Recipes, stories, songs to aid flood recovery

A public reception is planned for Tuesday night at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art for The Flood Project: Rising Above and Restoring Boulder Through Art. The reception begins at 5:30 p.m. and continues until 8 p.m.

The participatory, public art project includes everything from sharing comfort food recipes to using the words of survivors as song lyrics.

Matt Chasansky, manager of Arts & Cultural Services for the City of Boulder, says members of the public at the reception will have a chance to learn about the project and its artists as well as talk with one another. 

"It’s about community and reconnection, and that’s definitely part of this evening," Chasansky said. "In fact we’ve invited a few experts about different aspects of the flood and the recovery to come."

One element of the project is called Still Waters Run Deep: Recipes, Stories & Songs by The bARTer Collective and YouTunes.

The bARTer Collective is gathering the experience of community members during the flood. That includes favorite comfort food recipes. They ask people to include personal stories about why the recipe is special to them. The contributions will be published in a catalog next year.

People also can be interviewed by Preston Poe from Youtunes about their flood experience. He plans to use words from those interviews as lyrics in an album of songs that will commemorate the flood.

The Flood Project also is collecting objects damaged during the flooding. They will be transformed into procelain fossils and become part of a work of art. 

The piece, Rescued Memories, will be created by artist Viviane le Courtois.  "From interactions (with the public) and objects collected at a series of collecting events, I will create a boulder shaped sculpture and a book with photos and stories," she said. "The large sculpture goes with the city’s name, represents the destructive rock slides.”