Blue Sky Project, an eight-week Artist-in-Residence Program invites professional artists from around the world to collaborate with Dayton-area teens to create new works of contemporary art. I participated in the program in Summer of 2010 and realized the project, Colony Unsettling. This group is comprised of the following ten contributing individuals: Ari Tabei, Ivy Garrigan, De'Narrow, Arielle, Jalisa, Sarah, Ashley, Sydney, Maureen and Georgia.

Colony Unsettling investigates both individual and communal concepts of “nest/home” and “colony/community” as a temporary shelter. This investigation engages us in thecollective task of “nesting” a habitat through the acts of collecting, knotting/tying/weaving, wrapping/unwinding, and finishes with a series of performances. Using projection, we add a virtual layer on to our cocooned reality so that it protects our sanctuary against the cruelty of the world.

Based on artist Ari Tabei’s personal inspiration, caddisfly larvae, which make cocoons from objects from their local surroundings, we create a big cocoon out of various kinds of materials that we come across every day. We build a large cocoon that finally encases ten of us. Each wears a white Tyvek suit to indicate that we are emerging from the same nest and each enlarged/extended body part connects all of us to each other and to the cocoon. We are all intertwined with each other and experience feelings of being dependent while our movement is restricted by the specific characteristics of each suit. We struggle to come out of the cocoon and when we eventually emerge from it, we shed each of our own suits, leaving our “home” behind, transforming into something yet unknown to celebrate our survival and search for our new place in this world.