1000 Wooden Balls, 2015

Peekskill Project 6

Hudson Valley MOCA
Peekskill, New York
https://www.hudsonvalleymoca

Performances:

Oct 24th 12–1pm, HVCCA 1701 Main Street

Nov 1st 12–1pm, 100 North Water Street

Nov 8th 12–2pm Sunday! 100 North Water Street

Dec 5th 100 North Water Street and Hudson Valley MOCA 11am-5pm

All four videos are excerpts of longer documentation pieces - email molly@mollyhaslund for full length videos. 

1,000 Wooden Balls (2015)
1,000 Wooden Balls is based on the history of an abandoned harbour district of New York. Around the year 2000 the former Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal (BEDT) was taken over and rebuilt by people collaborating on artistic experiments that included graffiti, music, film screenings and performances. One of these interventions used thousands of wooden balls, which were subsequently abandoned in a corner of the site. Nobody knew where they came from or what they were for, but people started to spontaneously interact with and rearrange them. 15 years later, after BEDT has been cleared as a result of urban renewal, Haslund re-enacts the happening as she imagines it played out. In four performances, with the subtitles Kicking a Pile, Breaking by Juggling, 1,000 Holes and Leaving A-B, she performs a series of repetitive, physical acts involving the wooden balls in different ways. During the last performance all the balls are threaded onto a rope and carried through the area to a local museum, where they are exhibited. The work pays tribute to the alternative art scene that existed briefly in BEDT, questioning how we use and develop urban space, as well as highlighting the social costs of gentrification.

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Molly Haslund’s piece, 1000 Wooden Balls, is directly related to the urban history of an abandoned waterfront in Brooklyn, New York. Around year 2000, the former Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal (BEDT) was taken over and rebuilt by individuals and small groups of people who collaborated on outsider art projects, artistic experiments, graffiti, music, film screenings and other activities. Since then, BEDT has been developed through a process of gentrification and no longer exists.

In 2014, during a residency at ISCP International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, Haslund came across ‘The Accidental Playground - Brooklyn Waterfront Narratives of the Undesigned and Unplanned’, by Daniel Campo. The book includes a history of BEDT and a description of an incident involving thousands of wooden balls:

'With the onset of warm weather, participatory or performance art could be experienced every weekend. One such installation consisted of thousands of softball-sized wooden balls that had been dumped onto a corner of the Slab. It provided an unlikely but powerful magnet for many who encountered them and wondered, where did these balls come from and who brought them here? Someone told me that an artist had fabricated them in a basement workshop. Someone else said they were just discarded production extras from a local factory. Did it matter whether someone created these balls for this art-play experience or merely disposed of them in a convenient place? Perhaps it was just an accidental gesture created by the act of illegal dumping. Whatever their origin, the balls delighted many people who found different ways to play with them. Some arranged the balls into interesting shapes and designs, while others walked on top of them, attempting not to slip or fall. The balls were composed of a stringy wood composite with a hollow core. I watched others derive great pleasure in exploiting the limitations of this design. They hurled them against a wall or the ground, fracturing them into many small pieces. The satisfying smashing sound created from the impact, as I was compelled to discover, added to the visceral joy of destruction. The balls were play objects throughout the summer of 2000 and persisted into the fall, though ever-diminishing numbers. Like other aspects of this, over time destructive or entropic forces gained the upper hand and eventually they were entirely gone from the Slab.'

A whole decade later for Peekskill Project 6, and as homage to BEDT, Haslund has recreated what took place at the waterfront in Brooklyn. On a different vacant piece of land, she has performed a series of activities around one thousand wooden balls, as she imagines they happened in BEDT in 2000.

During Haslund’s four performances, one to three hours long and open to the public, she has activated the balls through a series of physical tasks and repetitive actions.1000 Wooden Balls was performed during the autumn and early winter of 2015 at 100 North Water Street, Peekskill, under the following headings:

October 24^th: Kicking a Pile
November 1^st: Breaking by Juggling
November 8^th: 1000 Holes
December 5^th: Leaving A-B

Haslund’s re-enactments within a contemporary urban environment bring an important sense of vitality to 1000 Wooden Balls. Through the history of BEDT Haslund has created a piece where attitudes and initiatives towards urban space are challenged. Her performances reflect upon current events such as gentrification, migration, and displacement – all themes present at the very heart of the Peekskill community.

Supported by the Danish Arts Foundation

Hudson Valley MOCA, Peekskill
ISCP International Studio and Curatorial Program, NYC
Flux Factory, NYC 

All video footage by Joe Joe Orangias
Photos by Joe Joe Orangias