Inter-Section is a feature of the Interference Arts website that provides opportunities for visitors to get quick views into Artistic Director Craig Harris’ work and projects. Inter-Section presents highlights of specific projects with video and audio examples; contextualizes the work; illustrates connections between projects and initiatives; and provides pathways to navigate through the artistic, community development and research projects found on the Interference Arts website.
The August 2023 installment of Inter-Section features the Legacy Dream Space:
Legacy Dream Space
an exhibition and multimedia installation by Craig Harris & Candy Kuehn, in collaboration with Kym Longhi & Jim Peitzman
After several years in development, Legacy Dream Space has its inaugural exhibition at Owatonna Arts Center in Owatonna, Minnesota from September 5 – October 15, 2023.
Owatonna Art Center
435 Garden View Lane
Owatonna, MN 55060
Do you Wonder about the Past?
Do you Dream about the Future?
Are you Curious about how our lives create what follows?
In Legacy Dream Space composer/multimedia artist Craig Harris and visual artist Candy Kuehn continue their long term collaboration with artists Kym Longhi and Jim Peitzman to create the Legacy Dream Space, a multi-dimensional story space designed to explore Loss, Hope and Legacy – wondering about the past, dreaming about the future, and engaging in the future’s unfolding.
Exhibitions include a freestanding multimedia installation, digital illustration prints on walls, hanging painted/printed fabrics, music, soundscapes, interactive components, performance opportunities, and community gatherings. A series of events provide opportunities to explore the theme, capture new content, and integrate a community’s presence and stories into future instances of the work.
Legacy Dream Space is rich in visual, aural and thematic content, evolves through community engagement, and incorporates what has transpired into the present content. The Legacy Dream Space requires public engagement to realize the project vision. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to engage with the material available, to explore stories and previous engagement, and to make offerings to this living time capsule.
We invite you to join us for Legacy Dream Space:
- to experience;
- to participate; and
- to create what follows.
An opening reception event with the artists will take place on Sunday September 17, 1:00pm – 4:00pm. There will be a special event at 2:00pm. The artists will present their work, and guide people through the exhibition. Another event will take place on October 8, 2023 from 1:00pm – 4:00pm, also with a special event held at 2:00pm.
We invite Legacy Dream Space visitors of all ages to explore this glorious sensory world, and to engage in the unfolding of our shared future.
Legacy Dream Space exists as an ongoing creative environment. The work originated in 2017, and has evolved throughout the pandemic. Each instance of Legacy Dream Space is an artwork – a collection of materials, events, gatherings and performances designed to invite communities into this ongoing pursuit to collectively create a legacy that supports mutual understanding, healthy communities, and a sustainable future for humanity and the planet. The project is designed to easily mount future exhibitions at art centers and other locations in communities regionally and nationally.
Project Background
Legacy Dream Space began with the creation of Craig Harris’ keyboard suite GONE, originally composed in 2017 to serve as music for the Emotion Gallery, one scene in the dance theater production “Dancing on the Belly of the Beast,” created by the company Off Leash Area. The show explored adult orphan-hood, and the scene represented a series of emotions that accompany the loss of one’s last living parent. “Dancing on the Belly of the Beast” was performed at the Ritz Theater in Northeast Minneapolis in June 2017. The multi-generational cast were all adult orphans, having lost their parents at various stages of their lives.
The 2017 version was created to be performed live on a digital keyboard sampler along with pre-recorded audio tracks. The music was further developed into a solo keyboard version to be performed on a grand piano or digital keyboard sampler, and it premiered in September 2018 at the Owatonna Art Center to celebrate artist Candy Kuehn’s retrospective exhibition of her wearable art, painted cloth and digital illustration work. Video imagery created by Candy Kuehn was projected onto the wall above the piano for this concert.
The imagery and design has evolved since that original version, creating an immersive experience and a more integrated and flexible performance, and this work became the foundation for the creation of Legacy Dream Space.
To learn more about GONE, including some video and music examples, please visit the GONE web space here.
The Artistic Team
The Legacy Dream Space is a project conceived by composer, performer and multimedia story teller Craig Harris, and is the latest initiative in a long series of multi-dimensional story space projects. Projects like A Sharing Place (1991) and Tzedakah Box I & II (1994 & 2011)were multimedia installations that provided environments where people shared their stories, and visitors to the spaces were able to interact and engage with the content. It is SHE Who I See, Elijah in the Wadi and SenseAbility are examples of story spaces set in performative environments. GONE – a Suite about Loss began as a dance theater composition, and has evolved into a multimedia exhibition, installation and performance that formed the catalyst for The Legacy Dream Space.
Visual artist Candy Kuehn, a longtime creative collaborator on Harris’ projects, provides an enormous database of exquisite visual material incorporated into the project, including photography and digital illustrations, painted fabrics, sculptural spaces, wearable art and costuming.
Kym Longhi is the Artistic Director of Combustible Company and the writer/director of their work, including: Monster Heart, Bluebeard’s Dollhouse, and Herocycle. Prior to co-founding Combustible Company, she was a core company member and featured performer with Margolis Brown ADAPTORS Company for 12 years. She has worked as an actor-collaborator with Off-Leash Area, Skewed Visions and Flaneur Productions. Other directing projects include SenseAbility (Interference Arts), Donald Giovanni in Cornlandia, and Dr Falstaff and the Working Wives of Lake County (Mixed Precipitation). She has served on faculty in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Theater Arts and Dance since 2001.
Integrating media with live theater, Jim Peitzman’s video design and installation has been featured in a variety of innovative performance environments, including composer Mary Ellen Childs’ “Dream House,” with acclaimed NYC string quartet Ethel, Interference Arts’ evocative new works “It Is She Who I See” and “SenseAbility,” and several Combustible Company original theater productions, including “Blue Beard’s Doll House,” staged at the historic James J. Hill mansion in St. Paul, Minnesota. Jim’s video artistry has been integral to a variety of Margolis Brown Theater Company productions since 1995, including a DigiFest site-specific work at the Roebling Bridge in New York.