A window of opportunity in Newport
From now through the spring, the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center will liven up the Newport Bayfront after dark with its Moving Image Show.
Displayed on the exterior of the Doerfler Family Theater windows, this special video installation features numerous photographs from the historical image collection of the Lincoln County Historical Society's Log Cabin Research Library.
The program loops every 12 minutes, opening with an invitation and information about visiting the center. This special image show can be viewed by standing on the sidewalk in front of the museum or across the street on the boardwalk near Port Dock 5. The show will cease in a few months when the days grow longer.
This fun outdoor slide show showcases images from the museum archives and is the creation of Newport artist, author and museum volunteer Carol Shenk. Now in its second year, the program includes new images and animations. Shenk describes the video installation as “a sort of visual poem about our coastal home and our histories,” using images from the collection, some of which she made into playful animations, as well as text prompting viewers to think about their relationship to the ocean and the past.
In this year's sequence, many figures first appear as silhouettes, some animated, which then resolve into the original photos. These initial shadows of people and things from the past are meant to draw viewers into the images with a questioning mindset. They were inspired by the “crankie," a historical form of home entertainment from American folk culture in which a scroll of paper illustrated with painted backgrounds and shadow puppet-like figures is pulled across a light box to create a moving image that tells a story.
Shenk volunteered her time to create the show.
“It's been exciting to be able to share some of LCHS's wonderful photo collection in this way — to make historical images accessible as public art in a dynamic format,” she said. “Hopefully the installation will help people place our contemporary lives into context: what our region has been like in past eras, and how individuals have shaped our community over time.”
The show will run Tuesday through Sunday from 4 to 10 pm, except the first Thursday of each month. The Pacific Maritime Heritage Center is located at 333 SE Bay Blvd. in Newport. For more information, go to oregoncoasthistory.org or call 541-265-7509.