Bethany Engstrom

2017-2018

Photographs on vinyl, plexiglass and LED lighting

2017
Waxed muslin, metal conduit, wood, audio

We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Offering temporary protection from the elements, tents create a duality of the interior and exterior. When in them you are inside yet still outside and never quite at home. They invite the calm of nature and also the anxieties of the unknown outside. By the River is a consideration of this idea and welcomes engagement from both inside and out.

2010-2015

Photographs on vinyl, plexiglass and LED lighting

2010-2015

Photographs on vinyl, plexiglass and LED lights

2010-2015

Mixed media with audio

Mixed media and audio
Installation at UMaine Augusta

The spontaneity of nature, time study #1, 2013
Mixed media and audio
Installation at Asymmetrick Arts, Rockland, Maine

The spontaneity of nature is an extension of my interest in life and the spaces we encounter. With this work I am looking to explore a sense of time and how one experiences a space when time is uncertain or ambiguous, when the perception of time is lost leading to a questioning of when this experience is taking place. In The spontaneity of nature is an experiment using objects and sound to help construct this narrative of time for a shared encounter between the participants and myself.

2012
Steel, fabric and video, approx. 84 x 52 x 52”

Dark Snow is based on an interest in our considerations of life and the spaces we encounter, the spaces between philosophy, society, psychology, and pop culture, the uncomfortably strange sensation that we experience within these areas. Dark Snow looks at how the amount of light changes the perception and feeling of an area by using a space for video that explores the effects of diminishing light with snow blanketing the ground, contrasting between the white and the shadows.

2012
Fabric, PVC, bleached leaves, audio

Into the Woods is an iteration of an earlier exploration that began with Walking and The Bodies Brush Together with a Rustle of Dry Leaves was the result of research I had been dealing with how we perceive uncanny spaces. In particular, this piece looks at the way in which certain elements of nature and the woods at night are experienced, raising questions of how this space is perceived and what constructs one brings when experiencing this environment.

2011
Plexiglass, wood, steel and audio, approx.
8’ x 10’ x 10’

“In the darkness of the night or eternal blindness we are most vulnerable and the imagination is free to run wild.” -Christopher Grunenberg

The Unheimlich Mist Called Hill-Fog began with an experience I had of being immersed in a dense winter fog where I was unable to see but for a very short distance. This led to the question of what happens when immersed in a space when the sense of sight is obscured, sound is emphasized and the anxieties of being in that space set in. With the use of altered and constructed materials along with compiled sound as a suggested narrative, these questions are also presented to the participant when entering and experiences this space.

2010

Mixed media, video and audio, approx. 8 x 8’

In November 2010 I stayed at the Maine Motel in Portland and wrote an account of my stay while there. 444 is a look at motels and their ambiguous place in American culture as represented in movies and in writing. I began with this idea and chose a motel to stay at to take an account of my experience while in that space. Thomas Moore reflects on this as temenos and says, “…I notice that hotel life is keenly sensitive to temenos. …I establish the temenos by checking the perimeters carefully, discovering where the weak places are, where sound penetrates, how secure the sliding doors are. This check is not just for security but for the sensation that the space is now prepared for my habitation” (Moore 295). My account of the Maine Motel lead to the formation of a constructed facade of a motel room exterior entrance. This facade was not representational of any particular motel but a distillation of any that you would encounter on the side of the highway. Audio of the above account layered with other noises that one might hear in a room is heard when approaching the door to peer through the peep hole that shows a motel room in monochrome.

2010
Mixed media with audio, 25 x 25 x 25”

During the spring of 2010, I spent a day on Ellis Island and was fortunate enough to participate in a tour of the areas of the Island that are not restored and are closed to the public. This space consisted mainly of the infectious disease wards where sick immigrants were sometimes quarantined having arrived on the island with symptoms of tuberculosis, measles, smallpox and other sicknesses. Although there were very few deaths on the island, within the buildings there were at least two morgues and an “autopsy theater” made up of a multiple level observation area which particularly resonated with me and I knew I needed to explore the space further by researching and investigating the spaces I had experienced by looking into experiences of immigrants that had passed through Ellis Island, including the writer Louis Adamic. The space I created is a reference to the actual areas in Ellis Island but not a representation of them. In order to explore the effect of the interactions I and others had in the spaces, I created a hybrid of them, analyzing the uncomfortably strange effect they had in order to share this experience with those who encounter the work. Included in the audio component of the pieces is a quote from Adamic about his experience upon arriving at Ellis Island layered with video from my visit there.

2009-2010
2-channel video

Walking began as a study for The Bodies Brush Together with a Rustle of Dry Leaves. I recorded a walk on a familiar path near my house from dusk until it progressively turned dark from a point of view angle. It is a consideration of how the amount of light changes the perception and feeling of a space. The completed video is a dual channel view of the walk with the left depicting the light as it diminishes and the right is the reverse. The recorded sounds during the walk are used and some are amplified to emphasize those that produced an eerie feeling such as dogs barking and screaming children.

2009
Wood, fabric, painted leaves, audio, 8 x 24 x 3’

The Bodies Brush Together with a Rustle of Dry Leaves was the result of research I had been dealing with how we perceive uncanny spaces. In particular, this piece looks at the way in which certain elements of nature and the woods at night are experienced, raising questions of how this space is perceived and what constructs one brings when experiencing this environment. The work was constructed of 2 x 4s and fabric to make a narrow corridor and was angled so that one could not see very far ahead of them. The fabric made the space dark and moved as one walked through. On the floor of the corridor was white painted leaves and audio of walking in the woods layered with louder trigger noises.

2009
Rubber boots, video and audio, dimensions variable

This work is based on my experiences during trips to Japan and the exploration of being in a state of fear. I visited Japan during the outbreak of the H1N1 virus. During this time, many precautions were taken when people entered the country including a quarantine for airplanes that involved staying on board until heath officials dressed in medical gowns and white boots went through to check the temperatures of everyone. In Defense of Fear, I am reflecting and re-contextualizing the experience and narrative in an attempt to share this feeling of fear and discomfort. During my time in Japan, officials also checked up on my health by calling me at one hotel and sending a thermometer and masks to another. The installation includes three pairs of white rubber boots, one pair projects video of airport thermal images and another pair includes sounds from Japanese airports.

2009
Face masks, steel rod

These Requests Are Made to Protect You As Well As Your Family was based on my experiences during a trip to Japan and the exploration of being in a state of fear. I visited Japan during the outbreak of the H1N1 virus. During this time, many precautions were taken when people entered the country including a quarantine for airplanes that involved staying on board until heath officials dressed in medical gowns and white boots went through to check the temperatures of everyone. This work expresses a subtle impression that I was seeking by using surgical masks, similar to those given on the airplane in Japan and were required to wear when we left the plane and went into the airport. They are also commonly used by people in Japan during their everyday routine when they go out into public spaces. By sewing these masks together in a circular form that one enters, I reflected on the idea of what theses masks are used for and the state that a person is in when using these masks in their everyday life.

String and video, 10:34

Distance Traveled is a consideration and constant questioning of what it entails to do what I do as an artist and the processing of that information. To look at this idea, I used a measurement of string to represent distance traveled during a particular time period. At the time I was traveling from home to work, then to class and back home, which was a considerable distance. I measured the string to equal an inch to a mile and recorded the movement of pulling the string through my hands to work through this idea of repetitiveness and to express the sense of distance which took 10 minutes and 34 seconds. To display the work, I played the video on a small monitor and draped the string around it.

2009
Football helmet and audio

How do created fictions affect our everyday existence? Dreams of Z Defense raises this question and that of how media influences how one perceives reality. Based on a dream I had as a teenager after watching the movie Night of the Living Dead in which I used a football helmet to protect me from brain eating zombies. Dreams of Z Defense recreates this experience based on the influence of fiction on everyday life. It presents a shared experience in a controlled space for the audience and poses the questions of influence and reality in one’s own existence by using a football helmet with audio built in to create a small environment when put on.

2009
Wood construction, paint, fabric, multi-channel audio

Untitled (Marriage) relates to an everyday experience for many and to the idea of one of our society’s most common states of being, marriage. I am exploring the concept of marriage by using my personal experience of it to reflect a sense of feeling for people to create their own perception of comfort or anxiety; familiarity or unknowing. This experience is common to many but also different for each individual. Untitled (Marriage) invites one to sit back into the space that is somewhat awkward. It is constructed of wood and upholstered in white fabric to contain audio of five over lapping conversations between myself and my husband to let the participate enter into my experience of marriage.

2008
Wood construction, paint, florescent lighting, camera, TV monitor, white noise machine

44 Seconds was a site-specific installation in response to the space in the Freeze building in Bangor where it was displayed. The installation considered the idea of the typical spaces in which one views art, usually a white gallery. This work, consisting of a 7’ x 7’ wood constructed structure that the viewer enters through an open doorway, was a completely white environment comprised of white walls, white lights, and white noise. A camera in the ceiling of the structure presented the activity within the cube to a monitor mounted on the outside for other viewers to see. 44 Seconds called attention to the notion of the white, sterile, art space by pushing the boundaries, presenting and confronting the viewer with an uncomfortable experience that enhanced the senses to question the space they are in.