By Priya Amin, news staff
“Know No.,” a new major installation that will focus on the word “no,” was recently commissioned by Boston Center for the Arts (BCA). The show, set to take place in Cyclorama, will include pieces that convey the variety of definitions and connotations attached to the concept of “no.”
Masary Studios, the group responsible for the content of the installation, is a three-person artist team consisting of Ryan Edwards, Maria Finkelmeier and Sam Okerstrom-Lang. Since BCA does not usually commission art shows, the two groups have been working to put the show together.
“This is something that we haven’t really done. One of the things we’re really gaining from this is a big learning experience,” said Robin Laplante, director of media and communications at BCA. “It’s really about engaging those folks who are our closest friends and family and our biggest supporters, and sharing with them something really exciting. It’s our mission to give artists a platform and being able to activate our biggest space in that way really serves our mission.”
The Cyclorama, BCA’s largest space, has not hosted a major installation in decades. As it has been largely unused, members of both groups want to make “Know No.” take full advantage of the space.
Finkelmeier, artist and music industry professor at Northeastern University, said Masary Studios hopes to capture the immersive quality of the Cyclorama in its installation as well. For this reason, the audience stands and moves around rather than being seated to better experience the show. Their goal was to mix percussionists, vocalists and poets with lighting and sound to create a captivating performance.
Finkelmeier got the idea of using “No.” for number in the title after thinking of the geometric shapes in the grid at the Cyclorama and the math and formulas that would’ve been involved in creating it. She related it to numbers and formulas in her own composition. She said the word “no” often isn’t focused on in writing and Masary Studios wanted to create a show that would allow different groups to speak about their experiences with the word.
The event was made possible by donations from the Barr Foundation and the Klarman Family Foundation. The organizations offered BCA a grant through their Arts Capacity Building Initiative. Randi Hopkins, director of visual arts at BCA, then suggested Masary Studios, who proposed they use the Cyclorama to put together an installation similar to their “Waking the Monster” show at Fenway Park two years ago.
E. San San Wong, senior program officer of arts and creativity at the Barr Foundation, said a recent study highlighted Boston as a major city that lacked new work, specifically performance art. The program through which BCA received the grant was started to fund artists working on projects that are different and risky. She said allowing artists to take risks helps art reflect the present.
“The hope is that this is something that they would not have been able to do if they didn’t have this kind of risk money,” Wong said. “We want arts organizations to be able to always try something new and experiment. Artists and the arts speak to contemporary society. For artists to be able to try different things and experiment is part of who artists are.”
Laplante and Finkelmeier said the Cyclorama carries a lot of history inside it. When it was originally created, the Cyclorama was home to an immersive 360 degree painting of the Battle of Gettysburg. The building itself also included props such as cannons and soldiers in costume to allow the audience to fully experience the scene.
“All of our work is space specific, so we take inspiration from the architecture, acoustics and history of the space,” said Finkelmeier.
She said that the group always tries to find a story or tale that has never been told to find inspiration from the space.
“It’s going to be something like you’ve never seen before,” Laplante said. “It’s completely new and exciting. It’s going be a different experience for each audience member because each audience member will move around the space in a different way and be able to see different things. I think in a lot of ways it’s going to be very inspiring and very community driven.”
Though this project has been in the making for about eight months, Finkelmeier said its weight grew as they continued working on it. Considering recent social and political unrest, she found it especially important to create a platform for a diverse range of voices.
“In addition to a social and political time that is so tumultuous, there’s so much negativity in the air,” Finkelmeier said. “[The word no] can mean so many things and we wanted to create some platform to think about it [without] pushing any idea or agenda. [The installation] has definitely evolved as the election occurred and when the Muslim ban occurred, we got more empowered to create a piece that allows voices that might have been oppressed or felt excluded to be heard.”
The installation will run until Saturday at the Cyclorama. Student tickets are available for $10 through BCA’s website.
Photo courtesy Creative Commons
