DEER FREAKS...and decoys
_heic.png)
Announcement:
Swannatopia presents DEER FREAKS and decoys in conjunction with Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center’s exhibition The Farm at Black Mountain College (September 27, 2024 – March 15th, 2025). Deer Freaks and decoys will explore the hyper-natural forces of attraction and repulsion informing our interactions with the landscapes we inhabit. This open call will welcome submissions from fence rows to scare-crows, documenting the creative ways people propagate, shape, lure, and protect in their environments.
We will collect responses and accompanying documentation throughout fall of 2024 to compile into a multimedia zine. BMCM+AC and Swannatopia will also present a fashion show and experience with selected works. To submit work and for more information go to www.swannatopia.com
AN OPEN CALL TO ALL ARTISTS, musicians and FARMERS OF ALL AGES AND ALL MEDIUMS AND ALL EXPERIENCE EVERYWHERE]
No animals are to be hurt in the process of this project.
We, of Swannatopia, invite YOU to join the Experimental Art Club for our next group art show, installation, and publishing project!
DEER FREAKS…and decoys will explore the hypernatural forces of attraction and repulsion through kinetic and soft sculpture, dances, defensive architecture, gourds, sounds, skeuomorphism, stencils, scarecrows, colors, waterfowl decoys, windsocks, fishing lures and flies, biomimicry, bird blinds, ghillie suits, reflections, refractions, eye spots and whirligigs.
What looks delicious to a fish? How do we protect our ducks? What will keep bear out of our trash cans and deer from eating our crops? How can we disappear yet still be seen?
We will collect responses and accompanying documentation through fall of 2024, to compile into a limited edition multimedia zine as well as curating a physical and digital multimedia group exhibition of selected works, date(s) and location(s) TBD.
CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE:
Open to collaboration in all WAYS liberatory
If you need a starting point and direction to participate look below and choose your own adventure:
Fake snakes
Scarecrows - corny non human effigy type form
Strawberry rocks
Cattle grids
Hummingbird feeders
Windsocks
Fishing flies and lures
Squirrel baffles
Predator eye balloons/eye spots
Scare tape
Purple Martin houses as skeuomorph of human dwelling
Purple martins on the east coast nest in human structures and humans make purple Martin houses as scale models of their own.
For the parent-
For the grandmother-
For the landscape painter-
For the farmer-
For the archivist-
For the cultural landscape historian-
For the extension agent-
For the quilter-
For the radio dj-
For the vegetable breeder-
For the dancer-
For the seamstress-
For the photographer-
For the entomologist-
For the angler -
For the art teacher-
HOW TO SUBMIT:
Fill out the GOOGLE FORM.
Send your work digitally through video, photo and/or sound. Record your deer freak or decoy in situ (in the landscape in which it belongs). Send us up close video/photo and then take 10-30 steps back and send us another video/photo. If you need help documenting simply email us!
These were the proposed projects before Helene.
Everything shifted and we pivoted many of our efforts to hurricane response and community.
We have a few programs planned during Deer Freak season !:
“How do we mark the flood?”
A day of collective healing and community resilience on the historic grounds of Warren Wilson College
Swannanoa, North Carolina
November 23, 2024
Warren Wilson College started as the Asheville Farm School in 1894, became a coed junior college in 1942, and transitioned to the four-year Warren Wilson College in the mid 1960s. Collaborations between the Asheville Farm School and Black Mountain College form an important part of The Farm at Black Mountain College story.
Prior to the storm, we had been planning an “Ambient Farm Stroll” outdoor land-arts happening at Warren Wilson College in conjunction with our project “DEER FREAKS…and decoys”and exhibition of the same name at BMCM+AC responding to The Farm at Black Mountain College exhibition.
Both were originally set to open on September 27, 2024, but the storm hit and the museum didn’t reopen for some time until the power and water had been restored to downtown Asheville. We have only recently been able to gather again in our studio in Swannanoa’s historic Beacon Village, and we feel lucky everyday that it- and we- are still here.
When asked by the WWC farm manager to not cancel post-Helene, we pivoted our efforts with the help of many friends and neighbors to create an event that included 45+ land-art installations by students and community members across 5 acres of farm and garden, music and “odd dancing” in Bryson Gym*, a cider pressing, and hog roast.
This was the first time since the storm that many folks had seen each other, and traveled from across the region to be together. We, of Swannatopia, remain in awe of the power of gathering this day brought. This video beautifully captures our curious, playful, and kind community coming together through art, music, dance, and sculpture woven into the fabric of the landscape–song in a garden, bells in the wind, shiny pig fascinators, decorated deer in a gymnasium, a puppet show live scored by an orchestra, flying kites on a muddy field, open doors, sown clover, ode to lemon balm, and a sunset surprise salamander procession.
Thank you to BMCM+AC for your trust and support, for extending both exhibitions through March, and hosting our closing reception puppet fashion show on March 14, 2025: “How Do We Disappear, Yet Still Be Seen?”.
March 14, 2025
“How Do We Disappear, Yet Still Be Seen?”.
We hosted a FASHION PUPPET PIE show on pi day, March 14 at BMCM+AC. We are looking for wearables and deer/duck/turkey/ moth fashion. How can we disappear yet still be seen? There will be a camouflage backdrop setting the scene for a story yet written. If you are interested in submitting a wearable for a puppet or person please let us know- This is similar to a birding event where viewers are asked to bring or make binoculars for viewing pleasure.
DEC 21 2024-JAN 5 2025
HOLIDAY POP UP - “Bait and Tassle/ Decoy and Decor” DEPARTMENT STORE at Lamplight AVL in the heart of West Asheville (home of the BuG Mall in 2022 and Time is Fake in 2023) ! for this Season- You can purchase deer freak ware ‘n glare and dance and gaze upon an interactive deer freaky scene.
We are reading:
Hide and Seek: Camouflage, Photography and the Media of Reconnaissance - Hanna Rose Shell
Freedom Farmers - Monica M. White
Wild, Tamed ,Lost, Revived: The Surprising Story of Apples in the South - Diane Flynt
A Sand County Almanac - Aldo Leopold
The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems- Jackson/Jackson
Storey’s Guide to Raising Ducks - Dave Holderread
Forest Forensics: A Field Guide to Reading the Forested Landscape - Tom Wessels
Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties - Carol Deppe
Landrace Gardening - Joseph Lofthouse
