Events

The Berwick joins the Island Alliance and Studio Soto in the 2nd Annual Artist Encampment, a  "homesteading" experience on a Boston
Harbor Island
this Labor Day weekend.

DATE:  August 28 -  September 1, 2008

WHERE: Bumpkin
Island, Boston Harbor Islands

PROPOSALS ARE BEING ACCEPTED THRU JULY 9TH.  TO FIND OUT HOW TO APPLY, PLEASE CLICK HERE. 

The Berwick Research Institute is pleased to announce the Second Annual Boston Harbor Art Encampment, August 28 - September 1, 2008. 
Starting Thursday, August 28, six artists or artist collectives will each receive one plot of prime, arable land in the middle of Boston Harbor. As island “homesteaders” during the following five days, they will:

* Build a temporary shelter on the land

* Live on the land for at least four nights, and

* Improve the land via a site-specific project or performance.

The public is
invited to observe the works-in-progress on Saturday August 30th, with Public Visitation days on Sunday August 31st and Monday September 1st. 

To learn more how you can lend your skills to the project as a volunteer (both during the build-up and over Labor Day weekend), please visit the Berwick Contact Page.  

Acting as temporary "homesteaders," artists will
explore and transform an empty plot of land (their campsite) into a resource
sustaining themselves and their community. Their works will pay tribute to the
island's past inhabitants, highlight the Island's
natural resources, and engage the public as performer, apprentice, student, and
honored guest. Projects include temporary shelters, shrines, musical
instruments, performance, video and electronic art, and sculpture.

Featured 2007 projects included:

Kristjan Varnik- Giant Sand Bass - An interactive instrument
that transformed the natural resources of Bumpkin island into a huge musical
instrument over eight feet tall providing the opportunity for multiple people
to play it at once.

Madhu Kaza - Islet: (Hospitality) - An interactive
performance that served as an exploration of how ritual and politeness mediate the
fragile boundaries between public and personal space.

Joshua Rosenstock, Sarah Phillips, Jonah Goldstein, Jessica
Baptista, and Marilyn Fontenrose - 
Untitled - Visitors were recruited to join scavenging parties and
help assemble a bestiary of feral farm animals. 

Else Eaton, Marybeth Mungovan, Tiffany Dumont, Ryan Riehle,
Rory Jackson Untitled - Shells, fossils, rocks, and trash from the island were incorporated into a dwelling/functional community gathering
place/performance space with instruments made from found materials.

Alison Wood, Sven Anderson, Dana Moore, Vanessa Wood - Oasis
of Conscious Stillness - Within the thatched tipi made of fallen timber,
invasive brush species, dried grasses, twisted branches and curling vines
people paused and absorbed the natural, historical, social, and artistic
energy pervading the island. Visitors also joined in breathing,
movement and meditation practices on Labor Day Sunday.

For documentation of the 2007 Bumpkin Island Art Encampment, please visit www.wooloo.org/BumpkinIslandLandOffice. 

The 2008 Art Encampment is one of two projects supported by the Berwick Research Institute's Special Projects Incubator program. In addition, this event is co-presented by Studio Soto, an artist
performance/screening/exhibit space in Fort Point and the Island Alliance , a non-profit in
support of the Boston Harbor
Islands.