The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

We are thrilled to present Hindsight is, a three-episode podcast series in the radio play genre to be released weekly starting on Monday, October 19. The series will focus on vignette scenes with a range of local and regional historical figures in Connecticut including women’s Suffragist Alice Paul and former NAACP Connecticut Chapter President William Webb. Actors will portray these historical figures, dramatizing social and political issues intensified this year such as voting rights, racism, and fascism through their unique perspectives as citizens from the past. These episodes will be accompanied by two public programs, see below. In addition to the episodes, further digital materials including transcripts, research images, and a teaching guide with accompanying workshop will be made available to educators and parents to use as resources for student learning.

Hindsight is podcast series is produced by Piti Theatre Company. Their mission is to create original performances and community-building events that accelerate local transformation towards joy, sustainability and justice.

Piti Theatre Company will also work with Aldrich Teen Fellows and collaborate with Aldrich educators on developing digital resources for youth and family engagement with topics presented in the podcast series.

This series is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Twenty Twenty.

Download an interdisciplinary curriculum that follows Hindsight is. This curriculum is free and intended for teachers and parents of middle and high school students. Download the curriculum here.

Scores for the Stars, 2020-21, is a two-part series by artist Ander Mikalson commissioned by The Aldrich and dedicated to Frank Stella’s Stars. The first part, Scores for the Stars, Part I, was a two-channel sound installation on view in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden from December 21, 2020 to January 3, 2021. Signage with QR codes to access Mikalson’s score while viewing Stella’s sculptures was placed in the Sculpture Garden. Visitors were encouraged to explore the outdoor works by Stella and experience Mikalson’s installation together in real time.

Scores for the Stars, Part I celebrates the winter solstice (December 21, 2020), a time when our largest star, the sun, is lowest in the sky. The scores for the winter solstice are excerpted from eponymous summertime tunes like Summertime by Gershwin and Walking on Sunshine by Katrina & The Waves. The winter solstice score is performed by musician Karina Garrett. The performer plays to the Stars with deep feeling, seeking to communicate with them. The sounds appear to emanate from the Stars as if they are singing to each other. Signs with QR codes were installed in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden by two of Stella’s outdoor sculptures, Jasper’s Split Star and Frank’s Wooden Star.

Mikalson said, “On the winter solstice we serenade the Stars with songs about summer. On the summer solstice we serenade the Stars with songs about winter. We play songs of the opposite season in a gesture of longing, of collapsing and layering time, of acknowledging cycles, of looking forward and back, of the impossibility of time across distance. When we look at the stars we see light that burned billions of years ago; we literally look into the past. The universe is balanced. Within each thing contained is also the possibility of its opposite. In this particularly dark winter of isolation, playing songs of summer is also a gesture of hope.”

Scores for the Stars, Part II will occur as a live performance at The Aldrich on the summer solstice (June 20, 2021), when the sun is highest in sky. The scores performed on the summer solstice will be about winter. More information about this performance forthcoming.

Mikalson’s Scores for the Stars was created in response to the exhibition Frank Stella’s Stars, A Survey. It was organized by Education Director Namulen Bayarsaihan and Senior Curator Amy Smith-Stewart. Frank Stella’s Stars, A Survey is on view inside the Museum through May 9, 2021; the outdoor work installed throughout the Museum’s grounds is on view through September 7, 2021.

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is thrilled to present a participatory mail art project, “The ILSSA Ballot for Twenty Twenty,” created by artists Bridget Elmer and Emily Larned in concurrence with the upcoming Twenty Twenty exhibition.

“The ILSSA Ballot for Twenty Twenty” encourages participants to reclaim language, parse dichotomies, and give voice to perspectives unrepresented in the rhetoric surrounding the 2020 US presidential election. Participants in the project will receive a custom designed, letterpress printed ballot, with an invitation to mail-in their responses for display at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

The project will grow cumulatively throughout the duration of the Twenty Twenty exhibition concluding on Sunday, March 14, 2021. A limited edition of 100 ballots will be available for participants who can register through The Aldrich’s website. Ballots will be mailed directly from the artists soon after Election Day on Tuesday, November 3, 2020.

ILSSA stands for Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts, a union for reflective creative practice established in 2008 as a collaboration between the artists. ILSSA has a long-standing practice of publishing participatory, contemplative tools and resources, which often take the form of call-and-response.

Generous support for Education and Public programs is provided by The Leir Foundation; Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts; Institute of Museum and Library Services; National Endowment for the Arts; Ridgefield Thrift Shop; The Gage Fund; New England Foundation for the Arts; Connecticut Humanities; and Fairfield County Bank.

Generous support for Hindsight is podcast series is provided by the New England Foundation for the Arts and Connecticut Humanities. Funded in part by the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.