concept & curation
columbia, md
2018 · 2017
OPUS is a pioneering art & music festival that transforms the legendary Merriweather Post Pavilion and surrounding Symphony Woods into a surreal theatre that engages the senses and provokes the mind.
Through OPUS, we curate, commission & collaborate with multidisciplinary artists to create site-responsive works that push boundaries, disrupt conventions, and create spaces of provocation and reflection for the 15,000+ annual attendees.
OPUS explores the ecstatic through a various mediums including performance, dance, sound, video, and large-scale light and projection installations. We collaborate closely with artists throughout the year to help them develop and evolve their projects. OPUS commissions have gone on to renowned institutions including MoMA and Pioneer Works as well as like-minded festivals such as Red Bull Music Academy Festival and FORM Arcosanti.
Our curatorial approach is a holistic one. We begin with comprehensive research of the site and its history in collaboration with the community and local institutions. From this vantage point, we curate projects that both illuminate and provoke critical thinking in an effort to showcase the past, present and future possibilities of the site. In the case of OPUS, our area of focus was 50 acres of forest, the legendary Merriweather Post Pavilion, and the surrounding town of Columbia, MD which was one of the first master-planned communities in the United States.
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