Openings

Abstract

My Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition, Openings, entailed two thematically connected, but spatially separate installations: a sculpture trail and gallery installation, both of which opened to the public on the evening of Thursday, August 28, 2008. Two years earlier, I camped in the forest along Tantalus Arboretum Trail for one week and kept a detailed journal of my dreams. Over the course of the next 24 months, I translated the dreams into three-dimensional form, which changed their sensual tangibility. The culmination of this study, a series of sculptural works, has become, in part, a permanent installation along the hiking trail where the dreams were realized and recorded. The purpose was to create a truly site-specific sculptural installation derived from communicative dream experiences from the site. The gallery component of my thesis exhibition was a multi-media installation held in the Commons Gallery at the Department of Art and Art History, University of Hawaii, at Manoa. This installation provided the audience with a sensory experience that aimed to demystify some of the inner workings of my mind when I was engaged in the creative process, in particular, when I created the site-specific sculpture trail. An opening performance initiated the entire event. This performance took place in the gallery at 6:00 p.m. and buses transported all of the guests to and from the sculpture trail from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m.