My tremendous gratitude goes to:
Each of the curators and hosts who, to my surprise, invited me to build a hut out of trash on their sites and supported my process with care and generosity: Chris Henderson, Hélène Lesterlin, Matthew McLendon, Lise Nordal, Ane Vigdis Øverås, Radhika Subramaniam, and Line Tjørnhøj.
The intrepid assistants and interns who held ladders, helped tie knots, shot video, or pushed carts of garbage with me, many of whom are artists in their own right: Jennifer Blankenship, Katie Buono, Tamara Cepeda, Michael Doo, Mads Eckert Hermansen, Ayriel Hunt, Meryl Lauer Lodge, Elisabeth Færøy Lund, Lene Brustad Melhus, Molly Schaffner, Larissa Sheldon, Oda Egjar Starheim, and Natalya Swanson.
With Matthew McLendon at Hut #10.
DANIEL PERALES
With Elisabeth Færøy Lund working on Hut #7 in uniforms found by Elisabeth.
ELISABETH FÆRØY LUND
The various community organizations that were involved in The Hut Project, especially: Arts in Bushwick, Concerned Citizens of Withers Street, Earth Matter NY, GEM, Greenpoint Renaissance Enterprise Corporation, The National Congress of Neighborhood Women, NOTAM, O.U.T.R.A.G.E., Red Shed Community Garden, Rosenhof Skole, and St. Nicks Alliance.
All of the photographers who have photographed the huts, in particular these primary documentarians: Vanessa Albury, Eric Breitbart, Isabella Bruno, Lindsay Comstock, Rachel Eisley, Rafael Gamo, Louise Kirkegaard, Elisabeth Færøy Lund, Kaia Means, Daniel Perales, Peter Shapiro, Oda Egjar Starheim, Alejandra Ugarte, Jarred Wilson.
The five writers whose essays appear in this book who have kindly reflected on The Hut Project and shared their intellectual curiosity, interpretive acumen, and unique perspectives here: Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Thomas Hylland Eriksen, André Lepecki, Matthew McLendon, and Elise Springer.
The artists who have collaborated with me on the huts and my related performances and videos, lending their own artistic visions and beautiful work to this project: Gustavo Aguilar, Cristian Amigo, Eva Bakkeslett, Ilona Bito, Joro Boro, Eric Breitbart, Donna Costello, Miguel Frasconi, Glass Bead Collective, Holland Hobson, Irene Hsi, Anice Jeffries, JOAN, Lene Brustad Melhus, Marisol Montoya, Jesse Sachs, Alyce Santoro, Molly Schaffner, Peter Shapiro, Larissa Sheldon, Skye, Vigdis Storsveen, Mary Suk, Amund Sjølie Sveen, Line Tjørnhøj, Austin Vaughn, and Kristin Norderval who created the music that allowed for magic in so many huts and dances.
The jill sigman/thinkdance Board of Directors for their unquestioning support and enthusiasm: Stan Katz, Ben Mellman, Jean Steiner, and Jasmine Ueng-McHale.
The dancers who have performed in the dances that have grown out of The Hut Project, for their physical intelligence and spirit of inquiry: Hadar Ahuvia, Danica Arehart, Maria Bauman, Corinne Cappelletti, Donna Costello, Sally Hess, Irene Hsi, Anice Jeffries, Kate Kernochan, Paloma McGregor, Larissa Sheldon, Mary Suk, and Devika Wickremesinghe.
Kristin Norderval working at her mobile sound station at Hut #6.
ODA EGJAR STARHEIM
Pam Tatge and Erinn Roos-Brown, formerly of the Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, who supported this and other projects with their characteristic vision and grace, and gave me the opportunity to teach in ways that have furthered this artistic work.
Isabella Bruno, Christina Ferwerda and the BRUNO team that created the exhibition “jill, why do you build huts?”
Chelsea Adewunmi, Karl Cooney, Kristen Holfeuer, and Jean Steiner for their steadfast administrative assistance in preparing this manuscript.
Janet Stapleton, who first suggested the idea of a book about the huts.
Dr. Yan for his kindness and generosity helping me deal with the effects of seven years of trash, and Dr. Amin, Dr. Branski, and Dr. Achlatis for their excellent detective work and caring.
The Bay & Paul Foundations (in particular Fred Bay and David Bury) and The Jerome Foundation who funded aspects of this work. Without their support it would not have been possible.
Everyone at Wesleyan University Press for their hard work, commitment, and environmental awareness, especially Eric Brooks, Amanda Dupuis, and my editor Suzanna Tamminen, without whose trust, wisdom, and collaboration this book would not exist.
The colleagues and friends who have always unwaveringly believed in my work, especially Joro Boro, Eric Breitbart, Sally Hess, Kristin Norderval, Bas van Fraassen, and Dana Whitco.
And my wondrous thanks to the hawks for showing me how to make my art into my life.
Jill Sigman, New York City
ten huts
Mock aerial view of Hut #6, assembled by Anke Stumper.
ANKE STUMPER
paradise declassified
The Hut Project is a nomadic series of site-specific structures made of cast-off materials found on or near each site. In short, they are made of trash. Each hut is different, in part dictated by the materials I find and the places they are built. The Hut Project is also an interconnected set of performances, a contemporary reinvention of ritual, a call to think about pressing things, a statement about consumerism, and a personal practice. This book is about the huts I have built and the life they unexpectedly took on.
Movement artists know that nothing is waste. Every gesture, every action, inside and outside the studio, can become the stuff of a performance. You trip and fall and you say, “Let’s keep that.” A dancer comes into rehearsal and animatedly tells a story and you ask, “Can you repeat that?” You see someone moving on the subway platform and you try the movement on your own body. Everything is material and can be used and re-used, infused and re-infused with significance when placed in a new landscape of meaning.
HUT ∙ Huts are used as temporary shelter by people. Huts are built quickly of available and indigenous materials such as ice, stone, leather, grass, palm leaves, branches, and/or mud and exist in practically all nomadic cultures. “Hut” is also used to market commercial stores, companies, and concepts in an effort to transmit the idea of a cozy place where you can get things, such as Pizza Hut.
I have engaged extensively in this kind of artistic recycling of movement and gesture. But until 2009 I had never quite so radically reinvented the material trappings of my own dance productions. After making a dance called ZsaZsaLand, I was left with a lot of stuff. ZsaZsaLand was a piece about excess and its relation to national mythmaking, and it was performed in an installation environment that was part 99¢ store full of cheap, imported kitsch, part bad natural history museum full of bones and imagined artifacts. It questioned the links between consumer escapism and state-sponsored violence and veered between scenes of revelry and scenes of detainment (both involving lots of tinsel, fake money, plastic flowers, and wax body parts). After the production, I found myself facing the costumes, props, dirty tarps, and bags and boxes I had used to transport all these things, and I was overcome with a desire to consume these materials in a voracious way. This wasn’t just about finding new uses for old things but about a radical reconception of the underbelly of a performance: I wanted the work to eat itself.
Wax and fabric knots in ZsaZsaLand.
LOLLY KOON