The Play House: Beyond What Was

The Play House: Beyond What Was from ((K))((G)) on Vimeo.

In conjunction with the 15th annual City-Wide Open Studios, a festival that has always celebrated the vibrant contributions of New Haven’s artistic community, Artspace will host The Play House, a multi-faceted installation in the Lot. Artspace will team with Marianne Bernstein, one of the founders of City-Wide Open Studios, to bring The Play House to New Haven. This site-specific installation will host artists-in-residence during each of the CWOS weekends; at night, the cube will be wrapped to become a four-sided projection space. The project will also feature partnerships with Liberty Community Services and Creative Arts Workshop.

In August, two of the participating artists, Darwin Nix and Keliy Staley-Anderson, began creating portraits of Liberty Community Services patrons; they then utilized the printmaking facilities and guidance of Creative Arts Workshop faculty member Barbara Harder and Master Printer Cindi Ettinger to make prints. This project presents a unique opportunity to extend the reach of CWOS and serve the community by activating a space at the heart of downtown New Haven.

The Play House is a transparent, nomadic 8’ X 8’ aluminum cube which functions as a studio by day and a four-sided video installation by night. As a conceptual work, the Play House is layered; it functions from the inside out. Designed to activate neglected spaces, an artist interacts with the public inside the cube daily. This interaction is filmed and participants are invited to return and watch themselves projected onto the cube’s exterior each night.

The following artists will be featured inside the cube in New Haven, CT:

Darwin Nix (October 6/7)

Keliy Anderson-Staley (October 13/14)

Marianne Bernstein with Liberty Community Services Clients (October 20/21)

Video by Danielle Lessovitz

After Effects editing by Katya Gorker.

Technical production by Peter Parker Brodhead and Paul Theriault.

The Play House was designed in collaboration with Daryn Edwards of Interface Studio Architects and fabricated by EnMotion Design.

For more information on the Play House, please click here.