The Invisible City was a 5-week, site-specific, experimental arts lab exploring public space in Downtown Tucson. The project, which I co-directed with Lisa Bowden, was collaboration between NEW ARTiculations Dance Theatre and Kore Press, a Tucson-based feminist press.
The project brought together over 20 women artists to create texts, dances, sound pieces, film, photographs, and drawings within the Tucson’s urban core. It was an experiment in how to merge the creative processes of artists working in distinct genres in the city where we live. A city slow to revitalize. A city that has historically valued highways and tract housing developments over central plazas, affordable live/workspaces, and desert landscape. A city in which public space became decentralized, dehumanized, and “invisible.”
Through writing, dance, music, and visual art, we envisioned and utilized new workspaces out of vacant parking lots, city plazas, and sidewalks. Our “laboratory experiment” culminated with a performance incorporating video projection, spoken word, live music, and modern dance on the roof of the Pennington Street Parking Garage.
See videos, more images, writings, and lab results from The Invisible City at www.invisiblecityproject.wordpress.com.
photos by Krista Niles