Artists & Communities Host Site: Children's Museum of Utah
840 North 300 West
Salt Lake City, UT 84103

Millennium Artist:
Karen Aqua
Animator
Massachusetts
E-mail: aquak@att.net
Web site: http://aquak.home.att.net

Millennium Artist:
Ken Field
Composer
Massachusetts
E-mail: fieldk@att.net
Web site: http://fieldk.home.att.net

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Utah's Nine Mile Canyon region is deceptive in its barrenness. Look closely and you will discover signs that it is, in fact, a rich crossroads of geological, cultural, and social history. The area is noted for its deposits of dinosaur remains and other fossils; its rock overhangs feature prehistoric petroglyphs and pictograph panels left by the Archaic, Fremont, and Ute peoples. The historical period of the canyon is an equally fascinating interplay between Native people and pioneer settlers, Buffalo Soldiers and the military, the railroad and cattlemen.

The Children's Museum of Utah, developing an interactive education package on Nine Mile Canyon, selected collaborating artists Karen Aqua and Ken Field for their Artists & Communities residency. Since 1976, Aqua has collaborated with Field in making award-winning animated films reflecting a shared interest in symbols, mythology, and tribal cultures. Experimental sound, music, and rhythm are important components in her films, and Aqua's partnership with composer, saxophonist, flutist, and percussionist Ken Field marries these qualities to her work.

During their four month residency in Utah, fourth grade students from Creekview Elementary School in nearby Price researched Nine Mile Canyon as part of their 2000 academic program, working with Aqua and Field to create an animated film tracing the unique physical and cultural ecology of the area.

The project team took a number of field trips to the Canyon and to the College of Eastern Utah Prehistory Museum, where they studied and drew Native American rock art, artifacts, and dinosaur skeletons. Aqua then taught them basic cut-out and flipbook animation techniques, and helped the students film their animations. Field, meanwhile, taught the class about sound and rhythm, and worked with them to record sounds that would best enhance their film. Several students performed music they had been studying as well as pieces Field composed for them. Each student also recorded part of the film narrative they wrote with Aqua.

The resultant animated film, Nine Mile Canyon: Under Construction premiered twice in February 2001 to full houses at the Price Crown Theatre and the Little Star Theatre at the Children's Museum in Salt Lake City. The children's artwork was also exhibited at both the Children's Museum and the CEU Prehistoric Museum in Price during that month.

One of the drawings from Nine Mile Canyon went on to win a statewide poster contest sponsored by the Utah State Historical Society, and will be featured on over 2,500 posters commemorating Utah Prehistory and Heritage Week. Most of the original artwork for the film will become part of the collection of the Children's Museum of Utah, and the Museum plans to use components of the film in its educational CD ROM package about the region's prehistoric past.

Commenting on their residency, Millennium Artists Karen Aqua and Ken Field said, "an aim of [this] project [was] to reinforce the community's sense of heritage, providing them with a medium with which to share it with others….Our hope [was] to help transfer cultural heritage from leaders - elders, teachers, historians - to the young people of the community as well as people outside of the community…documenting, presenting, and preserving their cultural symbols, iconography, sounds, and music."

Check out Nine Mile Canyon: Under Construction online at http://www.archaeologychannel.org.

MILLENNIUM ARTIST BIOS

Karen Aqua's award-winning animated films have been screened worldwide at festivals and venues, including the Hiroshima International Animation Festival, Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films, New York Film Festival, Dartmouth College, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Roswell Museum and Art Center, and the Honolulu Movie Museum.

Composer and saxophonist Ken Field is a member of the new music ensemble Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. He has performed in the U.S., Canada, Spain, France, and Japan, and has released several CDs of his solo work for layered alto saxophones.

Together, Aqua and Field have collaborated on a number of animation/soundtrack residencies and projects, including over one dozen pieces for Sesame Street.