With Farewell Tevatron I Wanted To Use Art To Provide A Forum For Batavians To Voice Their Feelings About

With Farewell Tevatron I wanted to use art to provide a forum for Batavians to voice their feelings about the shut down of Fermilab's particle accelerator. Named the Tevatron, it was was until 2009 the largest particle accelerator in the world, and until September 30th was operated by Fermilab scientists on the east side of Batavia. Fermilab plays heavily into the town's image of their community. Its main building is featured on welcome signs alongside a windmill, the symbol of the city. Batavia's slogan was also changed in 1983 from "The Windmill City" to "City of Energy" to encompass the legacy of both the windmill industry and Fermilab. I wondered then, how would people feel about its shut down? The Chicago Tribune, Kane County Chronicle, and Chicago Reader, among other newspapers have written about the scientists' reaction to the change, but none have focused on the Batavia residents.

For the street art response, I asked artist Michael Jewell to create illustrations of images that related to Batavia and Fermilab's history. There are twelve in all, some are symbols of Batavia's history like a windmill, fox (the Fox River bifurcates the town), or ghost of Mary Todd Lincoln (she briefly stayed in Batavia's sanitarium following the death of President Lincoln). Others are particles discovered by Fermilab like the tau neutrino or top quark. Each image then responds to the accelerator's legacy and is accompanied by an image of a bulldog (the high school mascot) asking residents what their feelings are: How do  you feel about the shut down of the Tevatron? Write something! 80 images were placed around the high school and downtown area.

After two weeks, I returned to remove the installation and was excited to find responses left by residents. Overall, residents' displayed a variety of emotions, mainly sadness, anger, optimism, an acceptance. The most impressive response was a woman who took down several fliers, scanned them, printed out new ones, and made her own shrine to the Tevatron on a telephone pole, complete with chalked hearts and a white bow.

Other responses were:

• "Well the probability that we will find something before the LHC [Large Hadron Collider] is low, so we have to move on to new and better things. Muon Collider FTW"

The Muon Collider is a yet to be realized particle accelerator that speeds up muons. Fermilab is a possible future site for the collider.

•"I'm angry. We should still conduct research here no matter the ring size."

•"A part of me just died, but another part has just been born."

After spending the better part of June and July taking hundreds of photographs throughout Chicago's south side, I launched the second half of The Other Side project in late July. The idea was to narrow down, edit, and print the south side photos (which amounted to 313) and then place them on the north side. The placement would be determined by Chicago's systematic address system with an image of 3500 S. Halsted placed at 3500 N. Halsted and so on. I learned so much about the south side by exploring it for this project. Though I can't pretend to understand the lives of those who live on there, I understand now just how many misconceptions and assumptions I'd had about their neighborhoods before seeing things for myself. Warnings from roommates, friends, and the press had caused me to paint the south side as largely poor and dangerous. However, much of it proved to be, at least on the surface, perfectly safe. Middle class areas abounded and even poorer areas were never totally impoverished. Even amongst hardship, people seemed to be striving hard to keep their lives together and make things work.  The idea that the majority of Chicagoans ignore and never experience the deep beauty, suffering, and humanity of the city’s south side has always unsettled me. So, with this second phase of the project, I was excited to insert the south side into the everyday lives of north side Chicagoans. I started out by placing 60 of the photographs throughout Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Edgewater, Uptown, and nearby neighborhoods. From those placements, I've begun creating diptychs between the north and south side locations. The first six are above.  To see other south side photos click here. 

Ten of the sixty photos placed throughout Chicago's Old Town, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Edgewater, Lincoln Square, and surrounding neighborhoods in July as part of the The Other Side series.  

The four latest photos from The Other Side series.

With the blessing of the art teacher, I've carved out a spot in Kawaura Jr. High School for use as a contemporary art space. In this rural area of Japan there are few opportunities for people to see contemporary art; Besides a small local museum, the nearest art museums are over two hours away. So, I'm excited to bring more art into the students' lives and use the space to educate them about contemporary art practices as well.

With that said, I'm calling the little space the Kawaura Art Space or 河浦展示場 and am starting to contact and look for artists to exhibit. What's especially exciting about the space is that I can expand it greatly if need be. Right now I prepped 9' x 6' of wall, but it could be 12' x 6', 24' x 6' or even greater. I put a permalink to it on here under Art Space. I can't wait to start putting work up!

These are the first half of the sacred spaces I've been creating over the past six weeks. Overall the project proved more time-consuming (and sweat inducing) than I'd expected, but ultimately, I'm quite happy with its progress so far. I even went back a few weeks later to find some of the more weather-sheltered spaces still in tact.