CMCA Events in Conjunction with the Camden International Film Festival

The Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA), in conjunction with the Camden International Film Festival, is presenting several public programs on Saturday, September 17, that go beyond traditional documentary formats and mediums, complimenting CIFF’s focus on Creative Nonfiction Storytelling.

The day’s programs at CMCA include a participatory installation in the courtyard by performance artist James Leonard, an experiential slide talk in ArtLab by sound artist Halsey Burgund, and the exhibition, Lauren Henkin: Second Nature, in the Bruce Brown and Guy D. Hughes galleries.

Artist James Leonard is bringing his “Tent of Casually Observed Phenologies” to the CMCA courtyard at 21 Winter Street, Rockland, from 10am to 6pm. An internationally exhibited artist, Leonard is traveling the country making one-day stops to give climate change divinatory readings inside a special, hand-sewn tent. Leonard explains, “I wanted to create a space for contemplation, where participants can slow down, articulate questions and find clarity. Climate change is a universal concern. Art is the perfect place for expressing and evaluating concern.”

Leonard recently finished a 2016 artist residency at MASS MoCA. In 2015, he was artist-in-residence at the Boston Center for the Arts. The CMCA installation will be his third stop in Maine in addition to Ogunquit and Portland. When not on the road, Leonard lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Musician and sound artist Halsey Burgund will speak Saturday afternoon at 3:30 pm in the CMCA ArtLab. Burgund’s installations and musical performances make extensive use of spoken human voice recordings as musical elements, alongside traditional and electronic instruments. Recently, his work has focused on evolving, contributory, location-based audio installations accessible via custom smartphone apps. In this talk, he will discuss his art practice and the technology he uses to implement his installations, as well as introduce a Rockland-based demonstration of his Roundware software platform created for Storyforms, the interactive program at the Camden International Film Festival.

Concurrently, the exhibition, Lauren Henkin: Second Nature, on view in the CMCA galleries, explores related ideas of documentation and perception of nature. Using a variety of photographic means, including digital, analog, film and video, artist Lauren Henkin, a recent resident of Rockland, raises questions about what is real in an increasingly interior, virtual world. 

All the events at CMCA on Saturday, September 17, are free and open to CIFF pass holders and CMCA members; public admission is $6, children under 12 are free. James Leonard’s installation in the courtyard is free and open to all.