Join Harpo and Groucho for a peripatetic adventure traversing the urban landscape. Inspired by the Situationist practice of derivé, participants will meet for coffee and instructions at the Henry before embarking on their own, unplanned & unmediated journey through Seattle ending in a Happy Hour recap at a secret location. The Drunken Boot is part of an ongoing project, the Shape of the Vessel and What it Holds, an exploration of psycho-geography, fellowship and walking as making.
Harpo and Groucho (H + G, aka Sara Edwards and NKO) are Seattle-based conceptual artists searching for freedom and transcendence in an American landscape ravaged by late-Capitalism. Through physical meditations — walking, cycling, singing, drunkenness and the cooking and sharing food among them — H+G are asking questions of the real America and its people. Traversing topography, defying the simulacra, rejecting authority, giving gifts, dreaming, moving always upward — H+G insist we are what we share, not what we own.
H+G’s collaborative body of work, The Shape of the Vessel and What It Holds, was initiated with a five-month, 2200 mile thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, and was documented through their blog Songs Out of the City. More recently H+G staged a #freesale based on the yard-sale model, where goods are given as gifts and donations are accepted but not required. All money raised was donated to the VERA Project.
Together, H+G are founders of the NW School of Mystical Hikers, and Café Mystique. Both are members of Orvis Aries book society, and have worked on numerous projects public and private including Saint Genet, City Arts Festival, and many Artist Emergency Fund Development events.
NKO is a visual and performance artist, printmaker, curator, designer, and vegan chef. Co-founder of Free Sheep Foundation and New Mystics, he has created large scale free public art events such at Moore:Inside Out, Art Dash 4 Ca$h, the Belmont, the Bridge Motel, and opened the TUBS Memorial Project. NKO has exhibited nationally and internationally — locally at the Frye,MOHAI, NAAM, SCCC, Vermillion, and Bumbershoot.
Sara Edwards is a performing artist, curator, event-planner and arts administrator. Director of The People’s Grand Opera, she has performed original music at On the Boards and the Frye Art Museum. Sara founded lounge act Honey Castro, which performs at Vito’s, and is a principal collaborator in The French Project. She has worked with organizations and venues as diverse as City Arts Festival, Richard Hugo House, and Smoke Farm, and has served as an administrator for 4Culture, On the Boards, Canoe Social Club and Fife Consulting.
