The Watermill Center’s Winter Viewpoints Series Continues

On Wednesdays in January, The Watermill Center is hosting the 2021 Winter Viewpoints series, a digital continuation of its annual Viewpoints: Nights @ The Round Table series, which began in 2018 and featured intimate conversations with local artists and community organizers, as well as center staff, alumni and community fellows.

The next in the Winter Viewpoints series, which is offered online via Zoom on January 20, features Watermill alum Adam Lenz and musician Zach Rowden as they discuss their recent collaborative work “A Way Of Providing Ventilation (WAC),” developed and exhibited during an artist residency at Windsor Art Center in Windsor, Connecticut. The work examines the history and architecture of the iconic tobacco sheds in the Connecticut River Valley through charcoal drawings and a collaborative, site-specific sound installation. The duo worked together to interpret Lenz’s charcoal drawings during a series of improvisation sessions with double bass, fiddle, and tobacco leaves, combining these recordings with the auxiliary sounds of the adjacent train station and bus line. The work seeks to imagine and sonify the ventilation patterns of the slat-walled curing sheds, bringing to life the creaks, crackles, howls, and roars of the wind pouring through these historic structures.

“Though we can’t gather onsite for obvious reasons, we still wanted to continue the series to engage with our local community,” said The Watermill Center’s public programming and residency coordinator, Kelly Dennis. “The joy of doing this series online is that now we can expand our community beyond our local East End friends and family, continue to support artists in this way, and welcome in a global community to share in what started as an intimate event.”

“The special thing about this program is that it really showcases a wide range of topics,” added Elka Rifkin, the director of The Watermill Center. “From important and thought provoking conversations, to highlighting the work of local and international artists, Viewpoints allows us to look into the contemporary moment and share it with each other.”

The final Viewpoints program will feature multidisciplinary duo Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya on January 27. All talks begin at 5:30 p.m. The series is free and open to the public. Register at watermillcenter.org. Each talk will also be livestreamed to the center’s Facebook page.