Vacationland: New Installation
by Betsy Hunt and Zach Moser

Vacationland is a new collaborative installation by Betsy Hunt and Zach Moser. This work is a multi media exploration of a possibly fictional or possibly true story of “a group of females”, aka The Rowdy Raccoons, roaming the land to find a cure for boredom. It is a documentation of their adventures presented as an overload of sensory input.

Coming of age, empty parking lots, old clashing with new, wandering, aimlessness, nostalgia, junk yards, navigating, vacancy, hopelessness, hopefulness, idealized youth, transcendence, the internet, creating a new reality, creating your own reality, technology, using what you have, documenting an existence, freedom, being frozen in time, real, fake, VHS, analog, digital, and fragmented information. –Betsy Hunt and Zach Moser

Hunt and Moser will transform the physical space of the gallery, bombarding the viewer with an overwhelming abundance of information. Vacationland will be a moment in time of these meandering females, both from the past and present, creating a sense of history by utilizing vintage and current technologies. The space will be filled with VHS and Media players, Analog and Digital TVS, photocopies and digital prints all gathered as documentation of two different generations of The Rowdy Raccoons, a testament to their wanderings combating boredom across the land.

Zach Moser and Betsy Hunt currently reside and make art in the Midwest. Zach spends his time making videos and working as a prep cook in Cedar Falls, IA. Betsy lives in Duluth, MN and teaches in the Digital Art and Photography program at the University of Minnesota Duluth. The artists met as undergraduate art students at the University of Northern Iowa. As a collaborative team they have exhibited video and installation works at the Free Range Film Festival (Wrenshal, MN), Elephant Art Space (Los Angeles, CA) and at Duluth Art Institute (Duluth, MN).

Rowdy Raccoons: Anastasia, Christina, Abby, Mary Pat, Emily, Natalie, Mariah, Nora and Zoe.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and by a grant from The McKnight Foundation.  And the support of the Viz Lab at the University of Minnesota Duluth in the development of this work.

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THANK YOU TO OUR EXHIBIT SPONSORS:
Bryant Lake Bowl
Color Space Art and Imaging
Fulton Beer
Lunalux
Pharmacie
Standley Creative
1carservice
Daniel Jacobson at Unleashed Displays
Mike Hefty, Designer

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Photos courtesy of Rik Sfera.

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