SEEK Raleigh at Dix Park is a festival of the arts bringing together 20 temporary art installations and performances in partnership with Raleigh Arts. These experimental projects are designed to introduce the public to new, diverse, and thought-provoking experiences in which both the artist and the community will find novel ways to learn and share the stories of Dorothea Dix Park, one of the City’s most important historical sites.
Explore the park as artists bring alive the history and significance of our Dorothea Dix campus through puppetry, sound, structure, illumination, and performance art. On Saturday, enjoy food, drinks, music, dancing and arts + craft activities for kids and adults as you circulate the park participating with artists to bring their work to life.
Friday, May 31 | Starting at 5:00 pm | Friday Schedule
***CANCELED FOR WEATHER CONDITIONS***
Saturday, June 1 | Starting at 3:00 pm | Saturday Schedule
Start your tour at the Big Field which will host the family friendly and festival events all day. Find installations and performances using the GoRaleigh Park Circulator Bus, on foot or by car. Parking is available throughout Dorothea Dix Park. View or Download a parking map.
Please RSVP Registration is not required, but it does help us to know how many guests to expect and we can contact you with important event information.
The Will of the Father
A performance piece meant to remind us of what once was and how that affects us today. The piece, including a monologue by Johnny Lee Chapman, III, speaks to part of the legacy of Theophilus Hunter, Sr. — one of the fathers of the city of Raleigh — and how it affected the lives of African-Americans. Choreography and movement from Anthony "Ajay" Nelson invokes the spirit of the 61 souls bequeathed in Hunter's will, who were recognized by first name only. Nelson weaves through the 61 wooden, white markers that represent each soul.
May 31 | 8 pm (Film screening of the performance)
June 1 | 4 - 7 pm (Performances on the hour,3 to 5 minutes each)
Never Make Absolute Statements
These illuminated sculptures are created from hundreds of pieces of blown glass assembled around a stainless steel armature that houses LED's. The shapes invoke familiarity with themes of aquatic life and extraterrestrial viruses while casting life to worn or forgotten spaces.
Opens May 31
Scene 1 and Scene 2
This piece examines dance as a form of human relationships with a focus on body and form in space. Cut metal dancers are affixed to the outside of an empty cottage bringing life and conversation to these vacant architectural shell.
Opens May 31
Turpentine Movie Night
Turpentine Movie Night is a double feature of two cult classics, nestled inside a grove of pine trees. Come and go as you please, but the longer you watch, the closer you’ll come to a transcendent experience.
May 31 | Sunset, lasts 1.5 hours
June 1 | Sunset, lasts 1.5 hours
Mental Slavery
Mental Slavery is an interactive puppet installation. This piece explores the history of the property now named Dorothea Dix Park.
May 31 | 6 - 9 pm
June 1 | 4 - 9 pm
Felix Obelix (aka Wendy Spitzer)
Dix in Sound in Situ
Incorporating original music, interview snippets, hotline recordings, narration, and found sounds, Dix in Sound in Situ is a new traveling audio installation by Felix Obelix (aka musician and interdisciplinary artist Wendy Spitzer). Visitors to Dix will listen to the installation on headphones as they walk a one-mile loop through the park, experiencing the collapse of time and history, and connecting them to the artist, to the place, and to the sounds themselves.
Opens May 31
Shelter in Place
Shelter in Place is an installation of painted canvas and paracord. Visually this work makes reference to temporary structures (such as in primitive camping) and abstract painting reimagined as something functional, improvised, utilitarian. The title is drawn from the emergency management alert used in response to threats like active shooter attacks. The notion that an artwork could provide shelter from such an attack is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the risk we take in simply engaging publicly in a country that houses more guns than it does people.
Opens May 31
The Other Side of Hungry River, Sings
A collection of found objects from Cherry and Dorothea Dix state mental health hospitals tell their stories and conjure the people they encountered. The lyrical aspects of what are left behind at Dix and Cherry offer vibrant entry points to the highly charged questions the sites beg: How does trauma scar a place, an individual, a community? Who can diagnose disconnection from reality in the modern world? What if we treated our most fragile not as forgotten orphans but as relevant and true? How can telling stories help heal?
On view May 31 | 5 - 8 pm
On view June 1 | 3 - 8 pm
All That We Leave Behind
A cabinet of wonders, a collection of objects, stories, faces, my memories gathered over eighteen years of working in mental health in North Carolina. As a puppeteer, sculptor, painter, and collector, my plan is to create an intimate, interactive sculptural piece filled with layered visual ephemera, text, and sound and light that illustrate my memories from the asylum.
On view May 31 | 5 - 8 pm
On view June 1 | 3 - 8 pm
Boscage
Among the pines, brightly colored, totem-like saplings have taken root, speaking to one another through a lost language. Discover a magic grove within Dorothea Dix Park when you visit this site specific installation of sculpture and sound.
Opens June 1
Amanda Barr
Living Picnic
Come witness a super super sized picnic come to life where humans frolic adorned in food costumes. I’m inviting the public to gather and interact costumed as their choice of picnic item on a giant quilt. Join our group or simply eat your lunch and watch the show.
June 1 | 3 - 7 pm
Inspired by faerie gardens, tree carvings, pastoral romantics, and the poetics of climate change Conner Calhoun creates videos as their own mythology. While dressed as a sunflower raised on corn-fed ghost stories, Calhoun will use the classical forms of theater in order to question story-telling's own moral compass.
Opens June 1
Hen Institute
Hen Institute is a chicken coop as a public art project, community space, and school. An assortment of creative and educational lectures and workshops will happen on site at the coop in addition to off-site community meals made with the eggs produced by the hens. Hen Institute will pair the idea of food related nourishment to creative and educational nourishment for communities in Raleigh.
June 1 | 3 - 9 pm
Carolina Steppin
You're invited to join the Capital City Steppers as we spend the afternoon dancing under the Carolina Sky. We'll perform our latest dance routine titled Carolina Steppin and each performance will be followed by a mini-lesson.
June 1 | 4 pm, 6 pm + 7 pm
Oracle Machine
The Oracle Machine is a magical device where you can seek advice and tell secrets. Specially trained oracles will be at your service.
June 1 | 5 -9 pm
Orvokki Crosby
The Concern Newsstand
The Concern Newsstand is a curated bookstore/ web store project by artist & proprietor Orvokki Crosby. Based in Chapel Hill at Attic 506, with an outpost at Lump Gallery in Raleigh, along with pop ups in places like Dix Park, the book store specializes in limited edition artist books, zines, comics, art books, used books & hard to find publications.
June 1 | 3 - 8 pm
Mike Dimpfl + Ginger Wagg
Leaving Impossible Things Unattended
Leaving Impossible Things Unattended (LITU) performance installation is a reminder that there's no real way to escape plastic waste, though we like to pretend otherwise. We can build a park on a landfill and pretend nature is permanent, but plastic is the real forever.
June 1 | 2 - 9 pm
The Four Humours
The Four Humours is a monumental-scale confession booth, made possible via projection mapping, a custom piece of software, and a number of unique interfaces. This computational artwork is designed specifically for Dorothea Dix Park, with an intended installation site at the “3 Silos” location. The silos will serve as giant projected containers of secrets, confessions, perspectives and emotion.
June 1 | Sunset - 10 pm
CIVIL PRESENCE
Kirby’s newest ‘performative interaction’ makes use of bureaucratic forms, postures, and the styles of interactions associated with the way the State confers citizenship and ritualizes civil authority. Kirby and community members reference themes of citizenship, identity, and human rights as they interact with participants through civil presence assessments. Average time for participation in this piece is 30 minutes or less.
June 1 | 3 - 5 pm + 6 - 7:30 pm
I Wish to Say
Sheryl Oring invites the public to dictate a postcard to the U.S. President as part of her I Wish to Say project. She offers you a chance to speak your mind and will type your postcard verbatim using a manual typewriter.
June 1 | 3 - 4:30 pm + 5:30 - 7 pm
SEEK Raleigh Mobile Map
Know Before You Go
What Can You Bring:
- Friends + Family
- Chairs + Blankets
- Food + Non-alcoholic Drinks
- Filled Water Bottles
What is NOT Allowed:
- Outside Alcohol
- Smoking is not permitted in the park
- Drones + Other Aerial Devices are welcome on the Big Field only
Please Note:
- This event will involve walking on grass, on uneven surfaces, across all forms of terrain.
- There are no bathrooms in Dix Park so please come prepared to only have port-a-johns available.
Questions? Contact Kelly McChesney, Raleigh Arts at 919-996-5657 or kelly.mcchesney@raleighnc.gov
About SEEK Raleigh
The SEEK Raleigh temporary public art program engages artists to use unique, non-traditional interiors, structures, and outdoor spaces for site-specific, performative, and participatory installations and experiences. These temporary, experimental projects are designed to introduce the public to new, diverse, and thought-provoking experiences as well as create opportunities for artists to extend their creative practice. Through these experiences, both the artist and the community will find novel ways to learn and share the stories of our City.
This spring, the Raleigh Arts is working with community partners to launch the SEEK Raleigh program at Dorothea Dix Park, one of the City’s most important historical sites, as a broad stage for performance, installation and experimentation while the entire community’s focus is on the site. Future iterations of the program will activate parks and other public places across the City of Raleigh, bringing art to new and unexpected places.
SEEK Raleigh at Dorothea Dix Park is made possible by the Dorothea Dix Park Conservancy, the City of Raleigh Arts Commission, the Office of Raleigh Arts and the City of Raleigh Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources Department.