Of Earth & Sky Returns With New Public Poetry Installations
Artists were asked, 'What do you think of when you think of space?'
The Charlotte International Arts Festival (CIAF) is renowned for its inspirational visuals, stunning performing arts, and thought-provoking exhibits. Each program offers attendees the opportunity to view a piece of the world through someone else’s eyes, and the ongoing Of Earth and Sky public art exhibit fits that mold perfectly.
Launched locally in 2021, Of Earth & Sky comprises a series of public art installations located in various parts of the city where CIAF is taking place that feature poems in large-scale print — sometimes accompanying artwork by local creatives, sometimes subtly placed alone in seemingly mundane spaces.
Bree Stallings, director of artistic experiences with Blumenthal Arts, curated the exhibit, and she told Queen City Nerve she’s excited to have the exhibit back this year, setting up a new round of fresh installations following a short hiatus.
The placing of each installation is intentional, forcing the poem and location to work in tandem – the poem is usually related to its location and the location influences the poem.
“I had a lot of fun curating that, thinking about the things in the spaces where they were, and wanted it to speak to the place or to the building or to the history of the streets,” she said.
When the exhibit launched in 2021, over 200 poems had to be sifted through in order to be whittled down to the 45 included in the installations. This year, 25 installations were chosen from 65 poems.
The poetic installations come in a variety of shapes and sizes — you might find them in the grass or plastered to windows, one is even activated by water and only visible when it rained.
“It’s a vehicle almost because they disrupt the landscape,” she said. “They’re just so big and you can’t miss them. Or some of them are very small. I’m installing a couple of ones that maybe you have to double take and they’ll catch your eye. I like playing with the landscape like that because even when we were installing some in the bushes, people can’t help but to stop and read them.
“And I think that pause that we can give people to look at their city a little bit differently and to reflect and read these words is something really special that only public art can do,” she added.
Connecting locals with international artists
The idea for Of Earth & Sky didn’t start with the arts festival in 2021; it originated in the United Kingdom. Installation artist Luke Jerram curated an exhibit that was first commissioned by the Gloucester Culture Trust in 2020.
Stallings got to meet Jerram at his studio in Bristol earlier this year. Jerram’s Gaia exhibit, an installation featuring images of the Earth’s surface measuring six meters in diameter, is currently on display at Blume Studios as part of the festival.
“Luke is just a fascinating character,” Stallings said. “He has these big, major things like ‘Gaia’ and the Moon, that there’s 50 of them going around tour all over the world at one time. That’s how he makes his money. Then he uses that to work on his more interesting projects. I think he’s really figured out this true balance of artistry.”
Having the ability to work freely on other projects allows Jerram to be available for this year’s festival. He’ll meet the poets behind the old and new installations during a poetry party scheduled for Sept. 19 from 6-8 p.m. on Levine Avenue of the Arts.
The gathering will give local artists a chance to meet with folks like Jerram who have made a good living as international artists.
Read more: Bree Stallings Discusses Blume Studios and Its Impact on Local Arts
Each year for CIAF, Stallings also hosts an Ask the Artist Anything panel. On Wednesday, Sept. 18 from 6-8 p.m., attendees will also have the opportunity to interact with Keith Tucker, director of Megafun, an Australian public art initiative.
“It’s not just like 101 questions,” she said. “It’s like 201. ‘How do you manage these fabrication studios in multiple cities across the world? Or what happened the first time you got sued?’ And stuff like that.”
Providing these opportunities for patrons to interact with international artists is part of the goal of CIAF: to bridge the gap between local and international artists.
“I think that it validates that relationship and helps to create a stronger network,” she said.
Organizers think big for Of Earth & Sky
When most people think of poetry, they think about worlds written on a piece of paper or in a book. But in order to take in the pieces included in Of Earth & Sky’s latest round, folks are going to need to think big. Stallings pointed out that one installation on the side of Knight Theater is 32 feet long and 6 feet high.
“If you’re in and around the festival locations, including our new Blume Studios, you can’t miss them,” she said.
Several of the installations can be found along Levine Avenue and in The Green across South Tryon Street. In the past, installations stayed up for the duration of the festival, with a few of them staying up longer. Stallings anticipates that being the case this year as well.
“There were some that stayed up on the Mint steps for over a year,” she said. “I think that that will probably still happen. Some will just remain.”
Allowing the pieces to remain as a permanent collection may have to suffice for future projects as Stallings isn’t completely sure that they will do this installation again. The first time Of Earth & Sky was featured in the festival, the world was still reeling from COVID, so this offered a different way for people to appreciate art while social distancing.
“We were trying to find ways to activate local creatives and to create programming,” she said. “So these virtual and in-person poetry workshops were a great solution to that because it really got people together to still safely talk about these things. And those forms were incredibly indicative of COVID times.”
“It’s not that it was a theme or that we were asking people to talk about it, but I think it’s just what was on everybody’s mind,” she continued. “And so that body of work all spoke to that. And so we wanted to do this again. We’re not out of COVID times, but the world has shifted and changed since then.”
With the change comes a different perspective on the installation itself. This year asked artists to ponder, “What do you think of when you think of space?” It’s a far cry from art centered on the pandemic. With that in mind, Stallings hopes this can be a recurring installation because people will always respond in different ways to different circumstances.
“It’s been really interesting to see just how thematically different the bodies of work are,” she said. “I can see it being something that we repeat because the community responds differently at different times to different things. It’s almost like a little time capsule of what the Charlotte creative community was thinking about at a time. And so it’s really special to see.”
