This weekend I took part in my first Public Arts Festival at ODU. Instigated in 2021 and hosted by the Barry Art Museum in response to the pandemic, the Festival is an opportunity for folks across the ODU and Hampton Roads communities to explore art, science, and other topics through outdoor installations, interactive engagement, and more. This year, we showcased the design group Pneuhaus, with featured artworks taking inspiration from different ecosystems. Let’s check it out!
About Pneuhaus
Based in Rhode Island, Pneuhaus is an art design studio that creates immersive, inflatable sculptures. These works are inspired by physics, biology, and craft. Every work represents a distinct biosphere, with each piece engaging the natural world through form and function.
This year’s festival featured three distinct biomes from Pneuhaus. Inside the Museum, suspended from the balcony, we displayed Cloud Lights. These abstract forms channel moving clouds while their constantly changing lights evoke a rainbow of light. Outside the Museum, visitors could engage with two different biomes: Fabric Prism, and Canopy. Fabric Prism takes inspiration from caves and invites visitors to immerse themselves in a light-filled shelter. Canopy is a bicycle-powered grove of abstract, tree-like sculptures. By riding bicycle-powered generators, visitors transform the grove by opening and closing its branches and changing its lighting. Through this engagement, visitors can not only take part in Canopy’s kinetic qualities but can also experience first-hand the power of green electricity production.
About the Festival
Inflatable art isn’t the only thing happening at the Public Arts Festival. In addition to the art installation, the Museum also hosts an array of other activities, including outdoor glass-blowing demonstrations from the Chrysler Museum glass studio, biorobots, and local vendors selling wares. The Art Festival is also distinctive for being an evening event. Since all the featured installations are illuminated, it’s best experienced at night. As a result, the Festival has the feel of a night carnival with a STEAM bent, with visitors being able to take part in telescope stargazing as well as buying food and viewing art.
The biggest change the Museum made to this year’s Festival was its duration. In the past, the Festival has been a three-night event, plus a VIP opening, making for a total of four nights. This year though, to preserve the mental and physical well-being of staff, we reduced the number of public nights to two, with the VIP opening bringing the total length to three evenings. Even with the shorter runtime though, the Festival makes for a long evening, with each festival night running four hours, plus all the prep leading up to it.
My Role in the Pneuhaus Festival
Although I’ve known about the Barry Art Museum’s festival for years, this is the first time I participated in it. When I was contractor with limited hours, my time was too finite to contribute meaningfully to the Festival’s planning and execution. Now that I’m full-time though, it was time for me to step up and contribute my share.
For this year’s Festival, my role was to tell our visitors about the upcoming expansion. After spending an afternoon setting up my booth, I spent the evening talking visitors through the coming changes. To illustrate the changes, I used conceptual drawings to walk guests through the expansion gallery by gallery. It was fun watching people light up when I showed them the number of new galleries we’ll be building. I also liked seeing their excitement at the new classroom and studio spaces we’re planning for the education wing.
I also reassured visitors that although we’ll be closed temporarily, we’ll still be engaged with the community. We’ll do this by continuing to host the Festival, in addition to pop-up exhibits and other activities. My role in the Festival may not have been the flashiest or the most exciting compared to the glass blowing demos or the artworks themselves, but I still played an important role by telling visitors about our future plans.
My Thoughts on the Festival
I’ve taken part in special events throughout my museum career. From Shelburne Museum’s trick-or-treat event in late October, to the Roswell Museum’s annual Chalk Art Festival, every museum I’ve worked at has found creative ways to engage the community at large. What I like about the Barry Art Museum’s event is the timing. Because it takes place at night, it feels like a family-friendly rave with a healthy dose of STEAM education.
That said, as much as I appreciate museum events, as an employee my feelings about them are admittedly mixed. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a wonderful means of engaging visitors in new or unexpected ways. You also can’t beat them in terms of attendance numbers. That said, planning and operating them successfully demands a momentous amount of work for all staff and volunteers, from the months of planning to the hours spent setting up and taking down the event itself. Being the introvert I am also means that interacting with visitors continuously for several hours always leaves me feeling drained. Still, I’m willing to contribute my share because I know these kinds of events are important. Since my role in this year’s Festival was modest, moreover, I can’t complain, especially when I got to witness first-hand what a good time people were having.
That said, I’m glad we’ll have a year to rest and prepare for the next one. And although I can’t share anything yet, I can tell you that it will be another delightful event.