Bridget Purcell is going to have some fun with us. On May 19th, she will be spending the day aesthetically remaking the sport of volleyball. The lawn at Park Towne Place will be her installation site. That location – sun flooded, grassy, and large – was the inspirational source for her project, and it will be fascinating to see how she repurpose it. Purcell will be arriving with the essential components; Net, ball, and boundary lines.
She is also going to have a wide selection of colorful adornments and extra game equipment to modify. I expect a recontextualized, sculptural version of the food show, Chopped. The audience of residents and passerby will be encouraged to shift between spectatorship and collaboration, as traditional sports logic is replaced with techniques of crafting and building. Purcell is an artist who, in her own paintings and sculptures, playfully remixes materials to build connections between form and meaning.
We are excited to host her at Park Towne, as she creatively addresses some of the visual and social conditions of group sports in this large-scale sculptural installation.
