Six channel video installation. A musing on the relationship between man and nature. For the exhibit “Mediated Nature” at Oberlin College

CHICAGO – Woman Made Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of its new exhibition, Dig In, Float Up. This exhibition features wearable sculpture, photography and video created during Connerly and Featherstone’s ongoing investigation into how to create a more meaningful connection with the world around us. Included in the show are examples Envirotouchers, a series of prototypes designed to create a more connected world. These include a wearable cloud-suit which allows the wearer to transcend their everyday experience and to experience cloud-like thoughts as well as a root-growing backpack that enables its wearer to grow into and transmit and/or absorb molecules from his or her environment.

Running from March 6 – April 19th 2009, this playful exhibition helps us to re-imagine our connections to our environment by replacing rationality with sensuality and isolation with relationship.
Woman Made Gallery
685 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60642
Gallery Hours: Wed-Fri noon-7 p.m. / Sat-Sun noon-4 p.m. / Admission: Free
www.womanmade.org

Press Release
For hi-res images please e-mail Krista

Why do I move through my environment in isolation when it is so obviously alive, breathing and reaching out to touch me? When there seem to be such intense opportunities for exchange and interpenetration? I walk down the sidewalk and find the branch of a tree gingerly grazing my cheek. A lamppost runs its light over my skin. What happens if I return the caress?

Envirotouchers are artists Tracy Featherstone and Krista Connerly’s response to these questions. A series of prototypes for a more connected world, they seek to replace rationality with sensuality and isolation with relationship. We often get stuck in a relationship-rut with our environment, wearing down the same path to work and back or ignoring the (arguably) tender call of a car-alarm. Envirotouchers offers a simple and playful solution to this by allowing us re-imagine our selves and our relationship to our built and natural environment. Through this series of actions and wearable sculptures individuals can experiment with and ultimately create new and individualized environmental connections.

Sandmounds are a collaboration between human and sand. The sculptures create a place for reflection and vacation fantasy.

Rootpack enables its wearer to grow into and transmit and/or absorb molecules from his or her environment. The extra connection and nutrition boosts the wearer’s functionality and sensitivity to the selected surroundings.

Becoming-Cloud Suit is an inflatable sculpture that enables an individual to experience the levitation, contemplation, and other qualities of cloud-ness.

Download the Becoming-Cloud Instructions

Collection Belt gathers your relationship with the environment and holds it in solid form so that others may wear, experience and absorb it.

Download the instructions for the Collection Belt

Snowball Carrier is a protective device that enables an individual to carry part of the environment with them throughout the day. It allows the individual and snowball to maintain a temporary intimate relationship despite the obvious difficulties they may present to each other.

Building Snuggle
The building snuggle enables the wearer to forge a closer connection with his/her everyday environment by actually attaching himself to an element of the environment’s structure. In doing so, it forms an intimate space in which both individual and environment can lay together and, through snuggling, gain insight into each other’s experiences, true feelings, and desires.

From this standpoint of mutual compassion – the individual and environment may decide to negotiate new types of interaction. If nothing else, the individual can rely on the environment for much needed rest and the environment can rely on the individual for much need support.

Parking Line Drawing Instructions