Arts Calendar: Chittenden County

New England Now, Shelburne Museum’s inaugural exhibition in a curated biennial series featuring contemporary artists organized around thematic subject matters, will be on view from September 15, 2018 through January 13, 2019.

New England Now challenges the notion of the Northeast’s long-accepted stereotype as stagnant and quaint, and instead plumbs its evolving identities and complex beauty. Building upon scholarship on the visual construction of the region, this exhibition explores the contemporary landscape, capturing the changing environment. From disintegrating historic buildings and disappearing “virgin” land, New England Now reveals our evolving landscape.

Becoming Human is an intermedia exhibition seeking to identify and dissolve barriers between human and wild in the Anthropocene. In the three-channel video and sound installation The Air Connects Us, two dancers can be followed as they navigate Shanghai’s bustling streets, urban forests and massive industrial sites in search of connections to wild. During the exhibit, Jennings will present a live duet, Sea Inside Our Skin, rooted in the Chinese maxim “飲水思源 (drink the water, remember its source). This duet invites the audience to witness how breath and water nourishes, propels and changes us from within. Project VT: Pauline Jennings' Becoming Human was directed by Double Vision choreographer and co-Artistic Director Pauline Jennings. Becoming Human is a collaboration with Double Vision’s Calvin Aham and Joshua Lacourse (movement), Sean Clute (music composition), Jessica Gomula (video direction), Allen Hahn (cinematography), Jack B. Du (photography) and Amy Nielson (costume consulting).

Project Vermont is a new series dedicated to experimentation by providing a setting for contemporary Vermont artists to push their artistic practice while creating new work. Presenting visual, performance, and interdisciplinary exploration from emerging to established artists, Project Vermont supports artists’ exploration of new ideas and challenges, enables innovation, and creates engagement between audience and artist.

“Sea Inside Our Skin” was made possible in part with a research and development residency and support by Vermont Performance Lab with support from the Vermont Community Foundation.

Tectonic Industries is a collaborative art partnership based in Portland, Maine, comprised of Danish artist, Lars Boye Jerlach, and British artist, Helen Stringfellow. Through sculpture, wall mounted instructional videos, physical surveys, and interactive activities that engage visitors, Tectonic Industries examine the artifice inherent within the creation of the modern myths and belief systems in popular culture. In Dreams Can Come True, the artists present a series of self-help questionnaires that look to address and solve visitor’s most pressing problems and thus help them to begin living the “life of their dreams.” Guided by a series of instructions, visitors navigate the installation in search of self-actualization which can be manifested in an interactive model they can build/leave in the gallery. Interactive and engaging, while balancing wry amusement with philosophical reflection, Dreams Can Come True, explores the impossibility of our collective, endless search for concrete answers and endeavor for self-improvement.