The 100 Day Project #17

Invisible City - Halo

Tucson, Arizona, USA, 2008

The 100 Day Project, Day 17

A dancer mid-movement, lit up by late afternoon sun. Radiant. Confident.

This photograph was made during The Invisible City, a five-week, site-specific experimental arts lab exploring public space in downtown Tucson. Co-directed by Lisa Bowden, the project was a collaboration between NEW ARTiculations Dance Theatre and Kore Press, a Tucson-based feminist press.

The project brought together over 20 women artists to create texts, dances, sound pieces, film, photographs, and drawings within Tucson's urban core. It was an experiment in merging the creative processes of artists working across distinct disciplines in a city slow to revitalize — one that had historically valued highways and tract housing over central plazas, affordable live/work spaces, and desert landscape. In Tucson, public space had become decentralized, dehumanized, and in many ways invisible.

Through writing, dance, music, and visual art, we envisioned and activated new workspaces out of vacant parking lots, city plazas, and sidewalks. Our laboratory experiment culminated in a multidisciplinary performance incorporating video projection, spoken word, live music, and modern dance on the roof of a parking garage.

I loved being part of this project. Many of these photographs remain among my favorites — and I think it's because of the tension they hold. A body in motion against concrete and vacancy. Softness in a hard place. Art insisting on itself in a city that hadn't yet made room for it.

More from this project coming this week.

About the 100 Day Project: A global creative challenge where thousands of artists share a piece of their practice every single day for 100 days. I'm joining creatives around the world, and I'm excited to bring you along. Each day I'll be sharing one of my photos — some recent, some old, and some from my current project — along with the story behind it: where I was, who I was with, and why I love it.