Junk Trail | Michelle Echenique

The Junk Trail

An environmental art installation created while an artist resident at I-Park

The official Junk Trail video is here!

Watch here: https://youtu.be/cOl8TAkPbcQ.

Thanks to the generosity of I-Park and the hard work of videographer Nancy Pinney, the story of the Junk Trail in under 6 minutes.

In April 2016 I was invited to be an artist resident at the I-Park International Artists-in-Residence Program in rural Connecticut. My project was to reimagine the so-called Junk Trail, a collection of materials produced by the activities of I-Park and its artists.

Upon first inspection at arrival, I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, its size (approximately 4000 square feet), state of decay (a confusion covered in layers of leaves) and amount and diversity of material (detritus from the residence, building projects and retired environmental art pieces). But the next day's initial explorations pointed to a direction. I would create a home, a composite of recognizable rooms, accessed by both an interior and exterior trail.

A before video

Taken Day One

Necessity provided a process that I describe as excavation/discovery; organization; composition. It was a methodology, neither linear nor exclusive, where the balance shifted from mostly excavation to mostly composition as the trail took shape.

In additon to the official I-Park video about the project here is a quick and dirty "Before" video and excellent photos, most taken by my fellow resident Marianne Barcellona, that illustrate the project.