SNEAK PEAK: GOTW PRESENTATION

GET READY FOR IT:
Come see our Group Of The Week presentation tomorrow at the University of Dayton's Jesse Phillips Humanities Center on the Humanities Plaza. The presentation is from 3-3:30pm and is free and open to the public. Check out the following photos for a sneak peak of our presentation (which includes a performance). Hope to see you there!

hunting the natural world

On Tuesday morning we went out into the world to hunt down and bag nature. Our journey took us to Woodlawn Cemetery where we climbed up to the top of Dayton as we gathered sticks, bark, and leaves into garbage bags (materials we may use later on in our piece). At the top of the cemetery (and what seemed like the world) we rested, Ari filmed grass and Arielle drew flowers on her legs. After awhile we ran back down to Rike and continued working.




By the end of the day Sydney had created something extraordinary and huge out of twisted paper. The general consensus was to use this object in some way,shape or form in the final performance.


And finally we have almost completed all the paper mache on the main cocoon structure. One big hoorah for progress!

OPEN STUDIOS: July 8th

Open Studio was last Thursday (July 8th). We had a ton of parents, family, and members of the community come through to check out each group's progress. We answered a lot of questions and met a ton of people who live in the Dayton area - AND we got a lot of work done along the way!


Channel 2 news came and filmed everyone working. They also interviewed Ari along with some of the other artists about their proposals and the group projects. I am not sure whether or not we were on the news yet - maybe you saw us but if not keep on the look out.

Ari and I in our Tyvek Suits.


Open Studios gave us group members the opportunity to check out what everyone else at Blue Sky is up to and we took full advantage of it. Here Lenka Novak's group members work with projections and invite guests to participate.


Joyce Lee's group had a projection running with footage of the group marching that they had green-screened the week before.

Micheal Casselli's group had what seemed like a ridiculously intricate set-up involving sculpture, projection and sound. The video footage was projected on a house made of wax paper and it was extremely beautiful to watch. I can't wait to see the final outcome of all the groups at the August exhibition!

ATTN: Progress Report

Hard at work - everyone has started altered their individual Tyvek suits (which are set to become our individual cocoons). Here Sarah sports antlers and Sydney's to-be paper hand casts.

And of course we are continuing to work on pompoms daily.

Sydney and Arielle began weaving small sections of torn/cut paper together to add onto the main cocoon structure.

And finally, Ari's husband Ken came to work with us this week and he built the wooden structure which will become the base of the large cocoon. Thank you Ken for all your hard work!

the mission

It is always good to revisit our mission every once in awhile as our project progresses, and it seems more than appropriate to do so via this blog to clarify to our readers what it is that we are aiming to create.

Our project engages individual and group conceptions of "home" and "nest" through installation and performance art. We began with Ari's personal inspiration: the Caddisfly. Caddisfly larvae create cocoons from any object in their surrounding area that they are able to scavenge. They are hoarders of sorts, and their shelter is a mish-mash of whatever is local to them.



Even when given flecks of gold and precious stones by the French artist Hubert Duprat the caddisfly larvae did not hesitate when building itself personal cocoon.


We began like the caddisfly larvae, with our immediately surroundings, and we have submerged ourselves in this process of making - it is sometimes as unwinding spools of thread to collect materials. We are creating and will be performing as an exploration of our own individual journey of home. Our process along with our performance during the exhibition will be simple, repetitive, perhaps almost to the point of being meditative, and it will involve us shedding layers of cocoons or nests that we have come together to build as a group and as individuals.

Along with researching insects and their nesting behavior we have also looked at several contemporary artists who create objects or environments that require performance for their activation. One of these artists is Nick Cave. The following photos show a few of his series of soundsuits. They are most effective when in motion as illustrated by the following YouTube video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tXQcGQ95wE&feature=related



Another artist our group has felt particularly inspired by in Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto. Neto creates fantastic organic environments that invoke viewers' senses of space, touch and smell. He also has made a variety of sculptural objects that require viewers to participate by embrace the object with their own bodies, whether they are hugging it or being enveloped by its mass.

daily events

John's group allowed us to share their field for our improv session. We watched them hang letters and take photos from afar.

Later in the afternoon we continued making pompoms and began making our group tags which we will give away to visitors at the exhibition. Georgia wrapped herself in fabrics and disappeared. Can you spot her?

She re-emerged a few minutes later and life went on as usual.

The last 20 minutes of the day we were invited to visit Joyce's group and had the opportunity to watch them while green-screening. They were re-enacting soldiers marching in a Goya painting. Our group was most impressed, however, by how clean their room was.

IMPROV SESSION!

This morning De'Narrow ran an improv session for the group. 90 degree weather and Tyvek jumpsuits don't mix too well so we only lasted about an hour, but we didn't throw in the towel before getting some awesome video footage of everyone rolling, crawling and creeping around.











De'Narrow also managed to rip his pants. It was too funny for words, but this photo captures his surprise perfectly.