Artist in Residence Megan Bent: See her this Friday!

The current Orvis Artist in Residence is Megan Bent. She’s doing cool stuff with long-exposure photography and light. She takes images of museum visitors “drawing” with light, and posts them on her website. You can be part of her project Sun Maps of the Phenomenal at ARTafterDARK: …And It Don’t Stop this Friday, April 29, 6-9pm.

Here is Megan’s statement about Sun Maps of the Phenomenal:

In my studio practice I explore my movements in the world through long exposure photography and light. Early scientific photographers used the medium to see invisible phenomena, as a way to better understand the world.

I started by using pinhole photography [the camera’s aperture is the size of a pin] by wearing a pinhole camera as I went on bike rides.  What is captured in the image is my movement mixed with sunlight. I think of this body of work as a celebration of movement.

I wanted to develop a project in which I could invite visitors to the museum to explore their movements using long-exposure photography.

Within the first weekend I quickly realized through my interactions with the community that there was so much possibility.  Coming from my own framework of pinhole imagery I was inspired by the adaptation and growth of the project as shaped by participants. In the Studio people began to explore their everyday movements by drawing with light as they danced, walked, jumped, drew pictures.

Every participant is invited to have their image printed and be able to hang it up in Studio 30. As the wall has filled in through the weeks, people who have never met are collaborating with each other, as the work created before inspires the images of the present.

I have also started a blog in which participants can follow the project and go online and retrieve their images created in the studio.

My own studio practice has been greatly transformed through this project and the innovation of the participants, highlighting the exchange of knowledge and ideas.

So much has happened in four weeks, and I look forward to seeing what develops during the next three.