Stronger Together #1 2016
Video installation (includes Old Faithful Community (7:24) and Hillary Clinton's Plan (59:00) and publication, presented as part of the 2016 Exhibition for the Arlene Schnitzer Visual Art Prize at the Autzen Gallery.
Installation design and fabrication in collaboration with Spencer Byrne-Seres.
The virgin land of the national park, showcasing nature alone, is an illusion.
And most of all, don’t believe anyone who says: “I alone can fix it.”
Required rethinking of what has been the predominant interpretation of history.
Can we move through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences?
Participate in community activities and events; become a part of things.
We learned each other's ways.
Yellowstone National Park offers boardwalks and benches as opportunities to come together in solidarity as American citizens, citizens of the world or people in the same place at the same time; a temporary community invested in an hour of waiting for a three-minute geyser eruption (Old Faithful is so faithful: next eruption in 74 minutes). The federal government supports us in having those moments together... but who is us? How can we recognize the wrongs which underlie our national treasures? Is there a sustainable solution that allows us to be stronger together? What is our "Plan for Conservation and Collaborative Stewardship of America’s Great Outdoors?" Is “we the people” crowding around Old Faithful?
This work extends outside of the gallery and includes the temporary community who came together to make the installation possible: Spencer Byrne-Seres (installation design, boardwalk, benches, frame), Joshua Hughes (3-D printed peach pit - not included in this iteration) and Emily Wobb (Stronger Together sign, not included in this iteration). Thank you Jesse Mejia for lending your 4:3 TV, Drew Michelini for lending your binoculars, and Kim Sutherland for gifting me with the Frutiger typeface, official typeface of the National Park Service. All video footage was shot on my iPhone 6.
