Behind the Scenes of The Hunt For The Lost
The Hunt For The Lost, a morality scavenger hunt, grew out of the longer project, “Blued Trees Black Skies,” a collaborative work for which I am the lead artist, with composer Eve Beglarian, instrumentalist Robert Black and choreographer Yoshiko Chuma about ecocide. That work is funded by MAP Fund and scheduled for production in 2022. The Hunt For The Lost is a research detour for me from that collaboration, inquiring into how art might catalyze critical thought, fundamental to democracy. I felt this detour was necessary before the Presidential Election. This research is an effort to understand, why is discourse so difficult now? I wonder how can we cure ecocide, establish environmental justice or resolve racism or preserve democracy if we can’t talk about difficult subjects?
Friday, the Hunt expanded with an assemblage installation for Lost Forests, Found on the Lavender Field on Governors Island. This work is being sponsored by Earth Matter under the auspices of the Trust for Governors Island. The installation and strategic signage for the Hunt will remain up until November 1. Then the assemblage will be made into “Art Mulch,” to support Earth Matter, one of our Governors Island sponsors.
Our original concept from the whole “Blued Trees Black Skies,” team was designed for Governors Island, summer 2020. It would have included a series of assemblages of 20’ long blue-painted tree branches. My goal was to create an evocative spatial environment that our audience might walk through contemplatively before the Presidential Election. At the peak tourist season before the pandemic as many as 16,000 people a day might have passed through the original design for the performance-installation on the island. Now 16, 000 a week can still see the artwork.
Figure 1. Maquette for the Original "Blued Trees Black Skies" proposal with dancer Madison McGain. Aviva Rahmani 2020
COVID changed everything and the pre-electoral discourse during the pandemic exacerbated stress everyone felt across the globe. The refrains I felt and heard over and over again starting with lockdown, were about what had been lost, was being lost, would be lost and sadly, who was at fault? The Hunt for the Lost came out of a series of Zoom conversations between our whole team for, “Blued Trees Black Skies,” and inspired me to detour into a search for the lost this fall on Governors Island.
Figure 2. Map of Governors Island with locations of the lost and some found.
How might one promote discourse that isn’t overtly political but does address fundamental concerns that drive politics and ultimately determine ecocide and environmental justice, like how we define our values and find a shape for that discourse in art?
How do we think about ideas critically, without falling into simplistic binary traps of right wrong, Democrat Republican, Progressive Conservative divisiveness? Where might I invite the mental space for deeper and more expansive reflection? What does an assemblage installation of dead tree parts, as has been created for Governors Island evoke? How might information be dispersed across space in a tangible form? How might we consider the pre-election period as a time to step back rather hurtle forwards? These questions are at the heart of all my work now.
I think The Hunt for the Lost might answer a few personal questions that will determine the future forms I develop but it is also a distinct project of its own.
Figure 3. Detail shown of "Blued Trees Lost; Lost forests, Found," installed on Governors Island Friday September 25, 2020
For The Hunt for the Lost, I have been working with two other artists, Ayaka Fujii and Judith Mayer to create a container for this research. As material for the, “Blued Trees Black Skies,” collaborative team, the questions driving The Hunt For The Lost will persist into 2022, when I hope to present my part of a culminating work out of all our research with my collaborators.
Signage based on the prompts have been distributed around Governors Island. The branch assemblage, the newest addition to the project, expands on my spatial investigations. Even during the pandemic and two days a week when the signs come down for mowing, weekly traffic until the island closes for the summer averages 16,000 passerby’s. If 1% of those random passerby’s stops to reflect, I will be very pleased.
