Join us this fall for the 4th Annual Public Arts Festival at ODU, taking place on October 11 and 12. Over two consecutive nights, the campus will be transformed as visitors encounter immersive artworks, hands-on activities, food trucks, and more. For this year’s festival, the Barry Art Museum is partnering with Pneuhaus, an art design studio based in Rhode Island. Specializing in the reimagining of public space through interactive environments, Pneuhaus creates immersive, inflatable sculptures inspired by physics, biology, and craft. Each work represents a distinct biosphere, with each piece engaging the natural world through their form and function.
This year’s festival will feature three distinct biomes from Pneuhaus. Inside the museum, visitors can encounter Cloud Lights. Suspended from the museum balcony, these abstract forms channel the forms of moving clouds while their constantly changing lights turn the museum foyer into a rainbow of light. Outside the museum, visitors can interact with two different biomes. Fabric Prism takes inspiration from caves and invites visitors to immerse themselves in a light-filled shelter. The second outdoor work, Canopy, represents a grove of tree-like sculptures. By riding bicycle-powered generators, visitors can transform the grove opening and closing its branches and changing its lighting. Through this engagement, visitors can not only take part in Canopy’s kinetic qualities but can also experience first-hand the power of green electricity production.
In addition to Pneuhaus, the Festival also highlights the work of ODU faculty members Brendan Baylor and Kelly Morse through an interactive exhibition called Soundings: Soundmap for a Changing Landscape. Soundings is a novel way to approach the continued emotional and psychological impacts of sea level rise and climate change on our community. This participatory soundmap platform allows everyday people to share their thoughts and feelings about these changes. Developing a shared understanding is essential for building our collective will to act in the face of ecological change and destruction. A gallery and green roof contained in/on a shipping container combines a symbol of global industry with human-scale storytelling and the local landscape. In this moment of intense individuality and focus on the self, the need for deep listening, for concurrence, for abandoning the speaking voice in favor of the listening ear, is urgent. Soundings repurposes physical and data infrastructure to mobilize it towards solidarity and connection. This project gestures towards the possibilities of social transformation present in the now. By deeply listening to each other and our environment, new ways of relating can be found.
The Environmental Corridor transforms the streets around our Museum into an outdoor sanctuary; visitors can engage with Back Bay Amateur Astronomers, the Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience, Norfolk Botanical Garden, ODU Libraries, ODU’s Society of Physics Students, the Ocean and Earth Sciences Graduate Student Organization, the Old Dominion University Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography, Hands-On Beekeepers, and more! Find it on West 43rd Street between Hampton Boulevard and Monarch Way.
Inside the Barry Art Museum, encounter Cloud Lights, an enveloping installation that evokes the ever-changing beauty of clouds as it casts a wide color spectrum across the museum foyer. Explore interactive displays and activities dreamed up by ODU’s Game Design and Development Program and the Collaborative Robotics and Adaptive Machines Laboratory. Dive into virtual reality games and robotic exhibits designed to unravel the mysteries of our planet, the sea, and the cosmos.
The Pneuhaus Festivities will continue on West 43rd Street, which will showcase local entertainment and artisans: discover the Barry Art Museum’s commemorative merchandise booth and watch live glassblowing by the Chrysler Museum Mobile Glass Studio. Browse the Monarch Marketplace showcasing ODU vendors like The Monarch Way, ODU’s Graphic Design Club, ODU’s Student Art League, and innovative ODU alumni. Savor foods from local food trucks such as Hades Wood Fire Ovens, Fat Belly Brothers, and Locoto’s. Cub Scout Pack 700 will be selling popcorn and the custom-made “Avant Tarte” by CoVa Brewing will be available for purchase.
On Friday night, we open with a dance performance by the Governers School of the Arts, followed a performance by the ODU Drumline, then ODU Alumni/Student Band, Moonsmoke closes out the evening. On Saturday enjoy a demonstration by ODU Planetarium Director, Justin Mason at 6:30PM followed by a choreographed Composition performance by ODU Theatre. The festival weekend ends with an evening of dancing with Karacell.
Don’t miss this celebration of art, science, and our environment. Pneuhaus Festival will celebrate our collective appreciation for the beauty and marvels of nature.
This FREE festival is possible thanks to our generous sponsors:
