“Fort Words” was a short term art set up produced at Fort Worden in the tumble of 2020.
Designed by New York-primarily based artist Aaron Asis, the job experimented with new methods to engage guests with the vivid history and the unique architecture of the park.
The installation was shorter-lived, long lasting but a handful of months.
On the other hand, new walls are speaking now. The artist has the chance to re-develop the “Fort Words” expertise at Northwind Art’s Grover Gallery.
For the month of March, website visitors will have a probability to master more about the artwork that, only a quick time in the past, graced Fort Worden’s battery partitions.
Very first Breath
Asis displays work in unanticipated destinations, advertising and marketing obtain and consciousness through various cities. His perform is targeted on sharing artwork activities outdoors of art areas.
With inventive gestures intended to inspire thought and to create public options for other people to study, check out, and share, the “Fort Words” venture was a normal continuation of this artwork.
“It was incredible,” the artist explained of his challenge.
“Anybody who has the opportunity to go someplace particular for the to start with time … you never fail to remember what that feels like. The 1st next … pretty much the 1st day I was there, I was strolling around and it was just unachievable not to test to do a thing meaningful.”
For Asis, the task was about “celebrating the background and importance of the fort alone, the men and women who were there, the tales that were being now there.”
“It was seriously just employing artwork as an justification to relive some of the iterations of the fort’s historical past,” he discussed.
The general public artwork installation series at the park consisted of 23 special prices, all rendered in a navy-inspired stencil text.
The phrases were being decided on from a lot more than 600 oral histories, collections of historic texts, as very well as, general public testimonies to give a voice to the battery internet sites.
Each and every installation shared a various tale relating to the overlooked bunkers for persons to explore, contemplate, and reflect upon.
Just about a love letter to Fort Worden, the “Fort Words” installation celebrated the current construction and tried to highlight the historic impacts the fort had. Asis sought out to “help individuals better take pleasure in and recognize how sizeable it is in our yard.”
“Personally, I experience like an invited guest to this get together,” he mentioned. “I just think it is this kind of a impressive issue to tap into. It is a amazing deal with to just sit back and try to allow it converse and enable it be significant and allow it be bold.”
“Not each individual location you arrive across has that embodied power and the fort just has it. And it’s magic,” he additional.
New Lifestyle
For the artist, the new show at the Grover Gallery is about more than just giving the installation a second life. It’s usually been about telling the tales of the fort, he spelled out.
“So probably this get the job done isn’t going on on the fort walls,” but now site visitors have the room to dive into the soul of the project, emerging themselves in the documentation and where the textual content came from.
“It’s been a enjoyable possibility to continue on to convey to the story in a distinctive way and a different venue,” Asis explained.
The “Fort Words” venture online video will premiere along with the show. A ebook about the undertaking with photographic spreads and track record about the set up destinations and tales will also be unveiled.
A workshop taught by the artist will coincide with the March show.
The two-section on-line workshop, “Access and Consciousness: The Artwork of Creating Website-precise Installations in the Community Realm,” will target on the apply of just that: web page-unique installations.
It will be held through Zoom on Thursday, March 25 and Thursday, April 1, and will introduce the procedures, illustrations, and encouragement of students’ very own suggestions bordering distinctive set up assignments.
“Fort Words” was created in collaboration with Centrum, as very well as, assistance delivered by Jefferson County Historic Society, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, the Coast Auxiliary Museum, the Fort Worden Public Development Authority and the Good friends of Fort Worden. Aid was also provided by Ignition Arts, the Port Townsend Arts Commission, and Washington Condition Parks.
Go to the Grover Gallery all month to see the execution of “Fort Words” minus the fort.
Those people intrigued can sign-up for artist-taught workshop at NorthwindArt.org.