on the view from here

As I write this, I'm on the ferry heading for Seattle. It is just after 5:30pm and the light is fantastic at the end of a glorious day. I'm looking off to the South at Pritchard Park, and I can see Perri Lynch's Floating Datum piece. The low sun is catching the sea of windsocks and glinting off the poles. I think I see the low rumble of Amanda Sturgeon's rock wall leaning up against the corner of the EPA chainlink, and then we round the corner toward Rockaway Beach. Diana Liljelund's red madrona is backlit and shifts from red to black silhouette to almost invisible. Gregory Glynn's Foundation is only visible at this angle by what isn't there; the air in the woods that is light and open up on the hill. I'm struck by how his piece is mirrored in the brazen new construction to the south of the park, a future home shaving the side of the steep bank and buttressed with tons of concrete.

The photos here show glimpses of all work mentioned above except for Amanda's; over the next weeks, look for images and words about all of the work in the show.

from the beginning...

Just days away from the official opening, it feels right to start at the beginning of the process evolving with the Collocation temporary art installation at Pritchard Park.

The place we are working holds an unbelievable array of definitions: a glorious stretch of unheard-of-in-these-parts undeveloped sandy beach tucked into a verdant hill; the former Wycoff log creosoting plant; the coming site of the Nidoto Nai Yoni/Let it not happen again Nikkei Internment and Exclusion Memorial; a former full-blown town called Creosote, complete with dance hall, post office, public baths and workers' cottages; an EPA superfund site; clandestine destination for island youth; site-specific art installation.

This litany is, in a way, a metaphor for the strange and complicated relationship shared between people and the land: a drama of control.

I imagine that those who are reading this have some interest in the Collocation project already. But I also imagine that these people are as complex as the site, each of whom has a different story that ties them to the project, or to the place. Hence the name Collocation: to arrange or place together. It is the most we can do to acknowledge the complexity, and to contain it only in naming it.

I'm keeping the blog more or less as a journal for the project, with the hope that the public nature of this work dovetails with the public forum generated in a blog. I spread some words, others help to grow them into conversation.

Here are a few photos of the initial walk through the site we conducted early in June, during which artists came to look for places that might inspire their work.

Michelle & Bobby at the big leaf maple

We'll start with a bite of the present, and then catch up in the next posting with photos from over the past month at Pritchard Park.

Exhibit construction and installation is underway this week, June 26 through July 2, the day of the opening of the exhibit.

Collocation Art Installation

Collocation is a site-specific art installation unfolding at Bainbridge Island's
Pritchard Park between July 2 and September 24, 2005. Eleven works constructed about, from and for the site by artists from Seattle and Bainbridge Island will coexist on the eastern portion of this 50 acre piece of land located at the southeast edge of Eagle Harbor.

Collocation serves as an indicator and reminder of the tension inherent in human participation with place.  Within Pritchard Park we see coexistences of lush growth and decay, and we know of a complicated and painful history coupled with insurgent hope for future use.  The artists working on this project candidly reveal many of these facets through their work. Viewers are invited to walk the site and collect their own firsthand information as they experience both place and created installation.

Collocation participants include Michelle Arab, Gregory Glynn, Diana Liljelund, Dan Linz, Perri Lynch, Melanie Noel, Polly Purvis, RBF Architects, Amanda Sturgeon, Kristin Tollefson and Ruthie Tomlinson, and is curated by Kristin Tollefson.