sculpture / Installation

In addition to audio storytelling and composition, I’ve had a career full of creative pursuits. I’ve worked in a number of fields and across an array of mediums. Explore some of these projects that uplift communities, draw people closer, and tell meaningful stories.

WHITE RIVER PUTT

This putt-putt hole playfully highlights the geography of the White River watershed. This playable map identifies the river and its tributaries as they fan out over Indianapolis and run through vibrant and diverse neighborhoods. Players are invited to connect with the city’s primary water source as they investigate the lush landscape and orient themselves to Indy’s rivers and streams. This may be the only round of golf you play where it is strategic to aim for the water.

Wagon of Wonders at Indiana State Parks

Thanks to a grant from the Indiana Arts Commission and a partnership with Big Car Collaborative, our Wagon of Wonders took 4 visits to three separate state parks in '16. We celebrated free fishing days, the Indiana State Park Centennial, Father's Day, and the mythical, cryptid known as the Puk-Wud-Jie.

world's largest cardboard sculpture

This record breaking cardboard rocket ship was built at the IX Art Park in Charlottesville VA. It stood over 30ft. with a 10ft. diameter fuselage and smoke billowing out to cover a 35 sq. ft. area. The project was a collaboration with PauseLab to kick off BeCville, a community participatory budgeting arts program. By involving the community and soliciting responses, the project engaged hundreds in sharing meaningful creative ideas for their neighborhood.

BURNSIDE'S SIDEBURNS

Burnside's Sideburns (carpet, turf, wood, wood burned) was created for the Indianapolis Museum of Art as part of the artist designed bicentennial mini-golf course (featured in USA Today, 2016). Burnside’s Sideburns honors the legacy of Ambrose Burnside, a Civil War era colonel from Indiana. More importantly, Burnside was also known for his unusual facial hair, which joined patches of hair on the side of his face to his mustache—a style known as “the Burnsides,” which would later be inverted to become “sideburns.” The hole challenges golfers to navigate the colonel’s face and sideburns to reach the hole inside his monocle. (Par 3)

With the help of a Nice Grant from community-focused Smallbox and donations from Freewheelin' Community Bikes, rapper Scoot Dubbs and Know No Stranger's Alan Goffinski collaborated on the stage of Optical Popsicle 7 in the Indianapolis Museum of Art's Toby Theater!

THE RAPPARATUS

This contraption was made possible with a 2014 Nice Grant. The large kinetic sculpture music machine was designed to function and interact with vocal performers. The Rapparatus made its debut during Optical Popsicle 7 with musician Scoot Dubs at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Wagon of wonders

The Wagon of Wonders is Big Car Collaborative’s (http://www.bigcar.org) mobile, interactive art unit and pop-up public space. Part curiosity cabinet, part gallery, and (currently) part fishing bait shop (based on and in partnership with this one: http://westsidebaitshop.com), the Wagon features changing mini exhibits and opportunities for everybody to contribute creativity — and borrow a fishing pole and bait and go fishing in a lake or river, learning about nature along the way. The Wagon of Wonders was designed collaboratively by Big Car artists under the leadership of Jim Walker (http://herehere.us), built by Chris Vorhees (http://chrisvorhees.com - about the Efroymson Fellowship: http://tinyurl.com/pdwkj7l), and features commissioned exhibits by Indianapolis artists Beatriz Vasquez (http://artists.indyartsguide.org/artist/beatriz-vasquez/) and Casey Roberts (http://wildernessoverload.com) with contributions by Alan Goffinski (via Reconnecting to Our Waterways: http://www.ourwaterways.org), Christopher Dance (https://www.facebook.com/ChristopherDanceArt), and Niina Cochran (http://www.niinacochran.com). The Wagon of Wonders is currently found, most often, at Spark Monument Circle (http://www.circlespark.org) or at Reconnecting to Our Waterways destinations around Indianapolis. It is made possible by the Herbert Simon Family Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (http://www.warholfoundation.org), Apparatus (http://www.apparatus.net), Klipsch (http://www.klipsch.com), The Samerian Foundation (http://www.samerianfoundation.org/), Impact 100 (www.impact100indy.org/), AvantGarb (http://www.avantgarb.com), Penrod Society (http://www.penrod.org) and the major funders of Big Car programs and our staff artists: Central Indiana Community Foundation (http://www.cicf.org), Efroymson Family Fund (http://tinyurl.com/pdwkj7l), Indianapolis Foundation (http://tinyurl.com/nf5xyn6), Reconnecting to Our Waterways, Arts Council of Indianapolis (https://indyarts.org/) and the Indiana Arts Commission (http://www.in.gov/arts/). Our friends at LUNA Music (http://www.lunamusic.net) and Klipsch donated our DIY DJ rig. Contact us through http://www.bigcar.org to learn more or to request a visit from the Wagon of Wonders.

The Wagon of Wonders was designed collaboratively by Big Car artists, Jim Walker, Chris Vorhees, Beatriz Vasquez, Casey Roberts, Alan Goffinski, Christopher Dance, and Niina Cochran. The Wagon of Wonders (WoW) is a mobile, interactive art unit and pop-up public space. Part curiosity cabinet, part gallery, and part fishing bait shop (based on and in partnership with Westside Bait &Tackle), the Wagon features changing mini exhibits and opportunities for everybody to contribute creativity — and borrow a fishing pole and bait and go fishing in a lake or river, learning about nature along the way.

pigeon business

This collaboration with Know No Stranger first made it's debut with Art in Odd Places and was recreated for Oxford Kinetics Festival. Well-dressed human-pigeon-hybrids interact with people on the street. With briefcases full of birdseed, these peckers engage humans by doing birdbrained things like digging in trash, skittishly flying away from danger, and throwing breadcrumbs to/at children and adults. Pigeon Business provokes a surreal experience by creating a bizarre mishmash of two species that share a habitat but rarely interact: pigeons and businessmen.

ALAN GOFFINSKI