The Brothership Building Window curated by Berkshire Art Center (formerly IS183 Art School of the Berkshires) will feature A Soft Place to Land by Lily Erb for the month of June.
ARTIST BIO: Lily Erb is a queer maker from Charlottesville, Virginia. Lily spent the first eight years of her creative career working almost exclusively with steel after signing up for a welding class in college and falling in love with welding. She has been focusing on creating soft sculptures after a discovered love of sewing while in residence at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in the fall of 2018. During her time at Ohio University Lily has incorporated performance into her soft sculpture practice as well. Other residencies Lily attended are Yellow Bird Art Park, Wabi Sabi Thrift Store, and Paducah A.I.R. Public art pieces include, decorative panels for The Paramount, Vita Nova, Tastings, and Splendora's as well as Extended Chaos in Paducah, KY and Clothing Rack Bike Rack in Moab, UT.
ARTIST STATEMENT: As I explore community dynamics in a time of societal reimaging, I am interested in points of friction in unequal power relationships. Through a Science Fiction lens, I ask — how do individuals react to discord while building the interdependent relationships necessary for thriving communities? When conflict does arise what is the best way to react — or the worst? What existing societal dynamics encourage conflict or need conflict to exist? Identifying historical patterns of individualistic actions and motivations allows us to see where our behaviors impede the deepening of interdependent relationships. My work seeks not to offer solutions but to highlight areas where reexamination is necessary.
Science Fiction allows a defamiliarization of known scenarios and social systems. To create a comforting defamiliarization I reference Sesame Street, a place where many young people learn from creatures that resemble stuffed animals- a valuable tool in early development of self-soothing techniques. My work brings together a serious exploration of societal roles and children’s entertainment aesthetics to allow for an evaluation of how hierarchy negatively affects human dynamics.
The process of creating my performance pieces deals with interdependence in practice as much as the final product does metaphorically. My performance pieces are reliant on other people’s participation, thus creating a relationship of interdependence between myself and the other. This process uses a focus on relationship harmony, collective resources, and learning through interaction to create group success.
Lily will be performing live on Friday, June 3rd at 5:30 pm, 6:30 pm, and 7:30 pm at 141 North Street!
