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Public Art Inspired by Wailuku Storytellers (April 2022)
by Ace & Son Moving Picture Company, directed by Richard O'Connor and featuring artwork by Anne Beal, Alex Fyock, Natalie Greene, Alexandra Reshanov, Winnie Wu, Taisiya Zaretskaya A collection of 6 animated interpretations from our Talk Story series Premiered at the Historic ʻĪao Theater, exhibited at Wailuku Coffee Company and featured at the 2022 Maui Film Festival View our 6-minute project documentary HERE Inspired by ʻōlelo noʻeau #327: E lauhoe mai na waʻa; i ke kā, i ka hoe; i ka hoe, i ke kā; pae aku i ka `āina. (Everybody paddle the canoes together; bail and paddle, paddle and bail, and the shore is reached. Pitch in with a will, everybody, and the work is quickly done.) Artist Statement: Imagine a room crowded with voices of discovery, contemplation, concern, hope. The sounds envelop, invite you to join. Each point, a vibrating locus of community. Each person is a star in the ever-expanding constellation. |
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On Friday, April 1, 2022, we celebrated the unveiling of these animated shorts by Richard O'Connor and team inspired by our Talk Story project. In tandem with this film collection premiere was a presentation by Ball State University entitled Small Town, Big Stories. This free event took place at ʻĪao Theater (68 N Market St, Wailuku, HI 96793) from 4:00 - 5:30 pm. View a message from the director HERE. PHOTOS: Chris Sugidono
From the proposal: "One story we will animate representationally /narratively. In a second we will emphasize the text. The remaining four we will visualize in degrees of less figurative abstraction. These can form a unified exhibit in a single location and they can also be projected in modular fashion in multiple places."
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Artist Sample Work:
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About Ace & Son: Producer/Director Richard O'Connor has been making animated things for a quarter of a century. These have included theatrical features (Frank Oz' "The Stepford Wives", Merchant/Ivory's "White Countess", Rebecca Miller's "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"), documentaries ("Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns", "Chicago Ten", "Nursery University"), television (Nickelodeon's "Kablam!", Cartoon Network's "Big Bag", PBS' "Between the Lions") and commercials. He writes about things -usually animated things, but not always. He has taught at Parsons School of Design, NYU, University of the Arts, and Rhode Island School Design. Currently, he serves on the steering committee of Our Next 4 Years, an organization dedicated to producing progressive work for a better future.
The small crew at Ace & Son Moving Picture Company has been creating animation together for nearly a decade. Directed by Richard O'Connor, the studio focuses on independent, educational and documentary animation. Headquartered in a 19th Century stable a stone's throw from the Gowanus Canal, the studio prioritizes traditional drawing and material-based animation processes mixed with contemporary graphics and cinematic sensibility. MORE: https://www.aceandson.com/ |
AUDIO EXCERPTS:
In 2021, participants of our ST*BA storytelling exchange led by artist Leilehua Yuen were paired up with community kūpuna to engage in an open talk story session. Drawing on our training through StoryCorps DIY, pairings of two individuals met for a 40-minute, audio-recorded conversation with the goal of capturing an authentic moment of connection. This collection became the basis for an RFP (request for proposals) wherein artists were asked to bring a story to life through a work of visual, performing or experiential public art.
The conversation excerpts below were presented in April 2022 as digital animations by Richard and his team:
The conversation excerpts below were presented in April 2022 as digital animations by Richard and his team:
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PROJECT TRACKING:
Check out the comments on this Facebook post!
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Baldwin H.S. Workshop
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Baldwin Workshop Demo!
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As part of the Project Development process, we collected the following Wailuku photos from our community to help support Richard's artwork:
