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| Porch Project: Tarble Tables, 2016 |
This year’s Outside project is a site-specific sculpture called the The Porch Project: Tarble Tables by artist, Heather Hart. Hart’s work focuses on communal participation, identity, memory, and representation using a vast array of media. Specifically, The Porch Project: Tarble Tables is a physical space that transforms according to each visitor’s frame of reference and the activities taking place within the sculpture. The sculpture is inspired by a common architectural form—the porch, and serves as both an entryway and a receiving space. The sculpture is also tied to both cognitive and mystical ideology, such as Robin Dunbar’s Number theory, as well as Sacred Geometry. Dunbar’s Number suggests that the optimal number of participants in a productive conversation is five people. Thus, each porch-like space is shaped like a pentagon and contains pentagon shaped tables. These five porch-like structures are interconnected and urge viewers to consider their position on the porch, the history and role of this architectural structure in their own lives. Viewers must not only look at their previous interactions on porches, but are also asked to examine the current space they inhabit.
Says Hart:
I want to encourage viewers to relate with my work not only through physical interaction or personal associations, but also through a dialogue that depends on their perception. I want to create a space for conversation in which to understand the world’s territories. As we begin interacting with and learning about each other, a silent and maybe even subconscious stage of judgment is diffused. I believe people listen better when they are physically involved in the process of discovery.
Heather Hart is a Brooklyn-based artist, who has previously been an artist in residence at Skowhegan, LMCC Workspace, Franconia Sculpture Park, Fine Arts Work Center, and at the Whitney ISP. She received grants from Creative Capital, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Harpo Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and a fellowship from NYFA, among many other awards. Her work has been included in a variety of publications like Art in America, Art News, Hyperallergic, and New York Times, among others. Hart has exhibited worldwide at the Socrates Sculpture Park, the Seattle Art Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Art in General, the Drawing Center, Museum of Arts and Craft in Itami, Portland Art Center, and the Brooklyn Museum. Hart studied at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Princeton University in New Jersey, and received her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
