About the Type A Project
Project Description
For their contribution to the inaugural exhibition at 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, Type A proposes to team-build the exhibition staff of the Park so that the staff can better realize the exhibition. To accomplish this goal, Type A will train in the Adventure and Experiential Learning industry to build their facilitation skills, evaluate the working climate of the ANP staff, work with professionals in the Adventure industry to design a set of training sessions for the ANP staff, and then facilitate these training sessions in Indianapolis. Although team-building is its central component, the project will generate two and three-dimensional and time-based work that might include:
- A large sculpture inspired by the design of challenge course elements. A low and/or high challenge course element that is designed in response to our experience being trained and facilitating.
- An audio installation that plays ANP staff quotes that result from the training they have done with Type A. This piece might be installed throughout 100 Acres, or it might be integrated into sculpture.
- Photographic and video documentation of the training sessions.
- Drawings of proposed sculptures, installations, etc.
A Brief History of the Adventure Industry and Team Building
Challenge Course / Adventure training has its roots in the military via Outward Bound, a program created in the early 1940's during World War II. Though it is likely the ideas that drive Adventure training programs — facilitating personal and social development through mental and physical challenges — are not entirely new historically, it has evolved and transformed its methodology and audience to enhance a wide variety of demographics, each with differing goals and challenges.
Adventure Education is based on the idea that people learn most when they are actively involved in their learning, feel a sense of control over what they are learning, find a relevancy and attractiveness in material they are learning, and are provided with opportunities for reflection on the experience to make connections with other life aspects and future learning. In Adventure Education the teacher or facilitator does not provide all of the answers for the group. Primarily the participants learn from each other. Adventure experiences intentionally contain a certain amount of spontaneous unpredictability. Adventure based methods have been very successful in meeting educational and personal goals of students. In adventure activities great change can occur through intense problem solving or safe risk taking situations.
A challenge course or ropes course is a configuration of activities constructed of wood and cables designed for group participation. The aim of challenge courses is to present challenging situations to participants in order to create change and help participants to learn about the dynamics of individual and group behavior. In challenge course situations students are taken out of their standard frame of reference and asked to participate in unusual and attractive activities that focus on areas such as group problem solving, communication, the value of diversity and insight skills.
Outward Bound was designed to enhance fortitude, build character and increase survival rates among young merchant sailors through physical and mental trust building challenges. The phrase "Outward Bound" derives from the Blue Peter flag, which signaled that a ship was soon to depart. The name has come to signify the challenge people face when venturing into unknown waters. Launched in Wales, Outward Bound thrived in the UK, Asia, Malaysia, Germany, Kenya, and Australia after the war. The first Outward Bound school opened in the United States in Boulder, CO in 1963. Project Adventure was started in 1971 as a result of a 3 year federally funded project to mainstream Outward Bound into school curriculum. One of its founders, Karl Rohnke, had a background in the military and Outward Bound. Rohnke served two years in the U.S. Army as a medical technologist and four years of teaching outdoor education in Southern California. He was a watch officer at Hurricane Island Outward Bound in 1967 and chief instructor at North Carolina Outward Bound until 1971. Rohnke left Outward Bound to become one of the founders of the Project Adventure program in Hamilton, MA and worked there continuously until 1996. Karl Rohnke became director of Project Adventure in 1980 and guided the evolution of ropes courses, as well as creative games, initiatives, elements and stunts that are essential to the Project Adventure curriculum. In the early 1980s, Project Adventure expanded its experiential education curriculum to include at-risk youth. In 1985, challenge course training began to be applied in the corporate world utilizing a specialized curriculum to build teamwork and morale among employees, which in turn had the potential to increase revenues.
Rohnke left Project Adventure in 1996 and shortly thereafter helped to form High 5, an adventure and experiential learning organization headquartered in Brattleboro, VT. This modestly sized organization continues to work with local schools, businesses, fire and police departments and state agencies to build trust and interpersonal connections within these organizations. It is because of High 5’s teaching philosophy and collective experience that Type A has chosen the organization to facilitate the majority of their training.
Project Philosophy
Several motivations and intentions are at the heart of this project:
- To affect the culture of the institution, in addition to contributing physical art objects to the exhibition.
- To create possibilities for art as team-building and for team-building as art.
- To challenge the notion that art is the exclusive domain of the artist and to work with the IMA to expand the role of the institution and, by extension, the audience.
- To examine collaboration on an institutional (macro) and individual (micro) level.
- To expand Type A’s collaborative working model to include and influence a larger audience.
- To combine an intangible and unquantifiable performance, with traditional multidimensional work.
- To create tension between the profound effect of art and it inherent uselessness.
