The Artist is Born: CAYC Installation
Each year, the Cultural Alliance of York County invites their donors to gather, reflect, and look forward together. But this year, before guests reached the main event, they wanted to inspire a certain presence of mind. A shift that would alter not just the evening, but the impact of the year to come.
In planning their Annual Meeting, the Cultural Alliance expressed a desire to include an immersive experience that could do more than welcome people in — they wanted to prompt reflection in their donors and supporters:
Who are the artists among us?
What do they care about?
What is their process?
A Corridor of Contractions
Using Commencement as the guide, we transformed the set design / loading dock space behind the Pullo Center’s stage into a transitional environment:
Large-scale projections glowed on floating silk screens.
Visitors were slow-released, group by group, into the space — encouraged to feel, not rush.
A show statement greeted them at the threshold, inviting openness before understanding.
Live music from Mild Temperance swirled through the air with improvised jazz, woozy synth, and airy vocals… a slow, soupy dreamscape that softened the room with reflection.
The content was inspired by the birth of the artist, or rather, a question regarding that idea.
How is art born? How is the artist born?
Who precedes the other, shaping, molding, and making something out of nothing?
We reflected on this symbolic procession from inner sanctuary to outer exposure through the images projected; following a figure moving from the quiet of the womb to the raw vulnerability of first light.
We wanted to capture something sacred, and extremely difficult, honoring the courage and laws of nature one must surrender to in the process of creation.
Stillness does not equate emptiness. Darkness cradles a strange warmth while nurturing the living far from view.
This palpable sense of something concealed, a dead give away that life exists in every quiet place.
All beings need their sanctuary– outside of the world, yet somehow within it.
Until the comfort of small spaces evolves into strain of limitation and we have grown enough to carry ourselves.
Atmosphere as Message
This installation was meant to hold you in suspension, to sit with the contractions, the resistance, the push before the break. To remind supporters and donors of the CAYC why they should care so much about keeping the arts (and artists) supported.
We knew not every guest would “get it.”
But we hoped they would feel it — or at the very least, sense something unspoken shifting in the space, in themselves, and in the possibility of what could be built together.
“How strange to be in unfamiliar worlds and feel as though you have never known yourself more while knowing nothing at all.
For the first time, light drips over every inch of you, oozing into pores, creating an awareness of how large and long and infinite you really are.
Peace. Sweetness. Bliss. The full recognition that you exist.”
We are deeply grateful to:
The Cultural Alliance for entrusting us with this moment
Production Express for their in-kind donation of truss, lighting, and installation hardeware
Mild Temperance for scoring and performing the emotional current of the space
To the artists, donors, supporters, and guests who passed through, thank you for stepping into the unknown with us. We hope you left our shared space carrying something new. <3
