Fieldworks Collaborative was founded in 2012 by Trena Noval and Ann Wettrich to invent new approaches to creative inquiry and collaborative systems that explore the world we live in. Informed by place, we are interested in stimulating curiosity by creating inclusive, interdisciplinary, and multidimensional experiences. Our working methods are inspired by arts-based research practices and relational actions that occupy the public realm, interrupt traditional education structures, and invite collaborative constructions of knowledge.
In this short video created by filmmakers Alexis Costanza and Pierce Leggin, Fieldworks Collaborative give us a unique view into their working processes and describe their experiences as Artist Fellows at the Lucas Artists Residency Program, and the works they created for the Botanica Poetica exhibition.
Fieldworks Collaborative organized their residency time at the Lucas Artists Program around a process of open ended inquiry focused on the concept of Pop-Up Academies (PA). According the artists, PAs are creative social experiments that open up the space for discovering the interstitial spaces of hybrid research of art, social behavior and natural ecologies, and allow exploration of open-ended pedagogical forms. Fieldworks Collaborative’s PAs engaged creative inquiry via provocations, exploratory walks, dialogues, social media exchanges, art making and mapping strategies, resulting in a series of interactive events and growing archive. Montalvo’s gardens, hiking trails, architecture, social and environmental histories and programs offered a focal point for interdisciplinary investigation. Works developed through this process include Fieldstation and and Curiosity Fieldstation.
Fieldworks teamed up with a variety of culture makers, thinkers and disciplinary experts in developing their expansive project. The general public and the Montalvo community were also invited into the process as collaborative participants, bringing a diversity of perspectives and interests that helped generate new curiosities, connections and knowledge.