Participatory Artistic Experiences with Will Owen

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the great things about doing a show like this is the fascinating people I get to talk to who are coming at experience design from many different approaches, perspectives, and backgrounds. One of the groups that I perhaps enjoy talking to the most (no offense to anyone else) is artists. I’ve always admired the ability to turn imagination and passion into something that expresses one’s soul in a way that can move others. Talking to artists about their work kind of creates a sense of purity of work in terms of representing an authentic self. I don’t want to overly dramatize or prematurely canonize them. But artists can do really cool stuff that brings life and light into the world.

And it feels like every day more and more, we need some life and light brought into the world. While art changes, our need for art never changes.

My guest today is artist Will Owen. Looking at Will’s website, it lists his primary mediums as sound, sculpture, and food. That’s right. Food. 

Without that is a larger preoccupation of culture and the world in which we live, seeking to represent it in ways that stimulate thought, expose us to its beauty, and contemplate its possibilities. 

Growing up in Appalachia provided an opportunity to explore how to have fun and create with whatever was available. Before we had the concept of a ‘maker space,’ his childhood was a maker space in which risks could be take in the pursuit of having fun and filling time. Out of that comes a creative spark and fundamental appreciation for the natural world. He describes himself as being ‘obsessively curious’ and being promiscuous with materials, which he owes to his childhood and the collaborative explorations with his friends.

Today he is part of many different collectives around the world. He is part of the Flux Factory in New York, and has worked with artists in Russia and Taipei,

We talk about making something loud with no budget, the indelible reciprocity of making together, the porousness needed to engage with performative audiences, and his obsession with supertemporary communities. We also talk about the bus experiment, a traveling exhibit from Manhattan to Philly. 

Will Owen - https://willowen.net

Flux Factory - https://www.fluxfactory.org/