Skip to main content

a starting point





On May 10, I moved into a studio at VisArts, in Rockville, MD, to begin a four-month Fleur and Charles Bresler Artist Residency.

During the residency, I’ll be working with materials I salvage locally to make a series of mock survival devices that are nautically themed. Once complete, I’ll activate these “survival devices” in publicly accessible locations, using them as props and catalysts for interacting with the public; performance actions will be conducted away from water and when possible, performed in densely populated places where, if the sea level were to rise by a given amount, the site would become flooded (such as with low lying sectors of Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD). I will also produce a series of drawings that reflect projected changes to local waterways, if the sea level were to rise. I envision these to be drawn in a visual language inspired by topographical maps and composed of multiple repetitions of the word “AND”.

Subscribe to the blog to follow my progress or follow me on instagram: kehoe_k

*The Fleur and Charles Bresler Artist Residency at VisArts is a juried competitive residency program open to national and international professional artists and collaborative teams. Each year, three, four month residencies are awarded to applicants who work in a specific discipline. And for 2017, the program was open to artists working in Social / Environmental / Community Engagement and Performance Art. 

Here are some pics from my open studio last Friday:



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Performance Action with Life Ring at Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C.

On Friday, July 14, I walked around Jefferson Memorial for three hours carrying a life ring. My original intention for the performance actions in my Provisions for Buoyancy series, is to walk in parts of Washington, D.C. that would be flooded if the sea level were to rise by 5-6 feet, while carrying a provision for buoyancy that I made out of refuse materials . Unfortunately, if the sea level were to rise by that amount, this historic site would be flooded.  You can see, as I did, by consulting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) online Sea Level Rise Viewer. Carrying a life ring around Jefferson Memorial signified more than that alone for me however. Given Jefferson was the primary author of The Declaration of Independence , and given, even today, our freedom is at risk... With this in mind, it felt all the more meaningful to be walking around this historic site carrying a life ring.  Much thanks to Susanna Lee from VisArts for accompanyi

Performance Action with Body Board, East Potomac Park, Washington, DC

On Monday, July 31 , I walked around East Potomac Park in Washington, DC carrying a body board I made out of salvaged materials.   There had been heavy rains in the region on Friday and Saturday accompanied by flash flood warnings. Though I'm not sure there had been any incidents of flash flooding over the weekend.  Nonetheless, I was surprised to encounter this degree of flooding while walking along the paved footpath extending around the perimeter of East Potomac Park.    At this location, the water was over my knees, midway up my thighs and was definitely going to get deeper.  If the water was cleaner I would have swam along the footpath... Performance Documentation by Susanna Lee @soozlee

The Shack Raft is Underway

5 platforms 3' x 4.5' - built this size to fit in my car. All from salvaged wood, cut, sanded with one coat of finishing wax (may add another). It's wonderful what a little TLC can do. Laid out together before additional sanding with finer grain sandpaper: 9' x 9' - this will be the base of the shack raft I'm constructing. I now need to create pontoons for the base, an under structure to secure them in place as well contribute to holding the platform sections together, and build a shelter onto the base platform.   I had already salvaged a bunch of boards - as posted earlier on the blog - but didn't have enough to complete five sections, so returned to the dumpsters.