About the Project

This winter the Seattle Art Museum has invited artists Tia Kramer and Eric John Olson to take up residence at the Olympic Sculpture Park to research, workshop, and realize their project, Orbiting Together. Orbiting Together is a participatory project that seeks to actively reconnect participants to the satellites orbiting above them while also investigating and reinvigorating their connections to each other and to their surroundings. With choreographer Tamin Totzke, the collaborative will produce a series of free workshops and two public programs called Art Encounters.

Artists

Tia Kramer

Tia Kramer is a site specific performance artist, educator and social choreographer interested in gestures and actions of human connection in the everyday. She creates experiences and events that prioritize empathy and engage participants in collective self reflection.

Tia works both individually and collaboratively. Since 2014, she has been collaborating closely with choreographer Tamin Totzke; together they produced Study of Time and Motion, a large-scale group performance series and film project presented at Henry Art Gallery, Seattle’s Georgetown Steam Plant and along the banks of the Duwamish River. They are currently developing Each Other, a performance recently shared in a series of public open rehearsals at MadART Studios in collaboration with the project, "We are a Crowd of Others". Her work has been funded by 4Culture, Washington Artist Trust and Duwamish Revealed as well as Laurels and Simon Benson Fellowships. Her events have been experienced both nationally and internationally.

www.tiakramer.com

Eric John Olson

Eric John Olson’s work focuses on participatory art practices and social engagement. He has been awarded project grants by the City of Seattle, 4Culture, Seattle Public Library and The Project Room. His work has been written about in The Seattle Times, CityArts Magazine, The Stranger, Spin Magazine, and The Creators Project.

Recently Olson worked with contributors across the United States to create the “Dead Dad Dining Club Vol. 1”, a collection of poetic recipes that remind people of their absent fathers. During a residency at MadArt Studio, Olson co-hosted weekly public meals with authors based off their story and sewed large felt club banners to commemorate each meal. In the past, Olson worked with Samuel Wildman on a public art project that solicited advice from octogenarians in retirement homes and created a marketable health and lifestyle plan called “Be Vintage”. The project attempted to reframe the role of retirement homes in our communities by creating a web based platform, thematic podcasts and a public ad campaign.

www.ericdidit.com

Tamin Totzke

Tamin Totzke is a choreographer, dance educator and improviser who's work is rooted in her fascination of the body as an archival site of personal history. She has recently begun unearthing the "Resiliency Project", a series of movement workshops and performances intended to enliven the somatic system of social engagement by bolstering human connection.

Currently, Tamin collaborates with Tia Kramer via their project Study of Time and Motion, which has included a site-specific dance performance held inside Seattle's historic Georgetown Steam Plant and a durational performance at the Henry Art Gallery. A continuation of this work, entitled Each Other was performed within the project "We are a Crowd of Others" at MadArt Studios. Tamin also dances with AVID, a company of dance artists who prioritize live-dance making through their refined improvisation practice. Tamin holds an MFA through the University of Illinois; her work has been funded by 4Culture, Artists Trust, Duwamish Revealed and Knowles Fellowship.

www.tamintotzke.com