The Oregon Fringe Festival website "About Us" page describes the festival as "Each spring, the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University produces the Oregon Fringe Festival, a multi-day event celebrating bold, innovative, and outrageous creativity in the arts. The festival is first and foremost a crossroads for emerging artists and professional practitioners to engage with each other’s creative work. Our roster includes music, theatre, visual art, film, physical theatre, dance, circus, spoken word, and more, as well as panels and workshops for students and the greater community. Now in its tenth year, the Oregon Fringe Festival is aligned with the rich history of The Fringe, an international movement exploring our innate creative spirit."
The performance is a combination of ritual crochet-making (Marieke) and mural installation with the participation of the Ashland public on site and around the world in general via Zoom.
What's up with the title? Those considered to have disabilities.......wait...... and wait some more for most everything. This performance eliminates the space/time (waiting) between concept and creative outcome. Waiting for the Meteor is a durational interactive performance which in addition to altering/condensing time explores the potential of various collaborative/creative/supported interactions using available technology in support of onsite ritual/work. Periodically over 2 days the artist Mareike Mirsch will crochet via a publicly available Zoom link that we hope to project in the CatalystAshland site simultaneously with the mural intervention taking place. Viewers will have the option of observing the artist at work and/or interacting with her (if acceptable to artist), perhaps asking technical questions, or contributing to the mural in response to Marieke’s work. All sessions with Marieke will be supported by the artist Rachel Mulder who has collaborated with Marieke over the past 8 months.
On Site at Catalyst Ashland) Artist/Muralist Eileen Hinckle will act as a facilitator encouraging and supporting participants to translate Marieke's crochet forms from the Zoom feed into/onto a mural.
PR from the Oregon Fringe Festival
We are thrilled that the Oregon Fringe Festival has awarded "Meteor" mainstay Mareike Mirsch with a $1000 Fellowship for influencing and participating in our performance... it is also a recognition of her creative career through the years!
Each year, we award honoraria to artists whose creative work is boundary-breaking, unconventional, excites discussion, and explores different perspectives of a held position, principle, and/or belief. After very careful thought and consideration, this year’s selections include creative work from a very diverse group of artists....
- Gesture, Jade Hails
- Moving the Mountain, Abby Palen
- Resilience, Mia Raye Smith
- To Myself, To Myself, To You, To Myself, Eric Braman
Waiting for the Meteor, Bruce Burris, Mareike Mirsch, and Eileen Hinckle
In the coming days we will be sharing more about each of these incredible artists and what they will be presenting at this year's festival. Until then, STAY TUNED!
Artist Credit: Jade Hails, Abby Palen, Mia Raye Smith, Eric Braman, Bruce Burris, Mareike Mirsch, and Eileen Hinckle
Photo Credit: Jade Hails, Abby Palen, Mia Raye Smith, Eric Braman, Bruce Burris, Mareike Mirsch, and Eileen Hinckle