Art festival to break boundaries at Ayers Island

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Editor’s note: This story ran incompletely on Friday’s Style page.

ORONO – It was just a bag full of tiny fans, but it gave Renaud Petard, a student at Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Arts de Paris in Cergy, France, a big hassle at the airport.

He had a hard time convincing U.S. Customs agents that the fans, each about half the size of a videotape, were part of an art exhibit.

“It’s really difficult to pass this kind of equipment on when visiting the United States,” Petard said Tuesday before heading outdoors to collect reeds for his installation, “Espaces.”

Each of the artists involved in “Without Borders,” the theme of the inaugural Ayers Island Contemporary Arts Festival in Orono, has overcome obstacles big and small this week while preparing their installations for Sunday’s grand opening.

The exhibit will be on view today, while the festival will kick off Sunday with live music, performance art, film and food.

George Markowsky, chairman of the University of Maine’s computer science department, bought Ayers Island in 1998, with the goal of turning it into a place where art, science, culture and commerce can thrive.

He also leads UMaine’s Homeland Security Lab, and recent publicity about Markowsky’s plans to test a high-end surveillance system on the island have raised concerns among neighbors, as has the possibility of increased traffic. To date, only one camera is in place, a standard security device at the complex’s main entrance.

What is in place are the makings of a festival: two tents, a stage, and an old mill full of new ideas.

This weekend’s opening draws together 15 young artists from Maine, Montreal, London and France who are working with new technologies to create experience-based sculptures and media-driven pieces that encourage interaction and exploration.

Many of the participants are students or recent graduates of the University of Maine, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, Wimbledon School of Art outside London, and the Cergy campus in France.

“We wanted to have them come and show together, mingle, begin to talk,” said Don Foresta, a professor at Cergy. “The idea was, we’ll start creating a foundation for an ongoing exchange program. If we can start creating a summer camp for young artists, why not?”

Foresta teamed up with professors in Maine, Montreal, Wimbledon and Savannah, Ga., for the art portion, and he thought Ayers Island, owned by his friend Markowsky, would be the ideal site, given its post-industrial architecture and its abundance of space, as well as its location relative to the world.

“Maine is a border state, it’s bicultural, it’s a point of exchange,” Foresta said. “There’s just a lot of openness here to that kind of international exchange and really an international outreach.”

He found openness among UMaine’s new media faculty, as well. Raphael DiLuzio’s film students plan to show their work during the opening, and Owen Smith, the department’s new director, is the event’s curator.

He juried last winter’s “Plugged-In Fest” at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, and he was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with young artists from all over the world.

“We wanted to get people still early enough in their careers where they’re willing to take risks and really try things out,” Smith said. “We wanted the energy and excitement these people at that point in their careers would bring to the project.”

This is the first event of its scope in the state, and while the work may differ from the common perception of “Maine art” – sweeping landscapes and representational paintings tied to the natural environment – the artists are working with similar themes.

“Many pieces [explore issues of] the natural environment, light and sound, but they’re not in the way you might expect to see in Maine,” Smith said. “They are in some ways what I would call more elemental.”

Those elements of experience – light, reflection, sound and touch – take different manifestations. Petard’s piece brings the outdoors in, using fans to re-create a breeze that sways live reeds and grasses in the middle of a concrete floor. ChiaWen Tsai, a student at Cergy, will project water reflections through filtered blue light.

Martin Leduc of Montreal has created his own musical instrument that projects sound through a speaker submerged in water. He also plans to use a hydrophone, or an underwater microphone, to sample sounds from the Penobscot River, which surrounds Ayers Island. Sounds from the hydrophone will be broadcast throughout the weekend at the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor.

“I believe sound and music with the help of technology should be more accessible to people,” Leduc said.

Not all of the installations use nature as their muse, however. Margaretha Haughwout and Ivor Hadziabdic, both students at UMaine, have created an interactive video installation that explores broadcast media and its effects.

Since they arrived, several international artists have teamed up with their Maine counterparts for impromptu collaborations, while others have become inspired by the space to create additional pieces.

On Monday and Tuesday, the MARCEL group, an international forum interested in the overlap of art and technology, will meet at Ayers Island, as well. According to Foresta, a principal in MARCEL, the creative energy is palpable.

“It’s one of the most exciting things imaginable,” Foresta said.

Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.

Ayers Island Contemporary Arts Festival: “Without Borders”

The event is free and open to the public. A test run of the installations will take place today, Aug. 21, at Ayers Island. During Sunday’s grand opening, food and beverages will be available on-site. The exhibit runs through Sept. 23 during regular business hours. For information or directions, visit http://www.aicaf.ayersisland.com, call Peter Rottman at 866-2619, or contact Owen Smith at owen.smith@umit.maine.edu.

Schedule of events, Sunday, Aug. 22

Noon: Exhibits open to the public

1 p.m.: Niagara Falls, improvisational jazz, techno, free-form music

2 p.m.: Video screenings from students and professionals

3 p.m.: Niagara Falls, second set

4 p.m.: Beth Wiemann, video and original musical composition on bass clarinet

5 p.m.: Paul Bosse, percussion

6 p.m.: Official opening greeting by George Markowsky and Don Foresta

7 p.m.: MAP and D.M. Ingalls, musical performance in which performers create sounds by moving through space