There is an immersive color and sound exhibit in Salina on Friday night, appropriately named “Noise and Light.” It is the first of hopefully many exhibits at Temple Projects inside the old Masonic Lodge on Santa Fe Street.
Salina artists Daniel Picking and Anna Vanessa collaborated with Wichita artists to build this immersive experience.
“We are in the theater auditorium at the temple,” Picking said. “It's 7500 square feet, and the canvas is currently hanging about six or seven feet above our heads. In between there's cyan, magenta and yellow. We called it Technicolor tapestries, just because all those colors kind of appear when you think of like a Technicolor film.”
His work fills the space without much material being involved. Three lights and one canvas make the experience. Viewers are encouraged to try out the whole space.
“[They can go] down on a slight ramp and immediately be underneath the canvas where they can walk around throughout the whole theater auditorium floor,” Picking said. “And when they look overhead, they will see the grid on the ceiling. And people can either sit along the auditorium seats along the perimeter, or I've had people lay on the floor for a while and just look up at the ceiling as well, where people can bring their pillows or yoga mats and just lay on the floor for a couple of hours listening to some ambient music and staring off at the ceiling.”
Daniel Picking of Salina and Mason Talbot of Wichita collaborated on Technicolor Tapesteries. Anna Vanessa and Garrett Breese will be performing music on April 10.
“Some musicians [will] take over the space, and are going to be playing just droning, ambient music,” Vanessa said. “He is on guitar. I'm on viola. We're going to do two different sets of music, and [it’s] really just an opportunity for people to experience the space. It's going to be a unique experience, and it's a one-time experience.”
Noise and Light will take place on the third floor of Temple Projects. Picking said the building that houses the exhibit can be imposing, but visitors should be able to find their way to the auditorium.
“There's a small glass entrance on the side in the parking lot that will then climb up the stairs,” Picking said, “follow some color-changing lights up to the third floor into the theater auditorium where the installation is.”
Picking and Vanessa said that the temple is more than just an imposing building; it’s a space where other creatives and businesses are making exciting things.
“Other collaborations in this space include those with Isaiah Marcotte,” Vanessa said. “He's a local filmmaker, and he also shows old films, silent films, of black and white films in this theater.”
“The temple is currently run by the Salina Innovation Foundation, which is an entrepreneurial incubation site where people can come in and start their businesses with fairly cheap rent,” Picking said. “On top of that, there's been spaces that have been really good for artists. I myself have a studio up on the fourth floor. Isaiah, as she mentioned, has a studio on the second floor, and there's a musician down in the basement. So there are a few different artists that have spaces here.”
There have been events in space before. The last one was a collaborative dance performed alongside Technicolor Tapestries. With the installation launched, Picking wants to involve more artists.
“It's going to be an artist-run project space that I'm working on,” Picking said. “And the idea is to work within this already community-centered building, this activated building, and kind of putting art where we can so that people can experience different installations, experimental art that people maybe not have or don't have the opportunity to show elsewhere.”
The flexibility of artists keeps the rent low. The temple is mainly available as a venue for weddings and other events.
“I'm able to keep this as cheap and low-cost as possible by working around the schedule that temple has as an event venue as well,” Picking said. “But right now, I chose the theater as a site just to show how big I was willing to go with an art exhibit and to interest other artists who want to go big as well.”
