Dinner Presentation, Saturday, July 1st at 5pm: Dinner and presentation with cultural researchers Sue Mark and Bruce Douglas of marksearch. Silver City residents are invited to meet the current guests at the Resident Artist Program in Silver City on Saturday, July 1. An introduction to cultural researchers Sue Mark and Bruce Douglas of marksearch, and their son Roli, begins at 5pm at the Silver City School House with a slide show and brief videos about some of their recent work in Japan and Portugal as well as in Alabama and California. After the slide show, they’ll describe ideas they have for projects in partnership with Silver City residents, and will welcome input. A main dish of spaghetti will be provided. Attendees are encouraged to bring side dishes such as green salads and breads.
What Does "Building Community" Mean in Silver City? Tues July 11 at 10am: If you missed the dinner presentation and chance to meet the current guests of the Resident Artist Program, here’s another opportunity. Stop by the Silver City School House and Volunteer Library between 10am and noon to meet Sue Mark of marksearch. There will be updated schedules for Silver City’s summer events, and a chance to borrow books from the Volunteer Library to catch up on your summer reading. You’ll also have a chance to see the piece Bruce Douglas of marksearch has designed as a message box where Silver City residents can share their mottos/aphorisms about what it means to them to build community here. (The message box will later be available at the post office also so locals can leave responses at their convenience).
Design a Platform for Sharing Silver City Local History, Thursday July 13 at 9am: Conversation One: Design charrette (an intense period of design and planning). Silver City residents are invited to meet with “conversation artists” Sue Mark and Bruce Douglas of marksearch to give input on designing a platform for sharing local history. They would like to hear from residents about their needs for collecting history. They’ll then create a structure that will be informed by local needs. The small, reusable structure will serve as a dedicated space for sharing Silver City stories. The structure can be popped up when people gather for local events. Contact Quest Lakes at the Resident Artist Program in Silver City for the location: 847-0742.
Locals Walk with Sue and Bruce, Tuesday, July 18 at 9:00 am: Conversation Two: Silver City residents are invited to a morning walk with “conversation artists” Sue Mark and Bruce Douglas of marksearch. They would like to walk with townspeople and see some of their favorite and/or important sites in town. They’d also like to learn about locals’ favorite hiking spots. Contact Quest Lakes at the Resident Artist Program in Silver City for the location of the walk starting point: 847-0742.
Locals Share Their Favorite Book Passages, Tuesday, July 25 at 9am: Conversation Three: Silver City residents are invited to share passages from their favorite books with cultural researchers Sue Mark and Bruce Douglas of marksearch. Locals are invited to come together to read from their favorite books. Selections can be ones that have informed and shaped their live in Silver City. The selections will then be compiled by marksearch into a town reader that will become part of a story sharing platform in Silver City. Contact Quest Lakes at the Resident Artist Program in Silver City for the location of this event: 847-0742
What is marksearch? The marksearch team (Sue Mark + Bruce Douglas) focuses on place-based cultural preservation and social memory. Their performance-based projects explore intersections of lost history and cultural complexities. As conversation artists, they engage people in collaborative expressions of local stories to expose and deepen multifaceted bonds between people and their environment. Their methodology synthesizes their academic backgrounds. Bruce Douglas is a fabricator and professional mechanical engineer who has meshed his values of building community and using recycled materials to build things such as functional, quirky human-powered vehicles. Sue Mark, with a BA in philosophy and linguistics and an MFA from the California College of the Arts, creates national and international projects about local history, culture and community challenges.
Since 2000, marksearch has collaborated with non-profits, community groups, students, historians, urban planners, and municipalities worldwide, designing interactive projects for empowerment and preservation. For instance, a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) fellowship helped them to research cultural preservation strategies in Japan. Their 6 month residency in Kanazawa, Japan included studying the traditional architecture in Kanazawa such as the Machiya, townhouses from the Edo period (1603-1867). In a completely different sort of project, in 2013 marksearch researched the disappearance of handicraft and agricultural practices in a region of Portugal comprising 26 villages. They created portraits of traditional makers of baskets, shoes, olive oil, bread, wine, tools, and more. These portraits, permanently installed in each of the region's 26 villages, now form a new regional cultural landmark. Other Marksearch explorations have been presented in the US and Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, and Spain with support from California Humanities, Fulbright Commission, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, San Francisco Art Commission, and others. For more about their work, see marksearch.org.
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