- Audio Stories
- Grass grown on chairs
- Night photography
- Weird and True Cell Phone Tour
- The Easthampton Alphabet
- Interactive Experience
that's all you you really need to know, but if you have an attention span, please read on...
EARTH CITYWIDE SHOW OPENS!EASTHAMPTON, MA—Project Elements Easthampton: Earth is a multimedia project by artist Burns Maxey, that will be shown in three parts throughout the city of Easthampton including the Old Town Hall, 1 Cottage Street in room 1-06, and a cell phone walking tour. The shows will open on October 10 and close on November 29, 2009. There will be an opening reception on October 10 from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
After two years, Burns Maxey is presenting the first installment of Project Elements Easthampton that focuses on the element Earth. The three-part multimedia exhibition is an ambitious project that incorporates installation, audio, photography, illustration, and historical study all about the city of Easthampton and its relationship to the element earth.
In the Old Town Hall at 43 Main Street, the hall gallery will show 26 illustrations of found historical stories that are “The Easthampton Alphabet.” Each story corresponds to a letter of the alphabet with an illustration of the story above it. The paintings and collages vary stylistically and the stories range from quirky to poignant.
“I searched for stories beginning in the late 19th century through the 1950s, sifting through microfilm day-by-day, hoping to find stories about the everyday people of Easthampton that affected me,” says Maxey. “It was an arduous process but every time I found a forgotten tale, it was as if I unveiled some hidden piece of Easthampton.”
The second portion of the project is a self-guided audio tour of historical stories. These stories are not typically known history, but more unusual accounts about unknown characters and occurrences of Easthampton. One story is about the fellow George Searle, who attempted to saw his house in half and move it in the middle of the night. This happened where the current day Manhan Café exists at 72 Union Street. Listeners can grab a map, walk to the destination, and call a provided number found on the map. There will be thirty total stories, and listeners can select each one by pressing the number of the story pertaining to locations throughout Easthampton’s town center. Listeners can also download a podcast of the audio tour in iTunes by searching for “Project Elements Easthampton. The tour online and podcast in iTunes will be released on October 1st.
T
he third exhibition is a multimedia installation located at 1 Cottage Street Room 1-06. The installation will consist of audio sculptures whose elements encompass chairs covered in grass, telephones playing audio stories gathered from Easthamptonites, and night photographs depicting Easthampton homes. The installation will be changing dynamically during the exhibition. Visitors will be able to leave their own stories that may be included in the sculptures as part of the installation. Artist Burns Maxey will also seed new chairs during the first few weeks of the exhibition. As part of a representation of the transformative quality of nature and recognition of growth and disintegration, the grass will be growing and seeded throughout the exhibition. By the completion of the show, the chairs will have lived their life cycle and the grass will decay naturally.
Project Elements Easthampton is the brainchild of Burns Maxey who is a multi-media artist based in Easthampton, MA. She is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and has exhibited in San Francisco, Washington DC, New York City, and throughout the New England area. Maxey is continuously interested in finding ways to combine new technologies, art, and innovative exhibition spaces outside of the gallery confines. She recently performed and created visual pieces for a collaborative experimental show at Mobius in Boston with Butoh dancer Ellen Godena and her sidekick, the twitchie robot.
Music by Timecard, an Amherst based band, is also featured on the audio tour. Individual instrumentals may be downloaded for free at projectelementseasthampton.com on October 1st.
1-06. For those without a cell phone or mp3 player, there will be a few mp3 players to check out at the Cottage Street exhibition. More information and additional materials can be found and downloaded at www.projectelementseasthampton.com soon.
