No Vacancy: Mock-Motel
Hosts Several Shades of Charlotte Arts
BY ANDY SMITH
Published: 2016.07.01
09:15 AM
INSIDE C3 LAB in South End, a project titled No Vacancy unfolds, but it
takes more than just a sentence to describe. The mock-motel constructed inside
the multi-purpose space is not simply an installation for visual art
and performance to collide. It’s an ever-evolving, interactive environment that
asks questions of every artist and attendee invited to touch it. It’s a
collaboration between the performance ensemble TAPROOT and Jeff Barninger
of Union Shop Studio that won’t stop
changing and hosting new artists until Aug. 28, its final day.
The original rooms constructed for the project are each
designed by a singular visual artist. To describe the specifics of
the motel, designed by Joann Galarza Vega, Micah Cash, Todd Stewart, Katie
Lloyd, and Barninger, would ruin the surprise as you walk through. And the
rooms are subject to change, anyway, as new artists use and react to the space.
(A hint: When you give an artist his or her own room to design without any
rules, results vary. Wildly.) Each week, new groups "activate" the
space in a different way. During the first week, the motel hosted
musicians, such as Erik Button, Dust & Ashes, and Patabamba. During the
following weeks, the Charlotte Storytellers led a group through each room,
using each backdrop as inspiration and after that, an artists' talk gave the
designers a space to explain their process. On Friday (July 1), DJ
Matt Conley spins tunes in the space, with a free print for the first 50
attendees from this week's featured artist, Brittany Little. (Tickets run $10
and include beer from sponsor Three Spirits Brewing.)
ANDY SMITH
Cash, a visual artist in multiple disciplines, recalls Barninger
approaching him with the idea for designing a room in the motel. “He said, ‘I
really want you to be a part of it because it’s not something very different
for you,’” Cah says. “Being studio-mates, we have a lot of discussion about
fostering creativity, stretching your legs, and always pushing yourself. He
said, ‘I don’t want new paintings or photographs or anything that you do. But I
know you’ll have ideas. This is a safe space, making art for art’s sake. And I
want you to have fun.’”
An app, created for iOS and Android, offers another element with
a tailored audio experience for each room, created by Transcend Charlotte.
While incoming artists may physically change and react to the space, members of
the public can also have a say. Comment cards carry suggestions and other notes
from visitors. (One, in reaction to a room that functions as a greenhouse,
simply asks, “Where are the hemp plants?”) Participants are invited to write on
the walls, move items around or sift through furniture. Some of the rooms hint
at a self-contained narrative, a story for audiences to piece together.
Overall, the result is a dialogue between artist and viewer, and at
times, between mediums.
In a video on the project’s Hatchfund page, TAPROOT
executive director Brianna Smith explains how this makeshift resort motel also
hosts a discussion about the city itself. NoVacancy currently uses the
crowdfunding site as a supplement to funding from Historic South End and Knight
Foundation, a campaign that extends through July 15. In the video, she
says part of the project’s aim is “showing off the diversity of this city, and
talking about the way in which it’s changing. As we’re seeing new buildings
going up everywhere, letting there be an artistic outlet for us processing all
of that.”
The next several weeks bring more artists reacting to and
interacting with the space, including Consciously Damaged Goods (Toby
Shearer/Megan Payne) on July 15, an in-progress performance from TAPROOT
(July 17), a summer camp with work created by Behailu Academy and TAPROOT
together (July 25-29), the exhibition for the camp on July 29, another
in-progress performance from TAPROOT (Aug. 7), and running Aug. 11-21, finalized
performances from TAPROOT.
