Northampton’s Fun Sized Festival to discover scale, consideration and public area

Fun Sized: A Tiny Public Art Festival will showcase tiny murals, sculptures, installations and surprising inventive interventions tucked into ignored corners and on a regular basis areas all through downtown Northampton on Sept. 26 and 27.
Photo credit score: Bright Matter Studio

NORTHAMPTON — In a world the place life by no means slows down, two native artists wish to seize folks’s consideration spans with a novel tackle the standard artwork competition.

On Sept. 26 and 27, the town’s first tiny public artwork competition, Fun Sized, will provide the general public a citywide scavenger hunt that transforms downtown into an interactive expertise of miniature public artwork.

The competition invitations guests to “slow down, look closer and rediscover” downtown Northampton by way of 16 miniature, site-specific artworks hidden all through the town.

Using a free printed or digital map, guests will seek for tiny murals, sculptures, installations and surprising inventive interventions tucked into ignored corners and on a regular basis areas. Along the best way, members gather clues that result in the competition’s remaining hidden art work: the Golden Moment.

Artists Kim Carlino and Michael Crigler, who additionally co-founded Bright Matter Studio, informed Reminder Publishing that they brainstormed a brand new strategy to get artists to convey miniature works to downtown, scattering them all through storefronts, sidewalks, alleyways and ignored city areas.

“We just brainstormed it and figured, how can we make this work? We tied in with a lot of things that we’re interested in with our own work, just around how we see, sense of perception, slowing down, disrupting your daily movement, that little hamster wheel of life, by putting art in unexpected places,” defined Carlino.

Crigler added that the scavenger hunt side goals to draw teams of individuals downtown. Using the map information, members will use references to iconic landmarks on the town to assist them discover an set up. A marker will then notify them if they’re in an set up’s neighborhood.

“We want to create a sense of wonder, and we really want people to slow down and enjoy being in the moment, because I think that is such a thing that we’re already in the process of losing. And by being with friends and just being able to slow down and say, ‘hey, this is what I’m doing, and I don’t need to look at a phone. I have this physical map, and I’m walking around and doing this thing,’ it creates a joyful experience, and that’s what we’re all about. We want to create this beautiful experience,” Crigler stated.

Carlino defined that the miniature nature of those installations calls for consideration, as it could actually exploit the present structure downtown. It’s a stark distinction to the standard public exhibit, the place she usually sees “drive-by viewing” of the work.

“The attention span is so shortened, and people don’t even stop as they’re walking by a thing, and often, they’ve got their phone, and they’re walking by quickly and never really looking,” Carlino stated. “So built into the whole thing is a process of you have to really think about each one, you got to try and find the thing, and then they’re small, so you have to get up close.”

Crigler stated the 2 artists wish to provide viewers of all ages a glimpse into grand creativity on a small scale.

“I think because it’s miniature, it tends to be skewed where people think it’s a thing for kids, but these works that are being displayed are very curated, and these are working artists that are professional artists, and they’re doing very high-level installation work,” Crigler stated.

Aside from Carlino and Crigler, Fun Sized was additionally developed with committee members Alison Curphey, Natalee Dias, Mike Bray, Justin Brown and Clara Barhart. The competition is made doable by way of help from the Mass Cultural Council, Northampton Arts Council, the town of Northampton, and quite a few native companies and neighborhood companions.

They acquired over 60 proposals for the competition however needed to slender that quantity all the way down to 16 with the assistance of the competition’s committee.

“Our committee loved them. They were such a huge help because we needed help with so much good stuff to go through and figure it out and to curate it,” Crigler added. “I think we left it intentionally open because we wanted to see what would come through … We want people to see something or not see it and walk past it a few times before you walk back around and are like, ‘woah I didn’t even notice the little thing up there.’”

Festival co-founder Kim Carlino scouts places in numerous corners of downtown Northampton to host the miniature installations within the inaugural Fun Sized competition.
Photo credit score: Bright Matter Studio

The inaugural competition will function work by native and regional artists Adam O’Day, Chelsea Dupois, Cicely Carew, Dina Gjertsen, Erika Zekos, Eva Pushkova, Felipe Ortize, Fred and David Zinn, John Higby, M. Rudder, Maggie Nowinski, Mary Cleary, Michael Medeiros, Raishad Glover, Sally Curcio and Scout Cuomo.

The competition will even function two tents: one at Thornes Marketplace and one in entrance of Urban Outfitters, the place attendees can choose up their maps and magnifying glasses, and meet and be part of the competition’s artists.

Each set up web site will even function a QR code the place folks can learn concerning the work and hearken to an audio clip of every artist explaining their set up. Each location’s signal will even highlight a letter that can correspond to a quantity on the map. Collecting all 15 letters will unveil the situation of the ultimate set up.

The competition’s first day will even coincide with the Northampton Jazz Festival, making a vibrant weekend the place artwork, music, native companies and public areas come collectively all through downtown. By highlighting the function of small-scale artwork in modern apply, Carlino and Crigler hope attendees can expertise these installations alongside an already loaded two-day stretch within the metropolis.

“With contemporary art, I think people can feel like it can be exclusionary sometimes, and how do they find their own place in it? And I think that is the beauty of public art; It’s out in context. You can just be going about your daily business and see a thing and have an experience,” Carlino stated. “My hope is that people can be like, ‘oh, this feels like this is for me. Oh, I get that. Oh, that’s cool that can be art.’ Demystifying it a little bit.”

Crigler added, “There’s a lot of this real guerrilla-style art that is happening in the world, and because it is meant for all people and it’s so inclusive in public space, there’s risks that are being taken that maybe aren’t being taken in the gallery context or in the museum context, and that’s always been really inspiring for me.”

According to Carlino and Crigler, the competition’s artwork will probably be on view all through October.

Festival co-founder Michael Crigler scouts places in numerous corners of downtown Northampton to host the miniature installations to within the inaugural Fun Sized competition.
Photo credit score: Bright Matter Studio