Collaborative Concepts Farm Project 2017, the latest edition of the annual event in Garrison, will again serve to encourage experimental art.
Starting Sept. 2, the event will bring together sculpture, performance art, theater and other cultural presentations with the herd of cattle that calls Saunders Farm home.
Here’s how the advance materials describe the event:
“Collaborative Concepts is all about large sculptural art works. Think Storm King, but with a herd of cattle. The combination of the two makes a great interaction of animals with art.
“Experimental art is encouraged. The result of combining art with animals, however, is hard to predict. It never creates repetition, only surprises and discoveries of how the two interact with each other.
“Collaborative Concepts offers opportunities that afford artists the freedom to create whatever they want, whether that is creating something grand, or silly or experimental, and it even gives them permission to fail. Throw in some fun challenges – the huge scale of the farm, weather and ‘cow proofing’ – and the show becomes even more irresistible.”
Visitors are invited to tour the exhibitions and attend events, which include a Sept. 2 opening reception and a mid-run reception Sept. 23.
The opening will feature a program of music and performance art from 2 to 6 p.m. in the fields and music onstage from 3:30 to 6 p.m.
Marcy B. Freedman, who is curating the performance art for the ninth consecutive year, shared details of this year’s effort, “Performance Art on the Farm: In Times Like These.” Six different live performances will address, she says, “the challenging times in which we live.”
The installation project continues through Oct. 28. Visitors are welcome from 10 a.m. to dusk, daily. Admission is free. Saunders Farm is at 853 Old Albany Post Road.
For more, visit collaborativeconcepts.org.
– Mary Shustack
