Attendant

Attendant is an ongoing, participatory project by artist Hannah Burr. Attendant invites participants to notice personal experiences of sound, smell, sight, interaction, and experience. For the Summer 2012 week-long intensive, Burr collaborated with eleven Urbano teens to develop new applications, environments, and perspectives on this project. Teen artists took on the roles of documentary photographer, performer, and ‘scribe’ (keeping track of each day’s performances and collected data).

Urbano’s students performed Attendant at local public sites around Urbano, including Ula Cafe, sites along the Southwest Corridor Park, and the Stony Brook MBTA Station. After each ‘field session’ the group discussed the experience of being part of and awake to the situation, but also how performing and photographing sets the artist apart and generates unusual dynamics in public.

The ‘Conversation’ was a surprising development for Attendant, emerging on Day 3 of the five-day intensive. Participants placed a block for every unspoken thought, resulting after ten minutes in a mass of blocks: of all that went unsaid, built collaboratively, thought by thought. Attendant has previously been hosted by the Currier Museum, NH; Ganser Gallery PA; MIT’s Sloan School; Brandeis University; and Crevice Gallery, Provincetown MA.