Trace (Shift-lab)
This Shift-lab Collaboration explores the technology and aesthetics of mapping while responding to the traces of human activity left on the landscape. Individually, we investigated: an arsenal, a quarry, a marina, a walking path, and a ski resort. Our sensory experiences navigating a landscape in real time are reinterpreted through symbols, sequences, and sounds in the exhibition.
Trace is a set of maps, a large collaborative map and five smaller maps by each individual artist, that fold into single sheet books. A series of framed prints, printed ephemera, a digitally printed newspaper, and sound file accompany the work. Trace utilizes a range of media including embroidery, letterpress, risograph, processing software, screenprint, and video/audio capture.
Katie Baldwin: Redstone Arsenal, Alabama
A 3,700 acre fenced-in Army post, formerly a chemical weapons manufacturing facility for World War II. As a civilian, I could not go into the Arsenal. However, I walked along the fence that lies along the perimeter of the land.
Sarah Bryant: Brighton Marina, UK
The largest marina in Europe, a strange space between land and sea. I immersed myself for months in the quiet rhythm of the place, and later revisited through newspaper clippings, promotional materials and public notices dating to its design and construction in the 60’s and 70’s. Printed using chalk from the surrounding cliffs.
Denise Bookwalter: Ochlocknee Clay Mine, Georgia
A surface mine in southeast Georgia that mines absorbent clay used for chemical processing and kitty litter. The clay is found in deposits trending northwest across the Florida panhandle into southern Georgia. I traveled 43.8 miles from my home to tour the mine, the same trip my husband takes across the state line every weekday.
Macy Chadwick: Sage Path, Taos, New Mexico
A changing topography of cracked dirt, enormous ant hills, rings of grasses where cows once grazed, gnarled sticks, bright green grasses and a variety of different sagebrush. On this virtually untouched land, I breathed in the wide open spaces and looked for patterns and repeated shapes in the landscape.
Tricia Treacy: Sugar Mountain, North Carolina
With 115 skiable acres over 20 runs, an elevation of 5300 feet at the summit, 4100 at the base, I mapped the demolition of the land during the construction of a new high speed lift.