Walker Art Center
Education and Public Engagement Initiatives
Over a period of several years, I had a design research residency, created projects, and led workshops on interactive and participatory practices.
The Walker team provided a mix of intellectual rigor and freedom to create and engage with each other and their visiting public.
The relationship resulted in 3 projects, spanning art movements, practice, and pop culture.
People Imitating Cats
People Imitating Cats was a project created for the Walker Art Center in conjunction with their 2nd Internet Cat Video Festival. Held at the Minnesota State Fair, I inverted the concept of internet cat videos and created a mobile cat head recording unit. It captured people performing imitations of cats. That evening, the recordings were edited and played for 13,000 as a precursor to the main event.
Interpreting Fluxus
A design research residency
In this residency, I explored new approaches for interpretation and interaction with the international art movement Fluxus. Fluxus put process over the finished product, so it meant I could explore things other than labels and casework. The residency manifested in an interpretive trail across the grounds for a day that played out notions of Fluxus in score form. Accompanying was an event called “Fluxus Drawing Club,” where visitors were given Flux Kits akin to the historic forms and drew listening to a family reading of A Child’s History of Fluxus, by Dick Higgins, the founding artist. Visitors walked the trail, drew scores, and shared them on a custom-built mobile display unit I designed.
Field Lab & Cart
Can I Have an Idea
This project was a collaboration with the Education and Community Programs staff on the Field Lab, which transformed their Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab into an open laboratory and residency space for research and development for local and visiting artists.
As an extension of their work on the Open Field project, Education and Community Programs wanted to think about how they might utilize the Art Lab during the non-school year in support of artists and the Walker’s work. With the artists first in mind, we developed low-cost ways to transform and signal this new usage.
To complement the work in the Lab, I designed and developed a mobile cart. It is a nimble-yet-durable platform for art-making activities, local artist’s pop-up residencies, and small performances. It moves around the campus and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. It was realized with the Pseudo Studio design/build team in San Francisco. You can read the Walker’s review here.