Artists & Communities Host Site: COMPAS, Inc.
304 Landmark Center
75 West 5th Street
St. Paul, MN 55102
E-mail: jeff@compas.org
Web site: www.compas.org

Millennium Artist:
Harrell Fletcher
Interdisciplinary Artist
California
E-mail: hfletcher@earthlink.net
Web site: www.harrellfletcher.com

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Millennium Artist Harrell Fletcher's Artists & Communities residency afforded COMPAS, Inc., the opportunity to pilot a new program, "Artists in the Workplace," with Fortis Financial Group.

The "Artists in the Workplace" concept paired workplaces with an artist-in-residence, with the goal of meeting employers' needs for promoting creativity and employee satisfaction. COMPAS approached Fortis, a company of 1,200 employees that specializes in mutual funds and insurance, to pilot the program. While at Fortis, Fletcher coordinated a variety of arts projects involving the company's employees. Fortis' motto is "First We Are People," and Fletcher's residency became an extension of this motif.

During his residency, Fletcher taught drawing classes using Post-It Notes, gave presentations on his art, set up a camera in the window of President/CEO Dean Kopperud's office so employees could share his view of western Woodbury, and documented the company's cubicle culture using a digital video camera. Using a video camera to record their stories, Fletcher encouraged employees to talk about pictures and objects that meant something to them. Fletcher also conducted movie-making workshops.

The images and stories Fletcher gathered were used for wall posters and background narration in elevators. Fletcher also worked with Peter Germann, Vice President for Human Resources at Fortis, to produce a video presentation on the subject of trust.

COMPAS Executive Director Jeff Prauer commented that the purpose of the project was to provide "experiences that can be life-changing." Prauer described Fletcher as "a curator of people's lives, and we hadn't seen anything quite like that before."

Fletcher says his general strategy for the project "was to go in and wander and observe without any preconceived notion about what I'm doing or what's going on. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I knew I wanted to look at people, who they are as individuals beyond what they do in the workplace."

Germann provides a connection between art and the work place, saying that "[p]eople will want to come to work. Art allows you to reveal yourself in some way, and it creates a sense of belonging and caring in a deeper sense of meaning and relationships. But not everything has to have a tangible business purpose. Right below the surface of that is 'This is pretty cool.' "

Artwork created during Fletcher's residency include photos documenting objects significant to employees; videotapes of interviews with employees discussing their lives at Fortis; video movies about Fortis life, based on scripts written and acted by employees; and a documentary Web site featuring many of the artistic products from the residency.

Check out a video montage of employee's significant objects, Post-It drawings done by Fortis employees, and a journal documenting Fletcher's residency at http://www.compas.org/maaf.html.

MILLENNIUM ARTIST BIO

Harrell Fletcher is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who has produced public art projects for the San Francisco and Washington State Art Commissions, and has done exhibitions at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Center on Contemporary Art, and the de Young Museum.