by Gene Marrano
Roanoke has hosted some unusual takes on art over the past few years, from aerial ballet dancers that performed while suspended high above city streets, to the Marginal Arts Festival and last winter’s Art View installation exhibition at the Roanoke Civic Center. Enter the latest venture, “PROject proJECT,” which will be held Friday, July 22 from 9 p.m. to midnight on Kirk Avenue. The outdoor event will incorporate projected images of artwork and other light-based works, with video, slide shows, film and handheld video imagery.
Educators from Hollins University, art students, graphic designers, filmmakers, curators and gallery owners will take part in PROject proJECT. “Our group has a history of successful collaborations in a wide range of disciplines such as visual arts, literary arts, performance, music, and film,” said Hollins University art professor and PROject proJECT organizer Christine Carr, whose own contribution focuses on the post traumatic stress disorder experienced by many military veterans.
Fellow organizer Ralph Eaton, primarily a sculptor, can be seen on July 22 wearing his “light suit,” which he has donned for the Marginal Arts Parade in the past. “Roanoke’s arts community has blossomed in the past few years, and we hope to keep the momentum going with the addition of PROject proJECT,” said Eaton, who will also be collaborating on a piece called “Civil Rain,” which he calls “a mash up of antebellum Civil War culture [and] modern rave culture.”
Tif Robinette is his partner on the project. “She thought it was interesting how some people are obsessed with [the Civil War],” said Eaton. Robinette wanted “to do something based on that theme.” Women dressed in period hoop skirts will be adorned with glow sticks and other luminary devices as they stroll around with their southern gentlemen beaus that night.
Artist Matt Ames will project a video game image on one wall, while Carr’s Flashback will incorporate smoke bombs, with an image projected into the smoke. Amanda Agricola will project two images that will be shaped into forms resembling old television screens; one features her meditating in “raw, surveillance camera footage,” while the other projection juxtaposes chaotic events – like a demolition derby and ants building a colony.
Members of The Magic Twig Community musicians troupe, who morph into a number of band configurations, will create an original soundtrack for some of the projections that will be screened on the sides of buildings, on air handling units, and in parking lots along Kirk Avenue, along with other unusual settings.
PROject proJECT is inspired in part by an event that has taken place in Richmond over the past several years, called “In Light.” Eaton, a fixture on the local arts scene, said the event hopes to draw spectators from the pedestrian traffic that can always be found in downtown Roanoke on a Friday night.
The Shadowbox Microcinema (Kirk Avenue Music Hall) will also be employed as an information station and a video screening room. “Then you can just come down Kirk Avenue and just get involved with everything else,” notes Eaton. A silent auction held at the Shadowbox that night will raise money for the event.
“It will the first time for a project of this kind in Roanoke and I can see it becoming a yearly and growing event,” said Rhonda Morgan, executive director for the Arts Council of the Blue Ridge, who assembled another first time event, ArtView, last year. Morgan said “an exhibition similar to PROject proJECT has also been held in New York City – but this will definitely be a first for Roanoke.”
Visit http://project-project-roanoke.tumblr.com/ for more information, or go to the PROject proJECT Facebook page as well.
The artwork shown is by Susan Sterner and will be part of an exhibition of new media art work by faculty, students, alumni, and staff of the Corcoran College of Art and Design. The exhibit is called Examinations in Light. Credit for the photograph should also be given to Susan Sterner. There will over 20 works of art from the Corcoran College of art and Design.