How to Build a Forest by Obie Award winners PearlDAmour and Shawn Hall
In response to Katrina and the BP oil spill, the piece begins on an empty stage. Over the next 6 hrs the artists along with a team of builders, construct the forest. Visitors are invited to interact with forest rangers who can guide them through the forest, where visuals, choreography and a live electronic music score come together to create a fabricated ecosystem. The completed forest exists for only 1/2 hr; by the end of the 8 hour cycle the forest will have disappeared entirely. Time-lapse video: http://vimeo.com/32998219 TAPS and the Creative Arts Council present award-winning artists Lisa D'Amour, Katie Pearl and Shawn Hall's eight-hour installation, How to Build A Forest, presented twice at Brown's Granoff Center: February 27 and 28, 2013 from 2pm-10pm. A panel discussion with Erik Ehn, Richard Fishman, Amy Leidtke, Kathy Takayama and students will take place on February 27 at 5:30pm in the Englander Studio.
Wandering through the brightly-illuminated and multicolored trees of the hybrid art installation How to Build a Forest, the ethereal and beautiful forest seems inspired by a fairy tale, rather than one of the worst natural disasters in American history. But throughout the course of the eight-hour creation and then systematic dismantling of the fabricated forest, the members of the collaborative team PearlDamour + Shawn Hall, remind us that even when we live in cities we are tied to the fragile natural world in intimate and devastating ways.
How to Build A Forest, was conceived in response to the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 BP oil spill. Visual Artist Shawn Hall and Lisa D'Amour both live in New Orleans and Katie Pearl has worked there extensively as a theater artist. The installation begins on an empty stage and over the course of six-hours Hall, Pearl and D'Amour along with their team of builders, construct the forest. Visitors to the forest are invited to come watch at any point during the build, and can observe the action from seats outside of the project, or from within the forest itself. Visitors are also able to interact with forest rangers who can help guide them through the forest, where close-ups of the visuals, choreographed elements and a live electronic music score come together to create a fabricated ecosystem. The completed forest exists for only half an hour; after that time deconstruction begins and by the end of the eight-hour cycle the forest will have disappeared entirely.
This project brings together the Obie-Award winning duo PearlDamour and the multitalented Shawn Hall, whose work spans the disciplines of painting, performance art, installation and costume/set design.
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