The Curators' and Educators' Cell Phone Tour
Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Square offers a cell phone tour. This tour gives interpretive and behind-the-scenes insight into the works in the exhibit.
To participate, look for the phone symbol next to the work of art, and dial the number listed.
The cell-phone tour is provided free of charge. However, the charges specified in your contract with your cell-phone provider still apply. The quality of cell-phone reception in Mount Vernon Place will depend upon your carrier.
You can also find the scripts from the Curators’ and Educators’ Cell Phone Tour below.
A special thanks goes our narrators: George Ciscle, Regina DeLuise, Kerr Houston, Ben Luzzatto, Ledelle Moe-Marshalls, and Will Noel.
Introduction to the tour
Welcome to the cell phone tour for Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Square. Curators and educators from the Maryland Institute College of Art's Exhibition Development Seminar created this guide to tell you about the concepts at play in the exhibit. This is the first time in ten years that the Exhibition Development Seminar has curated a project using student artists.
We worked closely with the Walters Art Museum in developing this exhibit, and encourage you to visit their show, Maps: Finding Our Place in the World. The exhibit at the Walters focuses on more traditional mapping in history, while Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Square explores contemporary approaches to mapping. For more information on this exhibit, listen to the rest of the cell phone tours—you'll find the numbers listed on the labels for the works throughout Mount Vernon Place. Please grab a catalog, and explore our website, www.mica.edu/beyond. Enjoy the show.
Daniel Allende (pronounced Al- eee- en- day)
Mapping History
Historian Daniel Allende (pronounced al-eee-en-day) also known as the artist Dan Allende (pronounced ah-yen-day), plays with the idea of persona. Around the squares of Mount Vernon Place, you may have seen some of the nine cement and faux bronze plaques that tell various histories. If you think some of the information on them is inaccurate, you're right! Artist Dan was fascinated by the way each generation reinterprets history, resulting in constantly evolving depictions of the past. He researched the history of Mount Vernon Place, and switched personas to be historian Daniel Allende (ali-eee-en-day). As Daniel he recounted real, alternative, and false histories playing on people's perceptions of what did and could have happened. History maps the past, and Dan's reinterpretations re-map the whens and the hows for the public. As you read the information on his plaques, you can also participate in a special cell phone tour. When you do this, consider your own ability to separate fact from fiction.
Rachel Faller
The Knitted Bridge
Rachel was inspired by the idea of linking together communities by the history of knitting. In the construction of this rope bridge, she wanted to represent in literal form the idea of bridging communities. Rachel recognized a lack of things for children to do in the parks of Mount Vernon Place, and used the rope bridge to activate the space for children. The bridge functions as playground equipment, and issues of safety were a major consideration during the design and construction phases of this piece. She reached out to local Baltimore neighborhoods with a series of knitting workshops, where she worked alongside participants to knit the rope used in this literal bridge. Her aim was to bridge together the communities that made the bridge with Mount Vernon, the community in which the bridge is installed. At the workshops she taught others to knit, passing along a skill that she feels is too often limited along gender and class lines. Hemp rope was used in the making of the rope bridge for its strength and durability. In fact, even George Washington said, “Make the most of the Indian hemp seed.” And grew hemp himself on his Mount Vernon farm in Virginia.
Emma Fowler
Right, Left, or Straight
Emma, an avid bike rider, often goes on bike trips without destinations. She and her friends play a game as they bike through the streets of Baltimore. With each stop-sign or stoplight one of them chooses their next direction at random: go right, left, or straight. The game allows them to discover and explore the city by getting lost on purpose. The game’s goal is not the destination but rather the experience of the journey itself. Emma’s piece, also called Right, Left, or Straight are several hand held, 3 dimensional alternative maps that participants can take with them as a keepsake. These spherical maps suggest directions of travel that do not adhere to the familiar and often confining grid of the city, encouraging us to follow an imaginary route that can be applied to any landscape. To make these 3D ceramic maps, Emma had to create over 100 every week. She used a process called slip-casting, which is a technique for the mass-production of ceramics, especially for shapes not easily made on a wheel. A liquid clay body slip is poured into plaster molds and allowed to form a layer, the cast, no the inside cavity of the mold, resulting in a delicate hollow form.
Lee B. Freeman
Framing Mount Vernon Place
Lee, inspired by public installation artist Christo, literally highlights in gold the perimeter of all four squares of Mount Vernon Place. To do this, Lee wraps then entire park in gold chain-link fence. This piece was designed to have two stages. At the beginning of March, the fence defines a boundary and is locked to keep the public out. This, he hopes, will force a space previously taken for granted, to be re-activated and transformed into a framed art space. Access is gradually given back to the public as the gates of the fences open in Mid-march. Then the fences themselves are ceremoniously taken down revealing the squares re-transformed into an outdoor art gallery, reminding us of what it has been since the 19th century.
Um-Gi Lee
Exploring Mount Vernon Place
Um-Gi Lee took inspiration from Japanese souvenir subway stamp cards, international passports, and the historic architecture of Mount Vernon Place. The take-away stamp collection aspect of her installation of miniatures asks the viewer to complete a map she has started. Reorienting the scale of the architecture of Mt. Vernon Place makes the monumental accessible, allowing the viewer to notice details that often go overlooked. From Seoul, Korea, Um-Gi has a unique interpretation of Western architecture, and on communicating ideas and concepts. Language and the barrier it can create has been a difficult part of her process. Um-Gi’s attention to detail invites the viewer to treat the architecture with the same degree of attention. Perhaps you never noticed the complexity of the gothic spire on the west side of Mount Vernon Methodist Church. Um-Gi makes it possible for the viewer to investigate such details through her re-appropriation of size and scale.
Rebecca Nagle
New Outfits
Rebecca says she is attempting to remap the geo-political landscape of the park, but also of practice of monumentalizing historic figures itself. She held a series of community workshops where she educated groups about the histories of General Lafayette, John Eager Howard, George Peabody, Severn Teackle Wallis, and Roger B. Taney. In the workshops, Rebecca worked with community members to decorate cloaks that would then drape the statues of these men. Through this, Rebecca gives the community members a voice in Mount Vernon Place, and the power to relate to and access these previously esoteric historical figures. And it also monumentalizes their work as citizens of Baltimore. The cloaks rotate on a two-week schedule to ensure that no damage to the bronze statues is caused by condensation or abrasions from the fabric. Rebecca worked closely with prestigious conservators from two of Baltimore’s most respected museums.
Rebecca Nagle
Block Party Bench Project: Mount Vernon Bench
This bench is one of five benches decorated in the Block Party Bench Project. Rebecca facilitated workshops to decorate these benches, and most of these workshops are at the The Boundary Block Party held for the communities of MICA, Bolton Hill, Upton, Sandtown and Madison Park on April 19th . The other benches will be installed permanently in public parks in West Baltimore, and are decorated with cards also made at the Block Party. The purpose of the cards is to represent interactions between the people who participated at the Block Party.
MacKenzie Peck
The Park
MacKenzie was enthralled by the way no two people ever experience anything in exactly the same way. She uses video as her medium in this piece to allow every viewer to review a singular occurrence of walking through the squares of Mount Vernon Place, and to recognize that experience as shared. Digital media is the new terrain of contemporary mapping. In comparison to the mapping techniques of the last century involving trained map makers and cartographers, the utility of technologies such as GPS and GoogleMaps makes mapping into a more publicly accessible practice. Mackenzie’s video works as a close-up detail of this contemporary trend. She brings the viewer to the intimacy of street level to reflect on their own route, mirrored as an aesthetic experience. When you go on a walk, what do you notice? Are you on autopilot? Do you find yourself tuning out your surroundings? Do you always take the same paths to the same places? Do you explore, get lost, or find your own way?
Dana Solano and Michael Ries
Resonance
Dana and Mike believe people have a specific emotional and physiological relationship to the place they are in. Their piece asks participants to reflect on how they feel about Mount Vernon, where they are, and where they live. Dana and Mike use Chaldni patterns to explore sound as a medium for mapping emotional and psychological responses to place. Chladni patterns are changeable sand patterns that occur when sound causes sand on top of a speaker to change in correspondence to the frequency. Through an additional cell phone component you can participate by calling and responding to questions on an off-site computer server. This server has a program, which changes the sound frequency allowing you to see the sand pattern change before your eyes, in real time. Resonance allows you to see in the physical vibrations of sound a map of emotions that are usually invisible.
Jonathan Taube
Baltimore Sweep Action Parade and A Monument to Collective Effort
Jonathan organized the Baltimore Sweep Action Parade to bring communities from four cardinal direction of the city of Baltimore into its central neighborhood, Mount Vernon. Baltimore Sweep Action Parade’s main event is March 29th when Baltimore communities, marching bands and other parade performers, follow a planned parade route working together to beautify the streets and sidewalks of the city. The Monument to Collective Effort in the South square of Mount Vernon Place holds the waste collected during the parade; the waste and the brooms are displayed together in this monument representing a relic of the journey and the efforts of the participants, and their realized vision.