THE PLACE WHERE PROJECT
Nancy Winship Milliken Studio
May 2020 -August 2020
My internship at the Nancy Winship Milliken studio consisted of two different projects that have allowed me to explore place attachment, public engagement in the arts at the intersection of environmental issues and social justice issues, methods of public engagement, and my interest in the play between light and shadow. Throughout the creation of these projects, I have learned about the importance of storytelling in public engagement, the research process behind the creation of art pieces, and the connections between humans and nature.
The Place Where Project:
During this internship at the Nancy Winship Milliken Studio, an environmental art studio in Vermont, I collaborated with a team of six women to create a publicly generated project, The Place Where Project which explores our relationship to place and the connections we have to the land that surrounds us. During this internship, we spent a lot of time examining the many facets of place and place attachment, exploring the ways in which we connect to our senses in place, connect with others in certain spaces and find comfort in urban, rural, and wild spaces. The exploratory web below is a visual representation of our thinking about place.
We also had many conversations about sense of place in the context of social justice and environmental issues that landed us in a place of thinking about belonging and what it means to belong to a place; to have a space for our voices to be heard and a place to express our relationships to the world and our perspectives of it. In our public outreach for this project and for the creative prompt we presented to the public we wanted to continue to emphasize the concept of belonging and provide a virtual space to come together and share in a sense of community and belonging (something that has been challenging to find in the time of COVID-19).
This is an ongoing project that hopes to continue to capture perceptions of, connections to, and reflections on place of people of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds.
Obscura (Independent Project):
During my internship at the Nancy Winship Milliken Studio I also had the opportunity to craft my own environmental art project. Inspired by our thinking about natural places and how we relate to and interact with these places, I danced and played with light and shadow to create a commentary about bridging the boundary between humans and nature. With the project I hope to demonstrate that we are inseparable from nature; we are made from it and of it and as such, a reciprocity between us and nature is crucial.
This is also an ongoing project that I continue to explore our relationship to nature through. See below to view photos of the project to date.
