Folks: You know and we know that the LoCO is real dumb. We haven’t even figured out how to put all this stuff on newsprint yet.

So it was awfully charitable of Eureka-bred conceptual artist Nick Hubbard to alert us to his ambitious multimedia meditation on Fort Humboldt, which is also his master’s thesis for his program of study at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

The project, titled Through Various Hazards and Adventures We Move, is a personal meditation on place and history. (That much we can tell from the project’s website.)  Hubbard focuses on Fort Humboldt, the old military post above Bucksport. The fort captivated his childhood imagination, but, as he later learned, it played a problematic role in the settlement of the county.

Here’s an artist’s statement:

I’m haunted by the history of my hometown, Eureka, and I’m enchanted by my memories of Fort Humboldt.  My wonderment at the place has been in dialectic with my outrage at the facts of its past that I only learned as an adult. So I have been searching for a way to house a historical critique (why isn’t it taught in the schools, why does it seem like the community didn’t learn from it) within a beguiling experience.  This project is a first attempt.  

It kicks off with site-specific installations at various locations around Eureka — Woodley Island, the Gazebo, the Hikshari Trail, Grant Elementary and Eureka City Hall. What will these installations look like? Hubbard gives us one clue on his YouTube page. Below, see a tiny model of an original Fort Humboldt building, cast in sugar, being buffeted by waves in the East River:

If we understand it right, this is a prototype for the Elk River/Hikshari installation. Time washes away all sins, maybe? Something like that. But probably not, come to think of it. 

On Sunday, everyone is invited to gather at Fort Humboldt itself to participate in the project by building their own models of the fort’s buildings, and by writing messages to the future. These models, it seems, will serve as sort of time capsules to coming generations of Eurekans.

More details below. Press release from Nick Hubbard:

SITE-SPECIFIC ART EXPLORING HISTORY OF FORT HUMBOLDT TO BE INSTALLED IN EUREKA

New York-based, Eureka-raised artist Nick Hubbard will present a series of sculptural installations around town that engage with the history of Fort Humboldt.  The works will be first set in place this coming Saturday, April 23, 2016.  Some of the installations will disappear within a few days, other may take longer but they are all temporary.  

A participatory event on Sunday, April 24, will accompany the installations.  The artist will be on-site at Fort Humboldt, and citizens are invited to come and jointly build a collection of paper models of the fort buildings.  These models will contain messages written by participants that will be shared back with the community over a timespan corresponding to the activity of the Fort.

The project, Through Various Hazards and Adventures We Move, is derived from digital models constructed using documentary photographs of Fort Humboldt, utilizes 3D printing technology combined with traditional model-making, and takes the form of a series of expanded dioramas that change over time.  

Nick Hubbard is currently a Master’s candidate at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.  Through Various Hazards is his thesis.  For more information, contact the project at varioushazards@gmail.com or visit the project website, http://www.varioushazards.com.

Through Various Hazards is on Twitter: @varioushazards.