Bubbled (detail shots, reinstallation for FoolMoon Festival, black, white, red, pink bubble wrap), April 7, 2017
This six-hour, half-block takeover of public space during a public art festival used bubble wrap as an entry point for a conversation on “semi-recyclable” goods and their unintended consequences on our environment. Bubble wrap, for example, is either recyclable or not based on a household’s recycling company and their factory’s abilities to process the material. All bubbled wrap used in this installation was either given to visitors and instructed how to recycle it, or it was properly recycled by the collective at a local factory that can process the material.
The majority of works I make outside, whether they are permitted or impromptu, are usually rooted in two impulses:
(1) ground my practice in collective building, participation, and conversations; and
(2) talk about decay, recycling policy, and social norms.
Feedback, resistance, questioning, and humor are central entry points in these works, as they typically fall under new genre public art. From 2015-2017, I led a collective of artists and creatives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, called Art on the Diag. Nicknamed D/ART, our takeovers of public space were collective efforts of around a dozen people. The three examples below are through this collective.
Bubbled (detail shots, reinstallation for FoolMoon Festival, black, white, red, pink bubble wrap), April 7, 2017
Bubbled (detail shots, reinstallation for FoolMoon Festival, black, white, red, pink bubble wrap), April 7, 2017
Bubbled (detail shots, reinstallation for FoolMoon Festival, black, white, red, pink bubble wrap), April 7, 2017
Filter (clear and shaded vinyl, wood, nails, wheels, two 6 x 6 x 8ft structures), Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 29, 2017, with public art collective D/ART.
This one-day work consists of building two tunnels built from wood, clear vinyl, and varying shades of plastic sheets. Hanging inside the tunnel are 5-7 interchangeable grey sheets to which viewers can remove, change, cut, or add. Pairs of viewers are invited to walk through the two rearrangeable tunnels, select from an array of translucent shapes, and hang/remove them inside the tunnel. They attempt to hang their own selected filters, giving depth and weight to the image through the tunnel. The work begins a conversation on college students’ use of mobile applications that filter, crop, and effect our online visual presentation. Viewers must navigate, as do they online, through an already busy field of filters darkening their vision and path.
Filter (clear and shaded vinyl, wood, nails, wheels, two 6 x 6 x 8ft structures), Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 29, 2017.
Filter (clear and shaded vinyl, wood, nails, wheels, two 6 x 6 x 8ft structures), Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 29, 2017.
Filter (clear and shaded vinyl, wood, nails, wheels, two 6 x 6 x 8ft structures), Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 29, 2017.
Fall Waterfall (cement, streamers, wood, rope, nails), Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 6, 2016, with public art collective D/ART.
A 60-foot hallway of 240 streamers where visitors are encouraged to touch, walk, and add to the hallway. The artwork's colors directly reflect and engage with the season of “fall” as an abstract distraction from our own personal and national issues. The narrowing, ultimately confusing and collapsing work trapped students attempting to take pictures within it and then required help from bystanders to leave the artwork.
Fall Waterfall (cement, streamers, wood, rope, nails), Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 6, 2016,
Fall Waterfall (cement, streamers, wood, rope, nails), Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 6, 2016.
Fall Waterfall (cement, streamers, wood, rope, nails), Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 6, 2016.