I Am Searching for Field Character

A series of public conversations, performances, installations and a beer garden exploring (and performing) the intersections of material and immaterial labor in a summer-long exhibition.

Curated by James Voorhies

MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA
May 26–September 30, 2011

Contributions by Julia Bryan-Wilson, Sarah Cowles, Rebecca Gates, Dylan Gauthier, Timothy Nazzaro, Nate Padavick, Sarah Pierce, Red76, Kendra Sullivan, Matthew Stadler, Temporary Services, Cassandra Troyan

Made possible with major support from MASS MoCA, grants from Massachusetts Cultural Council and Culture Ireland, along with support from the Knowlton School of Architecture at the Ohio State University; realized while I was working as an independent curator

Organized as part of MASS MoCA’s exhibition The Workers, I Am Searching for Field Character explored the social and economic conditions related to the cultural laborer—from artists and writers to beekeepers and distillers—who increasingly make up the character of post-industrial regions. The project considered these conditions within the context of North Adams, once a major manufacturing town, now the locus of “cultural experience.”

The title—I Am Searching for Field Character—was taken from a 1973 essay by Joseph Beuys whereas the artist argues that expanded notions of art can have tangible impacts on politics and society.

Project Modules

Beer Garden offered beer and pretzels along the banks of the Hoosic River on the grounds of MASS MoCA.

Night Market by Red76 sold goods by regional culture workers. Red 76’s Bartleby’s Pen used the form of the tavern as a site for periodic conversations with visiting practitioners.

Elegantly Wasted: A Fashion-forward Ecosystem for the Hoosic River was a month-long residency by landscape architect Sarah Cowles offering renewed ecological engagements between North Adams and the Hoosic River.

Work Site welcomed freelancers and telecommuters to work periodically in the project’s building at MASS MoCA.

All Hands on Deck! by Dylan Gauthier and Kendra Sullivan was a daylong workshop teaching participants how to build a watercraft out of salvaged materials. The artist’s Dawn School was a field trip for studying the changing patterns of labor in the manufacturing operations around North Adams, including a tour of Specialty Minerals, Inc.

Temporary Service’s Art Work: A National Conversation about Art, Labor and Economics was an independently published, 40-page newspaper and conversation series.

What is already and what will become… was an installation of colored panels by Sarah Pierce/The Metropolitan Complex punctuating and changing the spatial atmosphere over the project’s duration.

Documentation