Conceived by Thom Sokoloski
A Studio SM creation (Thom Sokoloski & Jenny McCowan)
The Encampment proposes the archaeological encampment as its metaphor. A dig for artifacts is replaced by a dig into the collective memory of a public space. The public is invited to become Creative Collaborators and act as archaeologists who will research the people, history and stories of the selected site.
In collaboration with Studio SM, Creative Collaborators design and create installations for each of the individual tents based on their research. The Encampment is a large-scale work that is participatory, experiential and visual.
It also represents a fragile yet powerful glimpse into a community's understanding of its history. Each tent is an intimate installation, a visual contemplation that conjures an individual's testimony and the historic context in which that person lived.
What distinguishes The Encampment from most conceptual and relational art practices is our insistence on the primacy of the visual and aesthetic impact of the work. Though socially and historically relevant, interactive and truly public through participation, we also create an illuminated landscape by conducting an optical experiment on a grand scale that can be experienced from multiple perspectives. From afar the assemblage of tents creates a glowing sculptural form that references modernist grids, while up close the work becomes an intimate viewing experience where the public explores the individual installations in each tent.
The Encampment is about unearthing threshold stories of individuals from that past whose experiences incited evolutionary change in our social fabric. These narrative artifacts, often dramatic in nature, become cause for discussion and often include shame, stance and celebration as each Creative Collaborator begins to unravel the 'hows' and 'whys' a community treated individuals during times of intolerance and non-inclusion, and how these individuals took action and in turn shaped advocacy for a future of tolerance and inclusion.
To achieve this, Creative Collaborators participate in a Installation Creation Process to distill a poetic interpretation of the story and then design and construct a visual expression that incites wonder and immediacy rather than judgment or criticism. As the actor digs deep within to reveal traces and emblems of similarities and differences with their character in relation to the dramatic narrative, the collaborator is asked to dig deep within the history of another individual’s story to do the same. The result is inspiration and empathy, the necessities to create a truly authentic visual interpretation of that individual’s absence through another medium. With the actor, it is externalized in their physical being and in the case of the Creative Collaborator, through their physical construct. Each tent becomes a small theatrical diorama, and the installation created is a setting in which the public can enter and have a visceral experience of absence and presence. This collective memory becomes embodied in a temporal village, a symbolic dig, where human interaction and creative exchange facilitate the discovery of what has been lost or hidden in order to reconstruct it into a present experience of that community's sociological and narrative past.
With every version, we continue to refine the concept of 'cultural ambiance' by integrating the music and social behavior, such as games, pastimes, dance, etc, however this can only evolve after there has been investigation into the stories and a willingness by the participants to partake in this aspect of the work. In NYC, we collaborated with composer and musicologist, John McDowell. Performance oriented participants stepped forward and in one example, three trumpet players intermittently played jazz-phrased dialogues across The Encampment inspired by the legendary jazz trumpetist, James "Bubber" Miley, who would play on the island during his quarantine until his eventual death from tuberculosis at the age of 29. Because of the effect his playing had on the terminally ill, it inspired the institutions at the time to reconsider the power of art.
The Encampment is a large-scale participatory art installation, a contemporary gesamtkunstwerk, which creates a total environment that combines art, narrative, sound, architecture, performance and public participation, that produces overtones of a contemporary catharsis.
Simple in its concept as a numbered amount of tents set-up on a appropriate landscape where each tent houses a visual construct, it is logistically complex to achieve its completion. Not only is this complexity evident in the actual production needs associated with the site, materials, personnel, communications, etc. but also in assuring that what is done by all participants and Studio SM is appreciated as an integrel creative exchange of the community. We have discovered in each place where The Encampment has been presented, that the stories discovered and discussed by the Creative Collaborators creates a momentum and an extended dialogue that engages and motivates a broader community to participate.
A Studio SM creation (Thom Sokoloski & Jenny McCowan)
The Encampment proposes the archaeological encampment as its metaphor. A dig for artifacts is replaced by a dig into the collective memory of a public space. The public is invited to become Creative Collaborators and act as archaeologists who will research the people, history and stories of the selected site.
In collaboration with Studio SM, Creative Collaborators design and create installations for each of the individual tents based on their research. The Encampment is a large-scale work that is participatory, experiential and visual.
It also represents a fragile yet powerful glimpse into a community's understanding of its history. Each tent is an intimate installation, a visual contemplation that conjures an individual's testimony and the historic context in which that person lived.
What distinguishes The Encampment from most conceptual and relational art practices is our insistence on the primacy of the visual and aesthetic impact of the work. Though socially and historically relevant, interactive and truly public through participation, we also create an illuminated landscape by conducting an optical experiment on a grand scale that can be experienced from multiple perspectives. From afar the assemblage of tents creates a glowing sculptural form that references modernist grids, while up close the work becomes an intimate viewing experience where the public explores the individual installations in each tent.
The Encampment is about unearthing threshold stories of individuals from that past whose experiences incited evolutionary change in our social fabric. These narrative artifacts, often dramatic in nature, become cause for discussion and often include shame, stance and celebration as each Creative Collaborator begins to unravel the 'hows' and 'whys' a community treated individuals during times of intolerance and non-inclusion, and how these individuals took action and in turn shaped advocacy for a future of tolerance and inclusion.
To achieve this, Creative Collaborators participate in a Installation Creation Process to distill a poetic interpretation of the story and then design and construct a visual expression that incites wonder and immediacy rather than judgment or criticism. As the actor digs deep within to reveal traces and emblems of similarities and differences with their character in relation to the dramatic narrative, the collaborator is asked to dig deep within the history of another individual’s story to do the same. The result is inspiration and empathy, the necessities to create a truly authentic visual interpretation of that individual’s absence through another medium. With the actor, it is externalized in their physical being and in the case of the Creative Collaborator, through their physical construct. Each tent becomes a small theatrical diorama, and the installation created is a setting in which the public can enter and have a visceral experience of absence and presence. This collective memory becomes embodied in a temporal village, a symbolic dig, where human interaction and creative exchange facilitate the discovery of what has been lost or hidden in order to reconstruct it into a present experience of that community's sociological and narrative past.
With every version, we continue to refine the concept of 'cultural ambiance' by integrating the music and social behavior, such as games, pastimes, dance, etc, however this can only evolve after there has been investigation into the stories and a willingness by the participants to partake in this aspect of the work. In NYC, we collaborated with composer and musicologist, John McDowell. Performance oriented participants stepped forward and in one example, three trumpet players intermittently played jazz-phrased dialogues across The Encampment inspired by the legendary jazz trumpetist, James "Bubber" Miley, who would play on the island during his quarantine until his eventual death from tuberculosis at the age of 29. Because of the effect his playing had on the terminally ill, it inspired the institutions at the time to reconsider the power of art.
The Encampment is a large-scale participatory art installation, a contemporary gesamtkunstwerk, which creates a total environment that combines art, narrative, sound, architecture, performance and public participation, that produces overtones of a contemporary catharsis.
Simple in its concept as a numbered amount of tents set-up on a appropriate landscape where each tent houses a visual construct, it is logistically complex to achieve its completion. Not only is this complexity evident in the actual production needs associated with the site, materials, personnel, communications, etc. but also in assuring that what is done by all participants and Studio SM is appreciated as an integrel creative exchange of the community. We have discovered in each place where The Encampment has been presented, that the stories discovered and discussed by the Creative Collaborators creates a momentum and an extended dialogue that engages and motivates a broader community to participate.
Philosophically, our Public Participation process for The Encampment is centred on the expression of the creative spirit in each human being and the belief that every individual has the capacity to create. Our invitation process and workshops are designed around these beliefs and it is through collaborative discourse and the inspiration drawn from the stories and history of institutionalization, confinement and alienation that the content of the tents will be realized.
Our work is a re-evaluation of the creative experience as we understand it, not only as artists but also as people with friends and family who see the need to initiate, promote and ensure more creative collaboration in our everyday life between all peoples.
To encourage a diversity in participation our invitation process is grassroots, open and inclusive. To ensure that we reach the three streams of participation necessary for our aesthetic we also include an outreach component. The three streams include: people with experiences in the selected themes of confinement, quarantine or segragation, artists and art students, and finally the public at large. There is no prerequisite for participation and acceptance is based solely on the desire to participate, create and complete a large-scale public artwork.
In our process we adhere to the ideas of equality, diversity and self-determination. We plan and facilitate a working environment in our Living Studio which is positive and supportive so that the desire, courage and motivation to explore and create are maintained. From the Campaign for Public Participation to the Installation Creation Workshops, each position in our work is necessary and equally valuable for the harmonious production and completion of The Encampment. The overall collaborative vision results is a collective and connected spirit of humanity expressed through a broad landscape of similarities and differences.
