CANCELED: Uncle Mike’s All-Day Apple Butter

Overview

This performance has been canceled. 

 

Uncle Mike’s All-Day Apple Butter

Created by mike durkin, with Angela Trovato

 

Silence. Absolute silence. Finding commune with each other. The volume of the outside world turned completely down. Utter presence. Uncle Mike’s All-Day Apple Butter is a durational performance and installation. Mike begins by coring, peeling and chopping the apples, cooking them, and pureeing them. Then for 6 hours, Mike stands, in meditation, stirring the pot (so to speak but also literally) At 8pm, Mike seasons the apple butter and cans the butter before distributing it to the audience members for a shared experience. Audience members are invited to come and go during the full day installation, observing, contemplating, savoring, and witnessing Mike stirring.

Inspired by Quaker traditions of solemn meditation, Mike in contemplation invites audiences to be utterly present. Maybe we will sing a song, maybe dance, maybe yell, or whatever comes to him in this meditation. Apple Butter looks at our associations and romanticization of Quaker traditions, slow-life cultures, and the simple life, and the explosion of all things Fall. We think about authenticity, earnestness, and objectification through the critiquing of these communities that occur in pop culture.

About the Artist

mike durkin (he/him/his/y’all) is a large-bodied multidisciplinary social practice performance artist residing in Philadelphia and New York City. the intersection between art and the everyday guides mike (lowercase to de-center himself for the process). He has created site-responsive social practice productions exploring houselessness, food access, place, and gentrification. Upcoming projects will be held at Louisiana State University, Michigan State University, and Reed College. mike’s work has been presented with the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center at the University of Houston, the Performance Studies program at Texas A&M University, with the College of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences at the University of Central Arkansas, Mural Arts Philadelphia, Brandywine River Museum, Barnes Foundation, Mt. Moriah Cemetery, the Life Do Grow Farm, and in parks, churches, and fields, diners, virtually, and most recently with Mural Arts on a collaborative quilt making project with the Color Me Back Same-Day work program. mike has held residencies with Revolve Art Gallery in Asheville, NC, Space at Ryder Farm, Drop Forge and Tool, the Hambidge Arts Center in Rabun Gap, GA, and the Greenhouse Lab with The Orchard Project. mike is part of the 2017 MFA in Devised Performance class with Pig Iron Theatre Company/University of the Arts.

Credits