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L I F E F R A M E S & A L I V I N G L I B R A R Y
p a s t , p r e s e n t , f u t u r e
The Life Frame has evolved over many years to become A Living Library of diversity.
Initially, I coined the term, Life Frame, to describe a “tableau vivante”, framed visually by our eyes, or captured in a frame by a photograph – a “still life”.
Portable Parks 1-111 and the Sitting Still Series, which culminated in Public Lunch are examples. In these early works, I was an element in the environment – a performer – sometimes with other performers – people or other animals. We were analogous systems, transforming the environment, simply.
Each Portable Park was different, showing a different quality of performance: Portable Park 1 was meant to be viewed by driving on the freeway or being under it; Portable Parks 11 and 111 were increasingly more participatory, and invited the public to become part of the work.
The Life Frame continued to evolve, and with diverse species of animals, I explored different kinds of performances and environments – scripted vignettes to open-ended experiments integrated into either found or created environments, from the early Studio Work to Living In The Forest. The animals were architects and performers, as was I. I called these early Life Frames – Environmental Performance Sculpture.
The total Life Frame, including the environment, continued to change, as did the performance aspect of the work. With Crossroads Community (the farm), I realized that the ultimate performance was “Being”, as in “Being A Total Human Being”. Others also participated through a variety of interactive community programs, performances, and classes. The farm animals lived in The Raw Egg Animal Theatre (TREAT), an installation that evolved from Living In The Forest with indoor / outdoor spaces, and ongoing learning programs about natural systems, including the arts, for all ages. The Farm also inspired and helped develop a new city park.
At this time, I understood clearly, the power of the Life Frame, as a vehicle to be inclusive and to frame the diversity of cultures, species, and ecologies. I saw this as a strategy for creating peace and bringing diverse points of view together to coexist without strife, as well as to help preserve the planet.
I also realized, quite profoundly, the simple notion: Everything happens in a place, so if we create the place, and integrate it systemically with the performance, activity, community program, or interdisciplinary curricula, then we are creating whole experiences.
I became more sensitive to all the local resources in each place that I was attempting to shape and transform. When I first spent time in Bryant Park in New York City in 1981, the park was known as “needle park”, the place to buy drugs. I saw its former Beaux Arts elegance and realized that the place and its energy could be changed by creating new reasons for people to be there. I proposed bringing out the meaning of its neighbor, the adjacent Main Research Branch of the New York Public Library, by creating Gardens of Knowledge based on the Dewey Decimal System and International Gardens that would involve the nearby United Nations and foreign consulates. Green – Powered Digital Gateways would allow for more detailed information from the Public Library to be communicated and link this site to like projects around the world.
It was an epiphany ! I thought – aha ! – The Living Library ! And, then, I realized, no, it could not be called The Living Library, because that could be interpreted as an insult to its neighbor, the New York Public Library. Rather, it should be called,
A Living Library , meaning another, and that’s when I saw that the initials spell A.L.L. – the embodiment of its meaning and potential.
A Gift from the Universe !
Everyone and everything on earth and in space is part of A Living Library of diversity: people, birds, trees, air, water, and all the things we create, such as parks, gardens, schools, curricula, artworks, networks, communities, celebrations. As such, it is a vehicle and framework for linking culture and technology as part of nature – a fundamentally important systemic idea. With A Living Library, we are Cultivating the Human and Ecological Garden.
I formed a non-profit corporation, Life Frames, Inc. in 1992. Today, we have Branch Living Libraries underway in San Francisco and New York City. Each incorporates the local resources - human, ecological, economic, historic, technological, and aesthetic - seen through the lens of time - and involves all sectors of the community in its processes - research, planning, design, implementation, use, maintenance, management, and communications. Performance has evolved to become interactive community programs and interdisciplinary, hands-on, PreK-12, standards-based curriculum integrated into and with transformed environments.
A goal of Life Frames, Inc. is to develop Branch Living Libraries in diverse parts of the world to be linked through live, interactive broadcast and other programs. When we learn all that we can about our local place, we can then extrapolate, and learn about the world.
Bonnie Ora Sherk: July, 2005
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