Walking the fine line between non-profit arts organization and absurdist theater.
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Reply to commentBumpkin Island Art Encampment
Submitted by megan on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 18:16
BUMPKIN ISLAND ART ENCAMPMENT 2011 The Bumpkin Island Land Office invites the public to participate in the 5th annual Bumpkin Island Art Encampment, a five-day public art experience in the Boston Harbor Islands national park area. From Thursday, July 28, 2011 through Monday, August 1, 2011, five artist collectives will take temporary ownership of Bumpkin Island, a 35-acre island less than one mile off the coast of Boston's South Shore. They will:
2011 Bumpkin Island collectives and projects include: AXIOM GROUP, Meghann Hickson, Heidi Kayser, Georgina Lewis, Nick Marmor, Evan Smith, Liz Washburn, Alexander Reben, Sarah Rushford Axiom Group's mission is to support and encourage experimentation in the arts through exhibitions, events, educational programs and collaboration with like-minded groups in an effort to foster the development of new practices in contemporary artmaking. Axiom's multiple individual projects on Bumpkin will enact this mission as they explore the theme of restraint. From establishing a Bumpkin Island Border Control to transporting heavy-laden sculptural backpacks, each project will reflect the limitations of living in a closed system. MEMORY VESSEL, Teaching Artist Kate Jellinghaus and youth artists Sasha Stone, Haley Smith, Autumn Yu, Allison Black, Isabelle Higgins, & Rafaela Lowe Using the sculptural weaving techniques of random weave, coiling and twining, the collective will make a series of monumental vessels, built primarily with island resources. The artists will tap into the "memories" of the island to create powerful sculptures that contain stories (direct or indirect) about Bumpkin Island's creatures, rocks, past visitors, and flora and fauna. Though these vessels will be unfilled, the materials used will themselves carry a narrative of place and time: they will "hold" memories. PACKRAT, Dirk Adams, Jesse Kaminsky & Helen White Packrat will "draw" a giant funnel-style web from unpolished cotton string. The "nest" will act as a base of operations as collective members collect and catalog one of every type of thing on the island. Each item will connect back to the nest via a simple string guide. POP-UP COLLECTIVE, Sarah Baumert, Meg Rotzel, Jennifer Schmidt with Ben Jordan and Peter Schmitt Working to create a modular city in two days, Pop-Up will construct an abstracted vibrant town square. When the "tourists" arrive on Saturday and Sunday, the city starts to hum: movement choreographed by Sarah Baumert is paired with sound created by Jennifer Schmidt, as Meg Rotzel recombines buildings to express the culture of Pop. By playing as city-planners, workers and civilians, the Pop-Up collaborative creates a temporary city of production, experimentation and joy. Pop-Up is funded in part by a Director's Grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT. TRAUBENSAFT, Zannah Marsh & Uta Hinrichs Traubensaft will employ strategies and practices from experimental cartography and psychogeography to create a Bumpkin Island "Map Archive." Visitors will browse the collection-including maps such as a Map of the Locations of Smooth Stones, a Map of Prickly Things, a Map of Island Smells-and borrow maps to use on their island explorations. The map station will also offer visitors a "map-making kit", with materials and instructions to create their own maps. These visitor-created maps will be donated/contributed to the Bumpkin Island Map Archive for other visitors to use as they explore the Island. As part of the map making process, physical flags/pins may be placed in the environment (and carry a message or label) by the artists and participant cartographers, which refer to landmarks or symbols recorded on particular maps. The markers will alert users to the project and draw their attention to features of the island that might otherwise be overlooked. ARTIST FELLOWS: Mara Brod: Documentation Using both film and digital photography, Artist Fellow Mara Brod will document the challenges artists face working as a group in a new environment with limited resources. Hannah Burr & Stephanie Chace: Remembering Picnic Hannah Burr, 2009 Bumpkin Art Encampment artist, returns with Stephanie Chace to facilitate a picnic that helps us remember things lost, and foods that evoke that memory. The ongoing picnic will take place Sunday, July 31, from 12 - 4pm. Bring your lunch and join the experience. Ray Garrett, Elliot Higger, Tiffany Dumont: Catch the Light Artists Ray Garrett and Tiffany Dumont were Art Encampment artists in 2007 and 2009, respectively, and later became rangers on Bumpkin Island. Elliot Higger is a cinematographer who has also worked the Harbor Islands as a ranger for several years, most recently on Grape. As "Ranger Fellows," the group will install a giant, off-the-grid Lite Brite, using colored pegs to harness the energy of the sun in an interactive display of light, color and shadow. VISIT INFORMATION Getting There Bumpkin Island Art Encampment exhibits are free to all visitors. However, you have to get to the island first! The easiest, most relaxed way to Bumpkin is by special boat. Take a special boat directly from Fan Pier or Georges to Bumpkin Island, purchase refreshments on board, and avoid long lines at the dock. Round trip tickets are $18 and can be pre-purchased at www.brownpapertickets.com.
You can also reach the island by regularly scheduled boat. Ferry tickets are $14 for adults, $10 for seniors, and $8 for kids ages 3 - 11. To get to Bumpkin from Georges, there is an additional charge of $4 for unlimited one-day rides on the inter-island shuttle. For a full schedule of ferry arrivals and departures and other tips on planning your visit, go to the Boston Harbor Islands website: http://www.bostonharborislands.org For more information about the Encampment, press inquiries, and more, email megan (at) berwickinstitute (dot) org. BECOME A FRIEND OF THE BERWICK RESEARCH INSTITUTE & BOSTON HARBOR ISLANDS! Berwick Research Institute on Facebook Boston Harbor Islands National Park on Facebook Curators and Partner Organizations The Bumpkin Island Art Encampment is curated by Megan Dickerson, Carolyn Lewenberg and Jed Speare. This event is co-presented with the Berwick Research Institute by Studio Soto, an artist performance/screening/exhibit space in Fort Point; Mobius; the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation; and the Boston Harbor Island Alliance, a non-profit in support of the Boston Harbor Islands. A Brief History of Bumpkin Bumpkin is 35-acres with slate and shell beaches. Historically, Native Americans used Bumpkin Island as a fish camp prior to European contact. During the colonial period, tenant farmers leased the island for subsistence farming. Bumpkin hosted a fish-drying operation in the early 19th century and a fish smelting operation in the early 20th century. In 1900, a Boston philanthropist named Clarence Burrage founded a hospital for physically disabled children. During World War I United States Navy took over the island as a training camp, which was dismantled after the war. The hospital reopened briefly in about 1940 for polio patients but closed during World War II and burned in 1945. Today, plants have reclaimed the physical landscape of the island - about half are non-native species, including various fruits and berries, shrubs, vines, field plants and trees. Wildflowers grow along the trails that lead visitors to the ruins of the children's hospital and a stone farmhouse. Please note: Bumpkin Island is an archaeological site. Because of this, no digging is allowed above the high tide line. About Homesteading as a Context In 1862, the United States recruited civilians to aid in its movement west. The Homestead Act offered any U.S. citizen or head of household, including people of color and women, free or low-cost 160-acre plots of land. In return, "homesteaders" promised to build a 12' x 14' house, cultivate and "improve" the land and live on the plot for five years. The project resulted in the creation of over 372,000 farms west of the Mississippi, continuing as late as 1976-- when the Homestead Act was officially dissolved. *********************************************************************************** BUMPKIN ISLAND ART ENCAMPMENT 2010 The 2010 Bumpkin Island Art Encampment took place July 31 - August 1, 2010. For five days, eight artist groups took temporary ownership of eight plots of land on Bumpkin Island. As "homesteaders," they built a shelter, lived on the land for five days, and "improved" the land via a site-specific, temporary performance or installation. 2010 PROJECT PROPOSALS & ARTISTS Octopus' Garden, Marisa DiPaola Inspired by the Hawaiian creation myth and an Eyak story, "The Woman and the Octopus," DiPaola will act as an octopus homesteader and knit found materials into a floating shoreline shelter and aquatic garden, complete with a kelp bed, urchin cushions, and other domestic amenities. The Great Bumpkin Hunt, Ali Reid Building on island folklore that "Bumpkins" are "little guys with glowing eyes," Reid and a cast of intergenerational family members will lead daily interpretive tours exploring the mysterious species' rise and decline. Tidal, Ellen Godena and Nathan Andary Tidal is a series of body-land sculptures that mimic tidal movement over Bumpkin's "gut"-a land bridge to Hull that emerges at low tide. As Godena and Andary's movements shift pebbles and stones, piles of rock will accumulate and dissipate, appearing as rolling ‘waves' in the direction of their movements. No Place to Go or Won't You Please Walk With Me, Cara Brostrom Brostrom invites visitors to walk with her as she loops Bumpkin's 20 acres, walking the island clockwise some 12 miles per day. Travelling a great distance without going anywhere, she will mark her progress by adding one rock to a cairn each time she passes her starting point. Bumpkin Sky-Land, Mark Davis Davis will delve into the mystical realm of "sky-land"-alluded to in a WWI-era ballad about Bumpkin-as he summons the island's aerial genii loci to manifest themselves in the form of floating lattice structures and shoreline fire-glyphs. 4-D Map: Portraits of Stones & Plants Found Along the Water's Edge, Sharon Dunn Stones and monumental portraits, positioned in a circle as "offerings," will map elements of Bumpkin's coastal ecosystem, tidal life zones, foliage and geology. Visitors will access digital photos and an online journal by mobile device. Encampment within the Encampment, Camilo Alvarez, Shalini Patel, Mike Szegedi, Zsuzsanna Szegedi, & Maria Molteni Five artists will feed and support each other through a micro-encampment of nine distinct projects:
PROJECT FELLOWS: Kalmia Strong, Bumpkin historian, will lead tours of Bumpkin's diverse history and operate the Bumpkin Historical Society, offering artists and visitors a library of on-site background information. David Tamés, documentarian, will film the Encampment and then make the footage accessible to the public, working with interested collaborators to develop a participatory documentary on the project.
********************************************************* 2009 Projects, Artists, & Documentation All documentaries directed and produced by Patrick Johnson. Ebb and Flow, Kate Dodd Bumpkin 06 - Ebb and Flow from Patrick Johnson on Vimeo. Empty - Full, Hannah Burr Bumpkin 03 - Empty Full from Patrick Johnson on Vimeo. Everything Arrives, Everything Departs, Heather Kapplow
Bumpkin 08 - Everything Arrives, Everything Departs from Patrick Johnson on Vimeo. The Midden Map, Mark Davis and Kalmia Strong Bumpkin 07 - Midden Map from Patrick Johnson on Vimeo. 42° 16' 52.00" N 70° 53' 15.4" W, Stephanie Cardon, Courtney Lockemer, Marc McNulty Bumpkin 05 - A.R.R.G.H from Patrick Johnson on Vimeo. Dragonflies and Angelwings, Sharon Dunn, David Tamés, Alice Apley Bumpkin 04 - Dragonflies and Angelwings from Patrick Johnson on Vimeo. Bumpkin Island Gamelan, Brendon Wood, Raymond Garrett, William Conley Bumpkin 02 - Gamelan from Patrick Johnson on Vimeo. Orchitecture, N51/N52 (Gabriel Cira, William McKenna and James Sannino) Bumpkin 01 - Orchitecture from Patrick Johnson on Vimeo. Project Fellows Documentary filmmaker Patrick Johnson (www.journeymanstudios.com) joined the artists for the duration of the project, documenting their art and experiences for the five days on Bumpkin Island. Multimedia artist Ali Reid became Bumpkin's official "postmistress," facilitating communication among artists, curators and visitors by delivering messages written on official Bumpkin Island correspondence stock. Through her role as official go-between, Ali became privy to island news and gossip, and generated a temporary informational exhibit that highlighted the "bumpkineering" experience as it happened. Bumpkin 09 - Postmaster from Patrick Johnson on Vimeo. Artist and chef Sarah King McKeon designed a welcome dinner for the eight artist groups, interpreting ideas of homemaking and welcome on the first night of homesteading. For more information or press inquiries, contact megan@berwickinstitute.org. Bumpkin Island Art Encampments 2007 and 2008
View the 2008 Bumpkin Island Art Encampment booklet (pdf) For documentation of the 2007 Bumpkin Island Art Encampment, please visit www.wooloo.org/BumpkinIslandLandOffice. Press:
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