Jump!Star Festival2016 Parade & Exhibition

Images from George Ferrandi’s Wherever There is Water light parade for Fleisher Art Memorial

Capitol Skyline Hotel10 I (Eye) Street SW

Washington, DC 20024

202.234.7103info@wpadc.orgwww.wpadc.org

INTRODUCTION Jump!Star Festival Concept History of the Project Festival Narrative Artist’s Biography

COMPONENTS Community Engagement Workshops Light Exhibition Parade/Festival

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Images from George Ferrandi’s Wherever There is Water light parade for Fleisher Art Memorial

INTRODUCTION

Images from George Ferrandi’s Wherever There is Water light parade for Fleisher Art Memorial

The Jump!Star Festival is a participatory public art project created by artist George Ferrandi that will celebrate the temporal nature of our pole star, the “North Star,” by bringing the local community together with a light parade, music, food, and a culminating exhibition of light sculptures created by local artists.

Key DatesParade/Festival: September 24, 2016Workshops: May/June/July/August 2016Exhibition: September 20-25, 2016

History of the Project

For the Northern Hemisphere, Polaris, or the “North Star” is the guiding light for 90% of the world’s population, yet this Pole Star, the anchor of our heavens, is not permanent. Because the earth rotates at a slight angle on its axis, there is a slight shift in its rotation so that what we consider our “North Star” changes every few thousand years. When the pyramids were built, for example, there was a different “North Star” reigning over the heavens.

Very few realize that our quintessential point of reference and ever reliable, literal “Guiding Light” is a temporary gig. We’re not due for a change in stars for several thousand years, but the Jump!Star Festival seeks to celebrate this moment as a beautiful opportunity to think about ritualizing slow but sure change. It will also be a wonderful way to look very far forward in space and time to our most distant generations and to regard them with optimism.

Images from George Ferrandi’s Wherever There is Water light parade for Fleisher Art Memorial

Festival Narrative

Artist George Ferrandi will create a narrative introduction to nine historical Pole Stars – those stars, according to elaborate astrophysical projections, have in the past and will again become the Pole Star for the Northern Hemisphere at some point over the next 26,000 years as they rotate into the position most directly above Earth’s axis.

The Pole Stars will be presented as charismatic characters with compelling nicknames: Alphie (Alpha Cephei), BūM (Beta Ursae Minoris), GamMa (Gamma Cephei), Ceph (Iota Cephei), Kaydee (Kappa Draconis), Polaris, Bootis (Theta Bootis), Thuban, and Vega. Each of these characters will have a large corresponding paper sculpture that will anchor the light parade. Ferrandi will also create songs and a choreographed procession of lanterns, which will be the guiding force behind a community light parade through the neighborhood.

At the culmination of the parade, the nine Pole Star sculpture forms created by the artist and students will be arranged in a circle with their lights dimmed. A video will be projected onto the forms from a rotating point, thus acting as Earth in its search for the next Pole Star. A narrator will tell the fictional story over a loud speaker, as the animation is projected onto the forms, bringing life to their rigid forms and color to their paper skin. Words will seem to come out of the characters’ mouths, and the narrative will move from star to star.

Artist’s Biography

George Ferrandi is an American artist whose work responds to the specifics of a site, audience or situation, employing whatever medium is best suited for the task. George lives with a small dog and a rooftop garden in Brooklyn. She is the director of Wayfarers Studio Program and Gallery in Bushwick, and was the founding member of the touring performance project Cloud Seeding: Circus of the Performative Object. Her work has been performed/exhibited around the country — at Abrons Arts Center in New York, the Kitchen in New York, Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn, the McKinney Contemporary in Dallas, the Wexner Center in Columbus, UCSD in San Diego, the Harn Museum in Gainesville and Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia. She has received grants from the Franklin Furnace Fundwinners for Performance Art, the Mid Atlantic Arts Council and the RISD Part-time Faculty Association.

Images of the Aomori Nebuta Festival

Ferrandi teaches Sculpture and Performance Art periodically at the Rhode Island School of Design and at Virginia Commonwealth University. She also runs a small business specializing in the restoration of statues of saints for churches, and reserves speaking about herself in the third person for her online bio. Ferrandi will be traveling to Japan in the summer of 2015 to take part in the annual Aomori Nebuta Festival where she will assist in constructing their elaborate light sculptures, which are processed through the town.

COMPONENTS

Community Engagement

This project will include multiple layers of community involvement leading up to the main event, the Jump!Star Festival Parade of Lights. To ensure a successful event, WPA, NoMa BID, and George Ferrandi will engage community partners throughout the process.

Images from George Ferrandi’s Wherever There is Water light parade for Fleisher Art Memorial

Workshops

WPA and NoMa BID will host approximately 3 workshops, which will be led by Ferrandi and WPA volunteers. All lanterns made at the workshops will be stored until the festival to ensure that participants return and the lanterns aren’t lost. Two possible workshops could be:

20-30’s Mixer: A fun night event with music, drinks, and light hors d’oeurves where participants make light sculptures from pre-assembled bases. This event could be billed as a Happy Hour and would ideally be held at local restaurant or bar on a slow evening (Monday or Tuesday). Refreshments will be donated in-kind. WPA will market this to our member email list as well as reach out to BYT, Washington City Paper, and Washington Post Express. Event will also be marketed to NoMa BID email list.Family Friendly: A kid friendly event with snacks and juice where participants decorate simple kid-ready lantern forms. This event could take place in a restaurant, raw space, or the Lobby Project. Refreshments to be donated in-kind. WPA, with the assistance of NoMa BID will market this event to local family blogs and listserves as well as NoMa BID’s email list.Additional Workshops: Can be set up at pre-existing events hosted by the BID, such as the Family Film Night or July 4th Bash.

Parade/Festival

The Jump!Star Festival’s main event will be the participatory light parade, which will wind through the NoMa neighborhood, bringing light, art, and music to the community. The entire neighborhood will be invited to join the parade; each participant will be given one of the pre-made lanterns to carry and the 9 larger pole star sculptures will be placed throughout the procession and will be carried by pre-selected volunteers. Leading the parade will be Batalia Washington, along with a local choir who will give a voice to the parade, singing the pole star songs written by Ferrandi.

The light parade will culminate at a local park or open space where a light exhibition curated by WPA will be placed. This space will be the main gathering place for the festival and will allow the community to come together to celebrate the changing of the stars with food and beverages and music.

Path and Logistics

WPA and NoMa BID will work to select a convenient route that will be easy to temporarily re-route traffic from, as the parade will take up the entire street. The route will need to begin from a large area where parade sculptures can be staged and participants lined up. The parade will meander through the neighborhood for approximately one-half to one mile, giving maximum visibility while keeping it brief enough for participants both young and old.

Images from George Ferrandi’s Wherever There is Water light workshops for Fleisher Art Memorial

Light Exhibition

WPA will mount a light exhibition created by local artists, which will be on display in either an open park area or in a raw building space for the week prior to the festival. This exhibition will therefore give visibility to the festival and bring in a local element by having DC based artists create the sculptures. Whether outdoors or indoors, the exhibition can act as a headquarters for the festival, drawing in visitors prior to the parade and hopefully enticing them to return. The sculptures would ideally be on display for 24 hours a day depending on their placement and available security. The installation and exhibition of these works will help in bringing traffic to the area and events leading up to the parade can be hosted at the local restaurants to drive business.

To select the works, WPA will host on Open Call for Artists as well as solicit individual proposals from established artists in the area. Eight selected artists will be given $500 honorariums to purchase materials and create their work.

Jason Peters, Meandering Dynamics, InLight Richmond 2012, photo by Terry Brown

Hannah Auerbach, Experience + Awe, InLight Richmond 2014, photo by Hannah Auerbach. Julie Hinzmann and Shawn Saharko, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Inlight Richmond 2013, photo by 1708 Gallery.