City-Wide Open Studios 2016

By: Gordon Skinner
Location: The Armory

The totem is a transformational object that, often through the integration of assemblage and found objects, represent a spiritual focal point for a community or tribe. Urban Totems is a series of makeshift basketball hoops installed to create an interactive environment both for play and to make other ways of relating to urban space visible. The artist-made ‘zines that will accompany this project will reinforce the power of found objects through found imagery.

By: Christie DeNizio
Location: Armory

A nod to David Hammons’s altered basketball hoops, Competitive Volume invites visitors to shoot colorful balls into two hoops connected by a 100-foot mesh tube. No one wins, no one scores, no one gets the rebound, but everyone modifies the composition.

By: Nadine Nelson
Location: John Slade Ely House, 51 Trumbull St, New Haven

Nadine Nelson, social activist and chef of Global Local Gourmet, will bring her roving community supported kitchen to the John Slade Ely House during City-Wide Open Studios. Her kitchen will be open to the public during the Private Studios, Saturday, October 22 and Sunday October 23. She will accept food donations that will go to a communal pantry and become “game” for 5-minute creative feasts. Nelson will encourage visitors to “play with their food,” with the goal of interpreting the food in the pantry into three-course meals mandalas.

By: Scott Schuldt
Location: Goffe St Armory

Inspired by the Lewis & Clark expedition, this scavenger hunt will send you on a search for clues hidden throughout the Armory. Winners take home a unique work of art.

Bob Gregson & Melanie Carr
Location: Goffe St Armory

Connecting with others was never so much fun! Don a giant puzzle piece and join puzzle parts with others. Feeling independent? Build a new structure!

By: Caitlin Foley and Misha Rabinovich
Location: Goffe St Armory

How in sync are we? This video game trains up to 8 people to jump and land at the same time. Participants stand on floor mats with electronic sensors. Could preparing for a world-wide jump help us transcend our divisions?

There will be a scheduled total jump at the opening reception on October 7 at 6pm and at the Armory on October 15 at 5pm and October 16 at 5pm.

Location: Across New Haven during Private Studios weekend

Test your New Haven art smarts as you decode the clues, track down the artworks, and make new discoveries in this scavenger-hunt style game. Pair up in teams of 2 or more to decipher the clues. Each clue includes a visual fragment and a written hint from 15 artworks — 10 on display at City Wide Open Studios and 5 public artworks. Chart your course using the game map, visit each site, and post team selfies to Facebook as evidence.

FIND IT! FRIEND IT!, CWOS 2016 is not a race, so leave your running shoes at home and embrace your inner tortoise. Make new friends! Talk to artists! Enjoy the artworks! And then tell us what you learned. Locate and experience all 15, and you could be the first FIND IT! FRIEND IT! Champion … and go home with the GRAND PRIZE!

By: Megan Craig
Location: Goffe St Armory

Up to 40 players are invited to create a composition. Pick a suit, choose a colorful shape, enter a 20-foot room covered with black felt, and take on the role of “painter”, “eraser”, or “surface”.

By: Adam Berkwitt & Phil Lique
Location: Goffe St Armory

Inspired by The Price is Right, Dr. Plinko is a collaboration between physicians and artists that contemplates the absurdity surrounding pricing and profiteering within the American healthcare system. Can that price really be right?

Location: Goffe St Armory
Dates: October 8-16

Come along on an immersive audio tour, created by French choreographic duo Martin Chaput and Martial Chazallon. Escape into your earbuds and explore the Armory’s industrial spaces while area artists install their work and welcome visitors. Your audio accomplices will provide instructions that encourage you to investigate the space with a fresh perspective.

A co-production by the International Festival of Arts & Ideas and Artspace. Funded in part by the Expeditions program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from the six New England state arts agencies.