WEBVTT 00:00:00.920 --> 00:00:03.860 ["New York Close Up"] 00:00:14.520 --> 00:00:17.700 I grew up surrounded by the ocean. 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:27.780 It's a place to let your thoughts wash over you, 00:00:27.780 --> 00:00:31.080 almost like daydream or sleep, 00:00:33.980 --> 00:00:36.940 where anything is possible. 00:00:38.720 --> 00:00:43.880 ["Caroline Woolard's Floating Possibility"] 00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:49.980 I think what it means to be an artist 00:00:49.980 --> 00:00:54.320 is to be voraciously curious about the world around you. 00:00:55.280 --> 00:01:01.660 And I cling to every fact and image that compels me. 00:01:03.100 --> 00:01:08.920 During my research process I became obsessed with this historic vessel. 00:01:10.590 --> 00:01:14.760 The amphora is a two-handled vessel with a pointy bottom 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:16.920 that looks like a turnip or a carrot, 00:01:18.320 --> 00:01:20.600 and it was used by conquered people 00:01:20.600 --> 00:01:26.340 to ship goods like olive oil or wine to ancient Rome. 00:01:28.360 --> 00:01:33.980 I also found that the "at" symbol that we use in email every single day 00:01:33.980 --> 00:01:37.400 is a mark for an amphora. 00:01:38.900 --> 00:01:44.280 And I would never have thought that every time I press the "at" symbol 00:01:44.280 --> 00:01:46.900 I'm conjuring an imperial form. 00:01:49.030 --> 00:01:52.700 A transformation from the amphora to the "at" symbol 00:01:52.700 --> 00:01:56.920 relates to a lot of my interest in economy and exchange. 00:01:58.540 --> 00:02:03.020 For me it felt like a clear direction to go in. 00:02:03.380 --> 00:02:04.280 [WOOLARD] --Hello. 00:02:04.420 --> 00:02:05.700 [HELEN LEE] --Hey! 00:02:05.700 --> 00:02:07.920 [WOOLARD] --Okay so what have you been working on? 00:02:07.940 --> 00:02:09.120 [LEE] --I have some murrines. 00:02:10.280 --> 00:02:11.640 [WOOLARD] I knew that 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:16.180 it would be impossible for me to pursue this project alone. 00:02:16.260 --> 00:02:17.340 [LEE] --I'll show you the "at." 00:02:18.440 --> 00:02:20.340 [WOOLARD] --Oh it's so hard to see! 00:02:20.340 --> 00:02:21.340 [LAUGHING] 00:02:21.340 --> 00:02:22.340 [LEE] --There you go. 00:02:22.340 --> 00:02:26.180 [WOOLARD] The "at" symbol is so much about digital communication, 00:02:26.180 --> 00:02:30.269 which often occurs through a glass interface, 00:02:30.269 --> 00:02:34.360 so I wanted to work with master glassblowers. 00:02:47.660 --> 00:02:50.200 [UrbanGlass, Brooklyn] 00:02:50.780 --> 00:02:55.700 I fell in love with glass because it's automatically collaborative. 00:02:57.440 --> 00:02:58.240 [Alexander Rosenberg, artist] 00:02:58.250 --> 00:03:00.139 The way glassblowers are trained, 00:03:00.139 --> 00:03:04.170 you have to work in a group of two or three or four, 00:03:04.170 --> 00:03:08.500 and at best, glassblowers flow together in a 00:03:08.500 --> 00:03:11.120 non-verbal choreography 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:15.220 to produce things that would be impossible if they were working alone. 00:03:15.220 --> 00:03:17.780 [Helen Lee, artist] 00:03:23.820 --> 00:03:27.950 So we went into the material exploration itself, 00:03:27.950 --> 00:03:31.360 which was always informed by the research, 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:35.840 but also leave space for the material to speak on its own. 00:03:36.790 --> 00:03:39.520 We tried making many different amphorae. 00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:43.740 We made a custom blow mold of the ancient form. 00:03:46.640 --> 00:03:48.620 We tried making hourglasses 00:03:48.620 --> 00:03:53.640 to think about the word "amphorae" which means "carried on both sides." 00:03:58.189 --> 00:04:01.239 The amphorae were not made for display. 00:04:01.239 --> 00:04:04.470 They were made to be taken off of ships 00:04:04.470 --> 00:04:08.580 and to find their ground in the sand. 00:04:11.160 --> 00:04:14.960 In order to imagine the amphorae at sea, 00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:16.960 as they're often found, 00:04:17.100 --> 00:04:18.860 we decided to go to the beach. 00:04:19.160 --> 00:04:21.300 [Rockaway, Queens] 00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:28.920 --Babies, a lot of babies. 00:04:28.920 --> 00:04:31.100 At the beach, we had to learn 00:04:31.100 --> 00:04:34.120 how these objects, with their pointy bases, 00:04:34.120 --> 00:04:36.360 would find stability. 00:04:38.370 --> 00:04:40.540 We tried filling them with sand. 00:04:40.540 --> 00:04:42.250 We tried filling them with water. 00:04:42.250 --> 00:04:45.200 We tried looking at them floating in the water. 00:04:46.170 --> 00:04:49.620 And what we found was that 00:04:49.620 --> 00:04:54.620 they have an incredible capacity to almost levitate. 00:05:10.060 --> 00:05:14.380 I love objects that have an uneasy relationship to gravity 00:05:15.560 --> 00:05:22.880 and this inability to reconcile a concrete and hardened world. 00:05:27.580 --> 00:05:34.080 We know that, for this project, we'll be at a traditional gallery space. 00:05:34.080 --> 00:05:37.780 Another will be in a performance lecture. 00:05:37.780 --> 00:05:40.600 Another will be online as a project site. 00:05:45.420 --> 00:05:49.540 We're in the state of the project where we continue to experiment-- 00:05:49.540 --> 00:05:54.810 where we continue to say "yes" to one another's whims. 00:05:54.810 --> 00:05:59.130 I want to move into a space of speculative fiction 00:05:59.130 --> 00:06:03.120 to allow myself to imagine, as a visual artist, 00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:04.260 what could be. 00:06:08.640 --> 00:06:15.080 What if the amphora could unroll and becomes a wave or a line? 00:06:15.080 --> 00:06:20.340 What if the imperative to communicate that we have right now, 00:06:20.920 --> 00:06:24.000 is, in the future, an imperative to rest? 00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:36.580 What would it mean to suspend disbelief 00:06:36.580 --> 00:06:41.500 and make a work of art that's for a dream state? 00:06:47.900 --> 00:06:52.280 What if art could be a kind of glistening glass object 00:06:52.280 --> 00:06:54.960 in the middle of the ocean?