How to Build a Forest

The How To Build A Forest residency at Antenna in April will focus on ways to visually represent research and conversation integral to the HTBAF installation /
performance premiering at the Kitchen in NYC during June of 2011. HTBAF is a collaboration between Shawn Hall and PearlDamour. The piece is a durational installation / performance in which a team of builders will assemble and disassemble an elaborate, simulated forest over the course of an 8 hour work shift. Essential to HTBAF is the conversation about the life cycle of the materials used to build it, and by extension the materials we all use to build our daily lives: where do they come from in the earth?  How do we use them?  Where do they go when we are done with them?

During their month-long residency at Antenna, the HTBAF team will be crafting their research about the lifecycle of materials into visual form.  The resulting “map” will become part of the installation, used during performances to convey the environmental impact of items found in their own forest-ranging from the seemingly benign such as fabric, to the hidden and insidious such as florist foam, to the ubiquitous yet toxic such as galvanized metal wire.

Our experiments with the visual mapping will be in progress and on display during the weekend gallery hours to encourage discussion and collaboration between the artists and gallery visitors.  For this part of the How To Build A Forest project, we’re joined by Carrie Kaplan, Ph D candidate in Performance as Public Practice from University of Texas @ Austin, visual artist faculty Joe Bigley from Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, and Antenna member and Loyola faculty member Angela Driscoll.  Come be a part of this exciting and relevant conversation!

Gallery Hours:  Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm, and by appointment.  The How to Build a Forest Residency ends May 8, 2011.?