Seeking Sanctuary

I was commissioned by Palaver Strings as the artist for their Seeking Sanctuary event at the Boston Center for the Art’s Cyclorama in February of 2018.  The project involved working with groups from Boston’s immigrant populations to elicit images and thoughts on the concept of sanctuary, and then to use those images and thoughts in an installation on the walls of the Cyclorama.   The installation was part of a larger three-day event involving Palaver Strings, immigrant musicians and speakers performing original compositions about their lives as immigrants in Boston.   The audience participated as well by adding their own drawings and writings.

The piece involved a 4-foot long, 350-foot painted paper banner, which I created as a frame for the communities’ and audience’s drawn and written responses to the idea of “sanctuary”,  and eight projections created collaboratively with John Powell.    John is a consummate light artist and wonderful collaborator.  I painted hundreds of white circles, some overlapping, some free-floating, to evoke the idea of sanctuary and community, and to echo the shape of the Cyclorama.  The banner was fixed to the walls of the cyclorama at a height that made it accessible for people in wheelchairs and for children.    The projections shone both on- and above the banner, and interspersed images of refugees from the artists’ family histories with refugees from today’s migrant crisis.   The culmination of the piece were three performances in the BCA’s Cyclorama in February of 2018.