Curatorial Statement

In urban design, an edge condition is a junction where contrasting elements meet—the sidewalk ends in sands and the dunes encroach. When I first arrived at the Fine Arts Work Center, I joined a party of fellows hiking out to a dune shack on the ocean side of the peninsula. The writing coordinator at the time said we had crossed through several distinct ecosystems between the FAWC parking lot and the dunes, where the shack managed, with some seeming precariousness, to hold its ground. In his book, Cape Cod,Thoreau says that the dunes, planted by locals with grasses, grew year by year, sometimes towering up to 100 feet high. Each winter as the northeast wind blew more sands inland in drifts, the grasses were buried just to sprout again in the spring. These thin ligaments filigreed the dunes, holding everything together.

Being in Provincetown at FAWC can feel like living at the end of the world. Year-round residents will help newcomers find their bearings by holding up an arm, flexed as though to show off the bicep, and point to their little finger: you are here. Perhaps it is the remoteness and the time of year (the residency takes place from fall through spring when the summer vacation crowd have gone home), that gives the location some of its special drama. Artists and writers come from all over and live together, sharing their work and their different approaches to making. It’s a space of conversations and intersections.

The works in this exhibition exist in edge conditions, junctions of contrasting elements, ideas, materials, and images. Parts become more than their sum. Past and present, personal and political, organic and synthetic, all join in these works. Some draw attention to the contrast between elements, leaving the seams visible, allowing me to trace back through the history of the object’s making. Others hide their joins under the illusion of continuity asking for a forensic eye. These works create sites where time is condensed, the sidewalk meets the sand, and difference creates dynamic tensions not easily resolved.

Matt Bollinger
Visual Arts Fellow
2009-2010, 2010-2011