THE (STILLNESS) COLLECTIVE: UNFOLDING PLACE

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

(stillness)21 is an iteration of a group that has been gathering and making work for the past eight years in nature. We arrive, we make agreements, and together we listen to place. We respond to what we find. We spend four days in retreat in intensive making. We slow into, attune, attend to, and are directed by what happens. 

 This year, we found a sublime beauty in nature: the ocean, the sky, the vast sand beach, seals, migrating sea birds, wild cherries, deer, porcupine, coyote, and eagles. We also found Wabanaki and Colonial history very specific to this place. 

 Since our time in October we have collectively reviewed the footage we made, and have written back into our experience, weaving together words, image, memory, poetry, and historical fact into the exhibition that surrounds you.

 We recognize that we exist within a society and culture whose foundation is built on systems of oppression. We practice ongoing relationship, interrelatedness, deep listening, generosity, gratitude, kindness, and slowness in service to the dismantling of that oppression. We offer our work toward a vision of reciprocity.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

We are a place-based, interdisciplinary, and improvisational collaborative practicing deep listening and intensive making in nature. We offer our work toward kinship with human and more than human partners along waterways in Midcoast Maine.

The collective includes Annie Bailey, Susan Bickford, Katherine Ferrier, Robin Lane, Heather Lyon, and Luke Myers.