THE GREAT STUMP
The Great Stump (2024) is a portable encounter installation. I created it as my contribution to 2024's Scarboro Bowl after my first experience at Hulaween. Having developed an approach to installation via modularity in The Portal, I moved to a freestanding structure that creates its own sense of place within whatever setting it is situated. After designing a PVC-based armature panel set that can be quickly linked and unlinked, I designed an inner-and-outer skin approach to building a thematically consistent fantasy of a tree stump of nearly impossible dimensions. The inner sanctuary is 10 feet in diameter, and the outer spread about 15 feet, with a height at the tallest point at about 10 feet. It is realistically painted in colors matched to the surrounding forest. It also glows with hundreds of fiber optic filament elements connected to programmable LED lights. The interior panels also hold cubbies for lights, interactive features, or tiny compositions.
At Scarboro, the stump also served as a projection screen for projection artists. The cubbies were filled with strange items like those found in a cabinet of curiosities: vials, skulls, and talismans. In its tour at Bombyx, the "opening" was a community ritual I led called Earth Grief, where participants tucked messages of apology into the cubbies of the tree. The tree also held hidden speakers which played selections from cellist and composer Eden Rayz' climate-rage-themed album, Corpus Vice. The Great Stump is on display at Bombyx from July 27 to August 15, 2024.