Midsummer: a Summer Solstice Festival
June 17, 2023, 5pm-12am
Franconia Sculpture Park is pleased to present Midsummer: a Summer Solstice Festival on Saturday, June 17th from 5pm-9pm, followed by a telescopic night sky viewing with the Minnesota Astronomical Society at 10pm. This event is free and open to the public; parking is $10/vehicle.
Kristin Bauer, Reinventing the Wheel, 2021
Drawing on the popularity of Franconia’s 2021 Summer Solstice Performance Festival which was positively reviewed in MIT’s Performance Art Journal, Midsummer: a Summer Solstice Festival continues the Swedish tradition of celebrating the longest day of the year. Curated by Franconia’s outgoing Executive Director Ginger Shulick Porcella, Midsummer is a celebration of light and love, the festival will include performances throughout the late afternoon and evening by ten local performance artists, followed by a sunset observation and an intention-setting bonfire.
Franconia is thrilled to capstone the event with a special late-night viewing of a star-filled moonless new moon night, courtesy of the Minnesota Astronomical Society who will be providing telescopes for visitors. Other traditional Midsummer activities for visitors include creating flower crowns with Franconia’s native flowers, creating solstice suncatchers, and creating a collaborative solstice altar. Center City Swine Circus food truck will be on site during the festival.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
ss5pm-8pm
FREE SOLSTICE WORKSHOPS
Create a Solstice suncatcher or add an offering to a collaborative solstice altar. Workshops will be held on the front lawn of Franconia.
5pm-8pm
A KINSHIP OF RIVERS: WE ARE WATER
with Wang Ping
Visit Franconia’s Amphitheatre and join Wang Ping and friends Odd Prospect to contribute to her growing prayer flag installation.
5pm-8pm
PINETREE DERBY
with Brian Black & Ryan Bulis
Join Franconia Fellows Brian Black & Ryan Bulis for a fun and interactive “Pinetree Derby”, their artistic interpretation of a traditional pinewood derby race. The racetrack will be installed amongst the mounds of Franconia’s Amphitheatre.
5pm-8pm
PARTICIPATORY INSTALLATION
by Lacey Prpic Hedtke
Join artist Lacey Prpic Hedtke for a Slavic Midsummer/Kupala-inspired experience. Visitors can dip their feet in wading pools for a “Solstice Essence” containing floating wreaths, photos and flowers. Stop by the artist residency house anytime from 5-8pm to participate.
5pm-5:45pm
6pm-6:45pm
7pm-7:45pm
8pm-8:45pm
MIDSUMMER HERBAL BODY OILS WORKSHOP
with Suzanne Lindgren
Make an herbal oil infused with plants that bloom at Midsummer. You’ll start the oil in class and learn about different plants’ benefits for skin and body. You’ll bring the oil home and let it steep for a month, after which you can use it for massage and other self-care rituals. Each session is limited to 15 participants; sign-up day of at the Franconia Commons Visitor Center.
5pm-8pm
WORKSHOP
with Emma Wood
Join former Franconia artist-in-residence Emma Wood at the entrance to Franconia’s Forest to create a large, collaborative flower crown. Participants can also create their own flower pressings as a keepsake or positive manifestation of the day’s events. Emma has also created a moss canopy bed that visitors can lay and meditate on.
6pm-6:30pm
MAYPOLE WEAVING
with Kristin Bauer, open to all event attendees
Participate in traditional maypole weaving at the site of Kristin Bauer’s Counter (Balance).
8pm-8:30pm
IN MEDIA RES PERFORMANCE
by Kristin Bauer
Reconvene at Kristin Bauer’s Counter (Balance) for In Medias Res. In Medias Res is a performance piece that bridges symbolism of past to present, dark to light, masculine and feminine, solar and lunar into a whole, as ritualized gesture towards a spectrum-unified being and expanded consciousness. The title, derived from Horace’s “Ars Poetica” translates to “in the midst of things” and is a classical narrative technique defined as “the practice of beginning an epic or other narrative by plunging into a crucial situation that is a part of a related chain of events; the situation is an extension of previous events and will be developed in later action.”
Working with the existing maypole sculpture Counter/Balance she created in Franconia grounds Summer Solstice 2021 as the foundational anchor and gestural axis, Bauer brings thematics of her spiderweb performance ritual series Spinne begun in 2022 into In Media Res, merging shadow masculine and shadow feminine symbolism and process. As the sun in its peaked summer solstice state dips closer to the horizon on the night of a dark new moon, Bauer will weave the pattern of a sun dial in Caution tape around the maypole, indicating the sun and human methods for the demarcation and gauge of time as well as a metaphorical emanation of energy from center. As the sun is closer to its setting, Bauer shifts gestural pattern sequence of sun to moon, weaving a traditional spiderweb pattern along the ground, connecting the lengths of the sundial pattern.
The two part sequence of gestures of In Medias Res, enacted around Counter/Balance sculpture and incorporating thematics of both Counter/Balance performance and Spinne series, seeks to bridge gestural events in the creation of a larger narrative arc, merging embodied archetypal, mythological symbols of light and shadow, masculine and feminine, amidst a foundation of narrative structure and concept.
5pm-8pm workshop
8pm-9pm procession
ILLUMINATED INVASIVES
with WAYFINDING
Join WAYFINDING in creating Illuminated Invasives, sculptural lanterns made from natural and human-made invasives entangled in our environment. The sculptures will be lit at dusk for an evening procession throughout the park.
5pm-9pm
PILGRIMAGE: READING ROOM
Installation by Gabrielle Civil
Pilgrimage: reading room is a black feminist installation and invitation to loll, wander and activate a good book. Situated on the back porch of Franconia Commons, the installation will offer shade, respite, and inspiration for solstice revelers. It will serve as a threshold between interior and exterior worlds.
In the installation, visitors will encounter a specially curated collection of black feminist books, contemporary poetry, and other delights, while a monitor will play videos by bell hooks and other black feminist icons with closed-captioned subtitles (for access and to highlight reading).
Visitors can gain access to handling the books by offering a personal belonging to put on hold in the reading room while they read the book on-site or while wandering. This will help ensure proper care and return of the book and foster a spirit of energetic exchange. When a visitor brings back the book, the item will be returned. With the visitor’s permission, a photo will be taken of the book and the personal item together.
Visitors will be encouraged to slow down and take their time with the books and in the environment. They can hang out on the porch, reveling in the ambience, or take a book out for a walk to read next to a sculpture or under a tree. (What better way to enjoy the longest day of the year?) Visitors will be provided with original project scores: ways to activate the books for meditation, divination, or pop up performance. They can jot down favorite lines or record their wandering experiences in the reading room as well.
9pm-9:15pm
SUNSET OBSERVATION
Join in a participatory invitation to watch the sunset on the solstice. Please join on the Franconia Commons balcony.
9:15pm-9:30pm
ONE INTERVAL
with Sean Noyce
As a complement to his sculpture, 45.381620, -92.707344 (Solstice), Sean Noyce will create a ritualistic performance that focuses light energy to manifest intentions for the year. The performance will last approximately 10-15 minutes, during which viewers will stand outside a ring of light while he recites verses from a spell book.
9:30pm
INTENTION-SETTING BONFIRE
Join in a participatory invitation to write down your wishes and intentions for the year and dispel that which is no longer serving you through an intention-setting bonfire. Please join on the back patio of Franconia Commons.
10pm-midnight
NIGHT SKY VIEWING
with the Minnesota Astronomical Society
The Minnesota Astronomical Society will provide telescopes for visitors to view the night sky. Night sky viewing will occur at Nancy Nowacek’s “Sometimes Clouds Come Back this Way” installation in the park.
Wang Ping, Kinship of Rivers, 2022
Herbal Oils Workshop with Suzanne Lindgren
WAYFINDING, Illuminated Invasives
Gabrielle Civil, PILGRIMAGE: READING ROOM
Sean Noyce, 45.381620, -92.707344 (Solstice)
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Kristin Bauer is an artist born in MN, and based in Tempe, AZ and Los Angeles, CA. With a background in art, psychology, art therapy and writing, Bauer works with text, propaganda, social psychology and embodied narrative via symbolic meaning in interdisciplinary work including performance, sculpture, installation, video and painting. She has shared artwork in gallery, museum and public exhibitions and programs nationally and internationally. Currently her work can be seen at SMoCA in “Language in Times of Miscommunication” and de Sarthe Gallery “Return to Earth” accompanied by the international release of her first book “THIS IS LIKE THAT: Kristin Bauer” published by Hirmer in Munich, Germany, 2023.
Gabrielle Civil is a black feminist performance artist, poet, and writer, originally from Detroit, MI. She has premiered over fifty performance art works around the world including Translated Bodies (2023), the déjà vu—live (2022) and Jupiter (2021). Her performance memoirs include Swallow the Fish (2017), Experiments in Joy (2019), (ghost gestures) (2021), and the déjà vu (2022). Her writing has also appeared in New Daughters of Africa, DanceNotes and Experiments in Joy: a Workbook. Her performance stills and videos have been exhibited in California, Ohio, Minnesota, Mexico, Brazil, and online. A 2019 Rema Hort Mann LA Emerging Artist, she teaches at the California Institute of the Arts. The aim of her work is to open up space.
Lacey Prpic-Hedtke is a photographer, astrologer, and public artist in Powderhorn Park, Minneapolis. Her work is on the themes of history of place, protection, magic, and remembrance. Her work explores and is shown in unregulated and public spaces. In 2017 she opened The Future–a project and residency space that acts as a community center for artists, healers, and witches.
Wang Ping was born in Shanghai, China and came to the USA in 1985. A poet, writer, photographer, installation artist, and founder / director of Kinship of Rivers project; her multimedia exhibitions include “Kinship of Rivers: We Are Water,” “Behind the Gate: After the Flood of the Three Gorges,” and hundreds of installation exhibitions at schools, colleges, galleries, museums, lock and dams, and river confluences worldwide, including interactive installations at Mount Everest and Kilimanjaro. She has authored 15 award winning books of poetry, prose and translations. Her awards include the Minnesota Book Award, Eugene Kagen and Asian American Studies awards. She is Professor Emerita of English at Macalester College. She is recipient of NEA, Bush Artist Fellowship for poetry, McKnight Fellowship and Lannan Foundation Residency, Vermont Studio Art and others. She received the Distinct Immigrant Award in 2014, Venezuela International Poet of Honor in 2015, and is the National Beat Poetry Foundation’s Minnesota Beat Poet Laureate 2021-2023.
The Minnesota Astronomical Society instructs the public about astronomy through observational and informational platforms, lectures, forums, discussion groups, classes, publications, and other celestial observation events. They will be leading a night sky viewing for this event from 10pm-midnight.
Brian Black and Ryan Bulis have been working collaboratively in Southern California since 2004. This artist team appropriates iconic activities and challenges preconceptions of masculinity, athleticism and identity. Their assisted sculptures are exaggerated archetypes taken from the workplace, sports and pedestrian life. By adjusting the familiar and pushing the level of absurdity in their art making, they invite the audience to reconsider the sanctity and boundaries of the art institution. Their collective work allows their independent objectives and concerns to converge into what has simply become known as Brian & Ryan. Brian & Ryan are current Mid-Career Fellows at Franconia Sculpture Park.
Suzanne Lindgren makes potions and ‘zines and will be leading a midsummer herbs workshop. Participants can make herbal oils using local St. John’s wort, yarrow and mugwort. Visitors can leave with their own vials and instructions for how to activate these plants during the summer months.
Sean Noyce was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the globe at venues such as Scope Art Show, Miami and New York; Supermarket Art Fair, Stockholm; SPRING/BREAK Art Show, LA; Galerie Pompom, Sydney, Australia; (e)merge Art Fair, Washington, D.C.; Texas Contemporary, Houston; QiPO, Mexico, City; The San Diego Art Institute; Temple University, Rome; Torrance Art Museum; University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; Oxnard College; and the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island. Noyce’s work has been featured in The Washington Post; Artforum; Fabrik Magazine; FULL BLEDE; New York Daily News; Playboy; Voyage LA; Only In Hollywood; and Flavorpill. Sean is a current Mid-Career Fellow at Franconia Sculpture Park.
WAYFINDING is a civic project manager, artist, and educator skilled at working with public institutions and community organizations on projects of social, artistic, and ecological importance. She leads projects that provide people the opportunity to make personal, lasting connections with public and natural spaces. She is the Great River Passage Fellow for the City of Saint Paul. Formerly, she served as Senior Program Specialist for Chicago Park’s Culture and Nature Unit and spent 9 years as the Associate Artistic Director for Chicago’s Redmoon Theatre, a company that created free public spectacles providing opportunities for engagement, community building, and recognition of the possibility for change. She holds an M.Ed. from Harvard University with a focus in Arts and Education.
Emma Wood is a nonbinary, Swedish-American, arts facilitator, interdisciplinary artist and emerging curator based in Mni Sota Makoce/ Minnesota on Dakhóta Land. They work with intersections of mycelium and glass. Bridging between science and art to investigate their personal relationship with grief. Their work is on a transition exploring the duality of ephemeral and archival. Wood pursues citizen science in mycology (specifical mycoremediation). Wood is currently exploring temporary and biodegradable processes that specifically benefit the environment through mycoremediation. Utilizing fungi as an artistic medium to develop projects with a multidisciplinary approach, Wood’s work investigates their identity, Swedish heritage, environmentalism, and grief. Their work is inspired by personal experiences as well as external influences of temporary existence, the process of decomposition, and life cycles. Emma most recently was a 2021 Emerging Artist-in-Residence at Franconia Sculpture Park.
This activity is made possible in part by a grant from the East Central Regional Arts Council with funds appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature from its general fund.