CON·FLU·ENCE
- the junction of two rivers, especially rivers of approximately equal width. "here at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers"
- an act or process of merging. "a major confluence of the world's financial markets"
Rail Sail involved several gatherings, events, and melding of visitors and friends. This "confluence" began with a gathering at Front Space on Friday, August 5. Inside the gallery space a video installation, a small library, research materials, a handrawn map of the Kansas City area functioned as a way to orient the project in the local landscape. Visitors were invited to add locations and memories of area railroad tracks to the map and these locations became a starting place for our research of where and when the Rail Sail would launch.
Kansas City, Kansas and Missouri 1907 From The New Encyclopedic Atlas and Gazetteer of the World, Edited by Francis J. Reynolds, P.F. Collier & Son, New York, 1917
While moving west from NYC with Rail Sail, we intersected with Einat Imber and Erin Diebboll who were driving east with a folded burlap boat in tow. Rail Sail and Sea to Sea converged at MINT Collective in Columbus, Ohio.
KC Confluence was wind in the sail for our time in Kansas City and an opportunity to call on collaborators to help with navigating KC-area railroads, agricultural history, and rivers. Following the opening at Front Space, we held a Rail Sail dinner for interested and intersecting collaborators — a gathering to plan the launch of Rail Sail and participants offered to "guide" or "ride" with the Rail Sail at several sites in and around the city.
We were also joined by fellow artists and collaborators Bill Daniel, Shlomit Strutti, and Ricki Dwyer for a series of presentations and gatherings. This merging of work and practices came together as two rivers might meet, ebb, flow, flood and recede. Our confluence took place at Front Space with a rambling, one-night, touring, pop-up drawing and photo show + video "AURA Workshop" from Texas-based filmmaker/photographer Bill Daniel and Tel Aviv artist Shlomit Strutti. Strutti, with new drawings, monoprints and photographs, and Daniel, with a mix of found ephemera, portraits, and printing experiments, assembled a massive mash-up that is displayed ad-hoc on portable foam insulation panels that the artists travel with and set up in a variety of settings, from nightclubs to art galleries to DIY spaces.
Another flow toward KC Confluence was from Rail Sail collaborator, sailmaker, and artist Ricki Dwyer who joined with their sewing machine, performing an embroidery project to disperse people’s tattoos as patches for other people’s worn clothes.
