PLACE

Review: Project Everyone

By Lisa Hunt

Marina Tait and Stephen Kurowski are the creative team behind Project Everyone, which is a “lofty” attempt to interview everyone in the world. The project is comprised of an average of five-minute film shorts asking each participant the same 8 questions, each of which seems capable of being answered universally and the responses are visceral, varying from emotional to indifferent.

Part installation, part performance,and all process, Project Everyone is a new experiment for the two artists. Kurowski and Tait have backgrounds in filming interviews for private companies. They were inspired by their previous work environment and decided they wanted to be able to share the recorded footage. Originally, the idea set the interviewee into a personal space, somewhere of complete comfort which contributed to a manifest a feeling of individuality.  Kurowski and Tait took their concept of contemporary, media-based portraiture into the gallery scene for the first time on Saturday, June 19^th. They have been working for over a year on this project and realized the logistics of creating a common ground for anyone to sit in and participate. The corner of Place is painted in bold primary and secondary colors and a partition wall painted black and white creates an intimate room within Place, which interacts well with the colorful display of William Rihel III’s Island of Misfit Toys/ Paradise Lost.  Each participant is asked to choose which color they would like to be interviewed in front of which allows them to set their own stage.

As the interviews went on through the night, onlookers were able to watch past interviews on a gold television.  The footage acting as a moving portrait, with well-balanced compositions, also allows for the opportunity to witness another aspect of Kurowski and Tait’s ambitious goal.  Each interview is eventually uploaded onto the internet creating an online community that adds a new definition to the idea of blogging. It was brought to my attention that Artforum published an article in February 2011 concerning the artwork of Pawel Althamer.  He conducted a project, Common Task, in 2008-2010, which included taking his neighbors who are generally stuck in the mundane and ‘flying them to outer space’ in tight, gold body suits; then, allowed them to experience something new by sending them around the world on a plane. In a way, this is reminiscent of Kurowski and Tait’s work, so far, they have collected their neighbors together, created a similar forum for everyone to participate in and then sends them  ‘through outer space’ via the internet, and in their own version of the gold bodysuit- the golden television set.  Project Everyone offers the opportunity for neighbors around the globe to peer into a stranger’s life without being obtrusive; rather, it adds an interesting take on community and neighborhood that intends to one day will be worldwide. 

The experience will be continuing through July at Place gallery and you can arrange to be a part of it by sending an email to: proj.everyone@gmail.com.

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The Settlement has invited local writers to begin reviewing the shows of each of the four galleries. The reviewers have been given full license to write about which ever work and in whatever style they choose. If you are interested in writing please contact us at placepdx@gmail.com