Kirsten Leenaars

Rising and Falling Actions: (Everything is imprinted forever with what it once is) was developed and during The Jackman Goldwasser Residency at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. Serving as: story board, backdrop, game plan, blue print, key words, mind map, for the science fiction video: “The Invasion of the Hairy Blobs”, shot during that same time period. During this residency Leenaars worked in every corner of the Art Center to develop a participatory science fiction movie, Invasion of the Hairy Blobs. Conversations with staff and board members, teachers, students and visitors about their engagement with the Art Center formed the basis for the script, characters, and storyline. Leenaars invited participants to play themselves in a fictional depiction of the Art Center. She and her crew shot the film on-site, making use of the existing architecture of the building in combination with site-specific props and set design. Over the course of her residency, Leenaars periodically amended and changed the mural in Gallery 1, part of the exhibition Hairy Blob curated by Adelheid Mers, to function both as backdrop and storyboard for the movie. HPAC and the Invasion of the Hairy Blobs takes as its focus the Art Center’s mission, looking ahead to its 75th anniversary, which will take place in 2014. Leenaars explores the stakes, the participants, and the ambitions of an institutional space. The project imagines the Art Center as a tightly-run ship on a mission with an exciting voyage ahead, halted by a group of mysterious furry visitors who seem to take over, making time seem to disappear…