A group of local teenagers has been wielding flashlights, assembling paper shapes and maneuvering overhead projectors this week in downtown and Golden Hill.
Working with the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and Sezio, their shadow puppet experiment was considerably more complex than the bunny-rabbit-on-a-wall you might have made when you were a kid. A visiting light and shadow artist, Clea Minaker, sat with the teens on the floor Tuesday and chatted about the philosophy of light and shadow with them. Then they hopped up and began to apply some newly learned shadow puppetry and light techniques to a story about light and shadow: Icarus, the Greek myth that warns against flying too close to the sun.
Here’s some video footage of that Tuesday evening workshop, this week’s Behind the Scene TV segment with NBC San Diego:
View more videos at: http://www.nbcsandiego.com.
The teenagers, part of the museum’s Teen Art Council, and Minaker have been working long hours this week to stage their show in the attic of a house in Golden Hill. (My band filmed a video in the same attic recently.) The young artists have been contributing their own ideas and carrying a lot of the burden of making the piece happen, said one of their leaders, local artist Wes Bruce, when I spoke with him Thursday afternoon. They’ll be presenting twice on Friday night. You can find more details here at Sezio, or at MCASD, or by emailing info@habitathouse.org.
I’m the arts editor for VOSD. You can reach me directly at kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.325.0531 and follow me on Twitter: @kellyrbennett and at facebook.com/behind.the.scene.SD.