Nothing sat on the stage of the Jepson Center auditorium last Tuesday except for a wall with a clock, a school desk and a television on a cart. From behind the wall, a figure covered in feathers shuffled to the edge of the stage, then to the desk and sat down. A schoolteacher emerged and turned on the television to show the launch of a rocket. Through the static, the word “Challenger” was barely distinguishable. Suddenly, the rocket disappeared behind a flurry of fire. The feathered figure just stared as the teacher began to weep.
This was Rob Hessler’s newest installment of his “From the Other Side of the World” series, funded by Telfair Museums’ #art912 microgrant for the commission of a publicly-engaged artwork in Savannah. His series presents an alternate universe where “the people, places, events and ideas of our world are represented by a combination of both their physical features and the impact that they’ve had on our past, present and future realities,” Hessler said.
Hessler remembers sitting in school watching the broadcast of the Challenger launch himself. When the rocket exploded, “we didn’t know there was something wrong. No one knew what it was supposed to look like.” The students only picked up on the panic from the teachers frantically trying to turn the television off.
The explosion came up in a discussion at one of Hessler’s exhibitions in 2013. He realized that there were some occasions that a generation experienced in the same way at the same time and that it created an instant connection deeper than the event itself.
He saw similarities with the Hindenburg disaster of 1937 and the Krakatoa eruption of 1883. Both events visibly influenced human life for years after as people turned their attention towards radio, telegraphs and newspapers.
Hessler used the events as a new context for the character of The One in the Duck Feather Cloak. He first drew the figure in 2012 for the Boston Drawing Project, inspired by the phrase “like water off a duck’s back,” meaning that something has no effect on a person. He began to “torment the character” by attacking it with a tornado, drowning it and burying it alive. The character responded with both emotional and literal immunity.
After the Challenger, Hindenburg and Krakatoa, he continued the “Other Side of the World” series by having the character observe scenes such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, immigrants at Ellis Island, the arrival of the slave ship “Antelope” and the sinking of the Titanic.
Hessler continues to ponder which events will define the next generation. He imagines last year’s Pulse nightclub shooting and the recent Las Vegas massacre will feature prominently, but wonders if the saturation of tragedies, the “new normal,” has shifted towards an overall lack of safe public space. He still struggles to create a piece about Sept. 11, despite his belief that it represents a natural and necessary component of the series.
Funded by the Telfair’s microgrant, Hessler partnered with fashion designer Harmony Ellington to create the sculpture which took over 200 hours. It’s comprised of a unique neckless cloak, 600 feathers hand cut from special canvas paper and the plastic globe of a streetlight painted red.
The evolution from page to sculpture of the character slowly began to break the barrier between our world and “the other side.” At the Savannah Department of Cultural Affairs earlier this year, Hessler stood the sculpture in front of his drawing of the terrorist attack in Nice, France. In this sense, the character manifested in our world but hadn’t yet recognized our reality.
Also earlier this year, he sent out cutouts of the character to volunteers, who in turn responded by sending Hessler pictures of the character in places important to them. This broke the barrier further by letting the character go out into the world on its own, away from Hessler’s control.
In Tuesday’s performance, the character took its next and greatest step by moving and approaching the edge of the stage, looking out at the audience briefly. “I’ve drawn it so small for so long that it’s different when it becomes full size and lives,” Hessler said. He wants to continue pushing boundaries and bridging the gap between the two worlds as the series continues.
He does have plans to take the cloak to Rome and create a photography project where the character contemplates the Colosseum and the Hadron Collider. “I don’t know. I just think it would be cool to walk around Rome in this costume just messing with people,” he said. “I’ll let you know if I get arrested.”
Asked if he identifies with his character, he paused before admitting, “I’m way too emotional to be it.” He said that he spent 160 hours working on the Nice drawing, “researching and thinking about a horrible thing for over a month.” With a subject that necessitated a drastic emotional disconnection, the character became a kind of “protective measure” for Hessler. However, with the increased velocity of tragedies, even he wondered if the feathers might begin to fall off.
Written by Elena Burnett.
Elena Burnett is the Editor-in-Chief of District. She’s a writing major who will graduate in 2019.
