Friday, April 4, 2008

4/4/08 - Revised Project Detail

Takashi Horisaki
"Meet Me at the Unisphere," 2008

Children’s Drawings, Presentation Booth structures, Internet-based Artist Blog, High-School students’ sketches, materials, and work-in-progress


An on-going project culminating in a performance during the opening of “This Case of Conscience: Spiritual Flushing and the Remonstrance” on Sunday, May 18, 2008

Meet Me at the Unisphere is a performance-based community-interactive investigation of the way in which we communicate about our religions. The documentation and artistic creations you see here at the Queens Museum of Art are being added to over the course of the exhibition until the final performance on May 18, 2008.

Visiting a variety of religious institutions in Flushing and co-operating with children’s groups at the institutions, the artist asked the children who attend these programs to draw pictures of what they think about when they think about their religion. Asking them not to limit themselves to symbols or even objects, he has received the colorful variety of responses showcased in this display. As they are received, these drawings are separated out by religion and passed on to a group of high-school students without specific indication of which religion they belong to.

The High-school students study the drawings, begin making plans for booths intended to represent the children’s ideas of their religions, and list questions about elements of the drawings that intrigue them. As these high-school students are completing the construction of these booths, they will meet with some of the children who drew pictures for the project, as well as representatives of the various religions to learn more about the religions and ask the questions they have been compiling while constructing. For the final presentation on May 18th, the booths constructed by the high-school students will be placed outside, facing the Unisphere. Based on the information the students have gathered from the children and other representatives of the religions, they will then present their experiences from learning about these various religions to Museum visitors.

The focus of this work is on the process of learning about each other’s religions, as well as the give-and-take inherent to a community-interactive performance work, thus the process is also documented by the artist’s blog at www.unisphereqma.blogspot.com, viewable on the computer station included in this display. Additionally, all children’s drawings collected for this project go on display as they are received, along with documentation of the booth construction as a work-in-progress.


Please compare to the original project detail to see how this project has been progressing. Through interaction with community members, children, teens, museum, this project has been evolving. Check older blogs to see how it has been changed and edited.

No comments: