Informal Opportunities: Cairns

About Facilitator

Eliza Axelson-Chidsey is a designer, artist, and curator based in New York City. Her interest in material culture is manifest in explorations of form, value, and ephemerality. Excited by research and concepts, and informed by her senses, she is regularly reminded how much learning is found through doing.

Objective

The Time Being (For Robert Smithson)

By Nancy Holt, 1978

For the time being, in the interim, in the course of time, from day to day, from hour to hour, until, in due time, and in the fullness of time, time endures, goes on, remains, persists, lasts, goes by, elapses, passes, flows, rolls on, flies, slips, slides, and glides by.

Originally published in Arts Magazine 52, no. 9, Special Issue: Robert Smithson (May 1978), 144.

In this three-part workshop*, designer and artist Eliza Axelson-Chidsey explores ways to create form for purpose, connecting the line between the structured, academic discipline, and the informal opportunities that we encounter all the time. Using found materials—whether they are naturally occurring or salvaged/repurposed—we’ll extend the same principles of form making.

In the third and final installment of the Informal Opportunities series we will be looking at cairns, a form of nonverbal communication spanning time and cultures, in terms of structure, observation, and intention. We will make cairns, engage with our environment, and finish the workshop with a drawing exercise. 

*Prior attendance to Informal Opportunities Part 1 & 2 is not required!

What's Included

• Materials for cairn-making
• Paper for drawing
• Pens/pencils/charcoal for drawing

What To Bring (Optional)

• Rocks, stones, or other things to stack, without leaving litter behind
• Paper to draw on
• Preferred writing/drawing implements

Disclaimer

This workshop will be held outside and include activity around Brower Park and on the ground. Bathroom accessible.