Light Room: Practice

As of 3/14, SPACE is closed to the public and all upcoming events are postponed for the immediate future. We hope to return to the Light Room as soon as we can. We will keep you posted & please take care.

Light Room: Practice is an installation and participatory project conceptualized by performance artists, Riley Watts and Asher Woodworth, with a plant room by artist John Sundling of Plant Office.

The 534 Congress Street gallery at SPACE will be turned into an open venue complete with full-spectrum lighting, humidifiers, and a soft floor, creating an environment that combats seasonal affective symptoms. The back gallery room will be transformed into a dedicated Plant Office grow room installation where visitors are invited to come work in a lush green indoor space. SPACE’s 538 Congress St. venue will host a video and sound installation lounge during gallery hours, exploring the effects of movement and sensory input on the body.

Public participants are invited to sign up for a hour-long shift to engage their personal, artistic, healing, or other practices. This may take form as a solitary activity, or participants may choose to host a pop-up program, class, workshop, social gathering, rehearsal, or other idea in the Light Room. Others may choose to participate or be audience to one of these activities. Time can be reserved in the Light Room starting on Monday, March 2nd, by stopping by SPACE’s Congress Street home or by calling one of our Light Room representatives at 207-828-5600. 

By dropping by the gallery, audience members can see the upcoming schedule of events, catch a program by chance, or find themselves as the center of the gallery activity during an unscheduled block. Light Room will be open Monday through Friday 8 am-4 pm, and on Saturday and Sunday, 10 am-4 pm. The opening and inaugural Light Room activities will take place during First Friday Art Walk on Friday, March 6th. 

In keeping with the organization’s name, the aim of this project is to cultivate a deliberate and open space for curiosity, opportunity, and expression. SPACE is building off an established legacy of community-developed programming ranging from the celebrated Free for All 2D exhibitions, Goods & Services pop-up shop/“retail experiment”, 2018’s Bring Your Own Beamer (BYOB) exhibition for media works, and now with Light Room: Practice.

SPACE’s 2019-2020 Community engagement interventions, public talks, and projects such as Light Room are generously supported by the Moser Family Foundation.

Riley Watts is a multidisciplinary dance artist and producer in Portland, Maine. He works with dance improvisation, video art, sculpture, music, and live installations to experience states of consciousness through the hyper-articulate body in motion.  Riley has been an artist-in-residence at SPACE, Bates Dance Festival, Hewnoaks Artist Colony, and most recently is a 2019-2020 Studio Resident for the Ellis Beauregard Foundation in Rockland, Maine. He is the co-creator of Portland Dance Month, an initiative to highlight the Fall season of dance & performance in Maine, and currently sits on the Board of Directors at Bangor Ballet.  He received a BFA in dance from The Juilliard School and since 2010 has worked primarily with choreographer William Forsythe and The Forsythe Company, as well as with Netherlands Dance Theater 2, Bern Ballet, and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. Riley was a 2006 Princess Grace Award winner and was named Contemporary Dancers of the Year 2015, with Brigel Gjoka, by the Leonide Massine – Positano Prize, Italy, for their work in Forsythe’s DUO2015.

Asher Woodworth is a  multidisciplinary artist based in Maine. Asher’s background is in  performance, postmodern dance, and video. He works primarily with bodies and concepts, but also objects, plants, and heat. Recently Asher has worked with Dean Moss, Deborah Hay, and Hana van der Kolk. He has shown  his work at Movement Research, Danspace Project, SPACE Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, and has led workshops and performed nationally and internationally at such venues as MoMA, The Walker Art Center, Diverseworks, BRIC, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, The Electric Lodge, CATI  Dans, Body Actualized Center, and Uferstudios Berlin. He is the recipient of a 2015 Touring Grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts. Asher holds a BA in Dance and Philosophy from Bennington College.