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ARC 2021
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Activate, Research, Create
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ARC 2021 is A.P.E.'s fifth season of summer projects (ARC 2020 was cancelled due to the pandemic). The ARC projects continue to expand the understanding of a contemporary art gallery as an active space within the community. From June 6-July 18, 2021, A.P.E. hosted three distinct mixed media projects including workshops about creative practice. During each residency, the artists created and shaped work in the gallery space that was open to the public through a variety of events and interactive moments. Each project maintained a central inquiry into the relationship between the public, the work, and the space in which it was made. ARC 2021 artists: Jil Crary-Ross, Jo Hesse and Michelle Falcón Fontánez.
See the archive HERE, created by Isabelle Hettlinger!
And, see Nick Verdi's video of the 2021 ARC project HERE
See the archive HERE, created by Isabelle Hettlinger!
And, see Nick Verdi's video of the 2021 ARC project HERE
Jil Crary-Ross: Airdrop, June 6 - June 19
Airdrop: Dreamscapes of 21st century Americana is a series of narrative portrait paintings that capture individuals and their encounters between interior, exterior, and digital spaces. Composed from imagery originally shot or collected on a phone camera, Airdrop makes reference to the cinematic luster, and simultaneous fragility, of the small screen. As a whole, the work portrays dreamscapes through which we understand our current time, emphasizing the pulpy synthesis between memory, technology, current events, notions of self-image, and human interaction.
Airdrop expands upon a traditional show, complimenting the paintings with an interactive virtual element and extending a collaborative role to the audience. Throughout the exhibition, visitors will be invited to participate in the ongoing series by completing a short mixed-media poll on-site. In sharing information and imagery, both the audience and artist act as documentarians. The collection of source material over the course of the show illustrates the overlapping and accumulative patterns of digital and physical connection and highlights the nuanced framework of interaction between the virtual, physical, and each other.
Airdrop will conclude with a weekend of open hours during which Crary-Ross will use the crowd-sourced material collected from the poll to make additional compositions. http://jilcraryross.com/
Jo Hesse: Social Fabric: A Community Rugmaking Project, June 20 - July 10
Jo Hesse makes felt rugs and wall art using traditional pre-industrial feltmaking techniques that she leaned in Turkey from UNESCO honored master feltmaker Mehmet Girgic. This project will use the Main Street exhibition space at A.P.E. to create a large rug that the community could bring into existence. The felt rugmaking process is so uncommon and so dynamic that the artist is confident passersby will be drawn in to watch and, in some cases, to participate. Since A.P.E. was designed to be not only an exhibition space and performance venue, but a place for artists to work, and a place for community to exist, it is the perfect place for this project, which is partially exhibition, partially collaborative art and partially an ongoing and interactive performance of hand fabrication and ancient technology. The artist's rugs will also be exhibited during the project. https://www.theramandtheworm.com/
Michelle Falcón Fontánez, La casa de abuela, July 11-18
La casa de abuela, is a multimedia piece that consists of a traditional Puerto Rican grandmother’s home in the countryside, displaying the belongings that the family had to leave behind: furniture, food, family photos, a favorite toy and abuela’s café. The videos and audio playing, depict sounds of the island as well as anecdotes and conversations from the people who lived there. The interactive installation allows visitors to walk through the home, transporting them to a piece of the island. With this act, viewers are reminded of their own homes and what they may have left behind.
This project will also include paintings for sale by Alvilda Sophia Anaya-Alegria, a Puerto Rican historian with a Master's in Economics from SNHU, New Hampshire, whose work embodies her experience under Juracán María in the city of Guayama, Puerto Rico, her birth place. Anaya-Alegria is a feminist painter in line with the figurative, abstract, poetry, and assemblage art movements. She began painting in 1995 in the city of Northampton, Massachusetts with famed African American watercolorist painter Richard Yarde who taught her how to paint Black people with their golden hues. https://www.facebook.com/GaleriaLAlvilda/
Additionally, the residency will include a fundraising event for Reclaim Puerto Rico, co-founded by the artist and whose mission is to support entrepreneurship on the island through yearly art fundraisers. https://www.falconfontanezfoto.com/
Airdrop: Dreamscapes of 21st century Americana is a series of narrative portrait paintings that capture individuals and their encounters between interior, exterior, and digital spaces. Composed from imagery originally shot or collected on a phone camera, Airdrop makes reference to the cinematic luster, and simultaneous fragility, of the small screen. As a whole, the work portrays dreamscapes through which we understand our current time, emphasizing the pulpy synthesis between memory, technology, current events, notions of self-image, and human interaction.
Airdrop expands upon a traditional show, complimenting the paintings with an interactive virtual element and extending a collaborative role to the audience. Throughout the exhibition, visitors will be invited to participate in the ongoing series by completing a short mixed-media poll on-site. In sharing information and imagery, both the audience and artist act as documentarians. The collection of source material over the course of the show illustrates the overlapping and accumulative patterns of digital and physical connection and highlights the nuanced framework of interaction between the virtual, physical, and each other.
Airdrop will conclude with a weekend of open hours during which Crary-Ross will use the crowd-sourced material collected from the poll to make additional compositions. http://jilcraryross.com/
Jo Hesse: Social Fabric: A Community Rugmaking Project, June 20 - July 10
Jo Hesse makes felt rugs and wall art using traditional pre-industrial feltmaking techniques that she leaned in Turkey from UNESCO honored master feltmaker Mehmet Girgic. This project will use the Main Street exhibition space at A.P.E. to create a large rug that the community could bring into existence. The felt rugmaking process is so uncommon and so dynamic that the artist is confident passersby will be drawn in to watch and, in some cases, to participate. Since A.P.E. was designed to be not only an exhibition space and performance venue, but a place for artists to work, and a place for community to exist, it is the perfect place for this project, which is partially exhibition, partially collaborative art and partially an ongoing and interactive performance of hand fabrication and ancient technology. The artist's rugs will also be exhibited during the project. https://www.theramandtheworm.com/
Michelle Falcón Fontánez, La casa de abuela, July 11-18
La casa de abuela, is a multimedia piece that consists of a traditional Puerto Rican grandmother’s home in the countryside, displaying the belongings that the family had to leave behind: furniture, food, family photos, a favorite toy and abuela’s café. The videos and audio playing, depict sounds of the island as well as anecdotes and conversations from the people who lived there. The interactive installation allows visitors to walk through the home, transporting them to a piece of the island. With this act, viewers are reminded of their own homes and what they may have left behind.
This project will also include paintings for sale by Alvilda Sophia Anaya-Alegria, a Puerto Rican historian with a Master's in Economics from SNHU, New Hampshire, whose work embodies her experience under Juracán María in the city of Guayama, Puerto Rico, her birth place. Anaya-Alegria is a feminist painter in line with the figurative, abstract, poetry, and assemblage art movements. She began painting in 1995 in the city of Northampton, Massachusetts with famed African American watercolorist painter Richard Yarde who taught her how to paint Black people with their golden hues. https://www.facebook.com/GaleriaLAlvilda/
Additionally, the residency will include a fundraising event for Reclaim Puerto Rico, co-founded by the artist and whose mission is to support entrepreneurship on the island through yearly art fundraisers. https://www.falconfontanezfoto.com/
ARC.21 follows the success of previous summer series:
6 x 6, 2016
ARC, 2017
ARC, 2018
ARC, 2019
ARC 2022
ARC 2023
6 x 6, 2016
ARC, 2017
ARC, 2018
ARC, 2019
ARC 2022
ARC 2023