Wayfinding: Imaging History with (Our)Story
Walking the carriage roads Frederic Church created, one becomes enchanted—not only with the experience of the surrounding beauty, but also with the notion that in the twenty-first century one is having a parallel experience with the most influential early American painter from The Hudson River School of Art, by literally walking in Church’s footsteps.
What did he see then? What do we see now?
What did he hear then? What do we hear now?
What if Church’s experiences have much in common with our own, despite our disparate time lines, sexes, ages, etc.
What if we are sharing in a timeless human experience of belonging with nature?
3 Ways to Participate:
1. Leave Us a Note: To enter your response to the project, please visit Olana State Historic Site. You can pick up and leave and leave your written response at the Wayfinding post located next to the lake and Wagon House Education Center parking lot. The Wayfinding: Exploration Guide & comprehensive map will be available for sale starting in July 2018 in the Olana Museum Store.
2. Download Trails App: You can also download the trails map and add your responses digitally using the Trails App
3. Social Media: Use #wayfindingstory to tag your pictures on Instagram and follow along @wayfindingstory
To find out more, please email Olana’s Education Department
In Wayfinding: Imaging History with (Our)Story artist Dawn Breeze asks everyone to be the artist and to share their story of place by creating the content of a living map of shared personal experiences in nature. Breeze asks the participant to pause at some point during their walk on Crown Hill Carriage Road and note their sensory experience either digitally or with old fashioned pencil and paper. These responses are collected and uploaded to this mapping project.
The process of this art project is not dissimilar to social media sites like Twitter or Instagram, where people hashtag themselves with selfies in front of the Eiffel Tower—announcing their place amongst things. The difference is in the nuanced intention. It asks participants to look inward while looking outward, and to use technology not as a replacement for navigating in nature, but instead as a tool to notice their experience with nature and relocate themselves there. The co-created mapping project will serve as a living document of a social odyssey remembering our collective place in the wild beauty of nature.
Dawn Breeze is an interdisciplinary artist designing liberatory experiences.
She is passionate about place, creativity, and community.
This exhibition has been generously funded by support to The Olana Partnership for the Novak-Ferber Exhibitions Fund.
This exhibition was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
