Snowdrift

“Snowdrift” (a collaboration between Glenn Goldberg, Amber Scoon and eventually members of the community) has recently met twice in New Haven, CT. Both times we held two-hour long conversations which were recorded and transcribed. Our first meeting took place in the New Haven Green, located just outside of the gates of Yale University. This park is inhabited by people in close proximity to, but not involved with, Yale. They are essentially a community of diverse and local, often disenfranchised, people. Our second meeting took place in the Yale Art Gallery.

Snowdrift chose New Haven because it is a mid-point between us, but also because of the extremes that are presented in New Haven. We travel two hours each way for meetings that last about two hours. There are two people in Snowdrift with a two hour travel bracket that surrounds two hour meetings in a city with two distinct demographics. Yale sits at the top of an American academic and artistic hierarchy with a fraught Ivy League history. Just outside of its gates a community exists that is separate from Yale’s activities and culture. We are interested in investigating such gaps.

In the New Haven Green, we explored ideas about art’s relationship to health, politics, economy and self-worth. In the Yale Art Museum, we spent time with non-western collections and discuss their place in the Western canon of art history. We are sharing ideas about life-filled art versus intentionally non-animated art.

Snowdrift intends to publish these ideas in the second edition of “Question Mark” (published by Atropos Press). In addition, we are also creating an event that will allow these ideas to be seen in real spaces, without words, in the form of a walk or parade. Snowdrift will make and carry what we consider to be live art objects.