Swannatopia's-
orgin story
In December 2020, we (GlowspaceArts and Terrestrial Projecting) transformed our storefront studio in Historic Downtown Swannanoa, NC into the “Swannatopia Department Store,”where visitors could shop for housewares, chandeliers and fashions, peruse the “bolo buffet,” and get a greenhouse haircut in the “Beauty Salon Of The Mind.”
In June 2021 we again opened our doors for “Marigold Daze,” a week-long marigold and dolphin-themed happening which introduced the world to “Bannerland” and a new and life changing multimedia attraction: “The Swannatopia Dolphin Experience”***. Visitors were treated to a “Rave” as well as live musical performances by Field Patterns and Avey Tare and projection art by Abby Portner and sherbet floats at sunset.
In April 2022, we reunited with collaborators Daniel Abide, Byron Browne, Kaylee Dunn, Christopher O’Leary, and Carley Dergins for the “Road Signs” installation at the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center {Re}HAPPENING 2022.
Road Signs was an interactive experiment that explores the ways in which we search for messages and meaning in the romantic notion of a road trip. Using imagery and sounds, from symbolism to the non-sequitur, and transforming space through art, light, video, and movement, we emulated the poetry in roadside culture and left the participants in a state of wanderlust.
In May 2022, after a long incubation period, the “Swannatopia Experimental Art Club” was finally hatched. My Terra Squirma invited members to build their own living sculpture out of terra cotta and live and fake plants. The 8-week-long session culminated in a group exhibition, with a “Plantwave” device on site to translate the plant biorhythms and relationships into a sonic form, sherbet floats at sunset and live music. The current installment of the club is stained glass and chandelier themed.
***A visitor review of “The Swannatopia Dolphin Experience”, June 2021
“When I arrived in Swannatopia, I was not sure from which direction I came. Unheralded, I was unsure if the sun was rising or setting. I was harried and hounded by the quotidian beasts; grist ground down for profit by the Mean Machine.
At first, I was surprised to find the Dolphins spoke my language. But their invitation calmed my mind and soon I joined them, swimming as they shared with me their wisdom. They hipped me to the manifold ways in which the universe’s beings and matter express agency and evolve towards their dearest intellectual, biological, and existential imperatives. Consciousness was unhomogenized, and funky for all, equally in our own wild ways.
Spangled in penumbral light refracting through the timeless ocean between the terrestrial and sidereal, plant and animal were one, good dog and hot dog danced together in joy, tides of sound ebbed and flowed over all moods, and Freedom was the thing as our Dolphin guides sang to us from beyond the reef. We floated weightlessly and swam, leashless, towards our fondest wishes bathed in the warm, jazzy welcome of fellowship that vined among branches of the evolutionary tree. All of us changing, bathed in light, baptized in sound, and dressed in shimmering hues, are reborn, limber and hale, from the benevolent womb of Swannatopia.
As I departed these delights to return to the world beyond, our Dolphin hosts shared their blessings and goodbyes. I now swim on land and through time knowing I can return to Swannatopia if I should choose. Until then, I will plant its seeds and tend to them in the world outside as I drift near and far. I – an Evangelist – am ready to share the fruits of wild community and dazzled senses as they ripen on this planet and beyond.
We are invited, welcome, and secure in Swannatopia: forever a zone of tender abundance, psychic rest, and brand new colors and tones, visible to all beings and audible to all minds.”
