Scout leads a 'pre-postapocalyptical' lifestyle in which he has combined survival skills, native american philosophies, hunting-gathering and blogging in order to survive (and have fun!) in our scary world. Living in a teepee in his friends backyard, Scout has learned which city 'weeds' are edible (check out his recipe for dandelion fritters !), has hunted squirrels, makes his own medicines and even built a solar powered charger for his ibook so he can spread his messages through his blog: http://www.urbanscout.org/


Urban Scout lives an oxymoron in that he's chosen to 'leave civilization behind' while living in a city. What struck a chord with me in terms of this show were his ideas of people needing to rewind time and undo decades of learned behaviors in order to come out on top in the future...



Urban Scout lives his life as an ongoing performance which he describes as, "part fact/part fiction, part man/part myth...[using] comedic irony and the novelty of our situation as a clever disguise to cloak and spread a truly sustainable world view, for a time beyond our own."

At a recent lecture at the alternative conference Ignite Portland, Scout boiled his ideas down to an essence while speaking of the future:

'..We're talkin' about the collapse of civilization here. Is this the apocalypse? Are we gonna have a bad time or a good time? let's have a good time..'

(you can watch Urban Scout's speech here)

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Urban Scout will be creating an installation in the DCAC gallery which will include his actual teepee, some of his tools & artifacts, and a series of photos documenting his forward-backward lifestyle.

At 8:00 on opening night (12/14), Scout will treat gallery visitors to a demonstration of a fundamental skill (don't worry B- it won't be like supple!)