Binghamton University students, faculty collaborate on LUMA project highlighting local history

An installation highlighting the history of Johnson City’s factories and created in collaboration with Binghamton University students and faculty will debut at the LUMA Projection Arts Festival from 5:30-9:30 p.m. on Sept. 6 and 7, at the reception hall of the Forum Theatre at 236 Washington St., Binghamton. The installation is free and open to the public.

Places with Hidden Stories highlights Johnson City’s former factories and the narratives of local residents. Each station in the exhibition features a projector with a looping video, which plays excerpts from oral histories along with images. Binghamton undergraduates, graduate students and faculty added to the installation as part of classes this past spring in environmental studies and cinema.

The installation accompanies Ghost Factory, a performance project developed by Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer of Bridgman|Packer Dance and debuting at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 7, at the Forum. The two worked on the piece throughout the pandemic, interviewing around 30 people from Johnson City whose voices form part of the soundtrack. They also obtained permission to film inside the factories for the video projection portion of the performance. Local stories are fragmented and distilled in the stage work, which Packer and Bridgman perform in and among projected images.

“It’s almost like a dream sequence, as if these voices are coming out of the walls of these former factories,” Packer said. “In the installation, the stories are more linear and more like an oral history.”

Students in Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies David Mixter’s course, entitled “Ruins: Abandoned, Remembered,” interviewed nine more Johnson City residents for Places with Hidden Stories; graduate students in Associate Professor of Cinema Tomonari Nishikawa’s class then filmed additional locations throughout the village to accompany the interviews.

Senior Katharine Stirber, an environmental science major, interviewed long-time village resident Corinna Johnson, whose house was built by the Endicott-Johnson corporation. In fact, her basement cabinets are made from old EJ crates, a unique piece of local history, Stirber said. Deeply committed to community service, Johnson loves her hometown and reminisced about people she once knew and the simple joys of childhood.

“From hanging out at the bus stop under a neighbor’s apple tree to exploring abandoned buildings for boy-band gigs, her stories brought Johnson City’s past to life,” Stirber said. “She also shared her thoughts on the transformation of local schools into apartment buildings and the current struggles of the real estate market in a town with a shrinking population.”

An artist talk, titled “The Making of Ghost Factory: a behind the scenes look,” will take place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 4, at Spool Contemporary Art Space, 138 Baldwin St., Johnson City. The event, which is free and open to the public, offers a peek into the process of creating Ghost Factory.

Admission to the installation is free. Tickets to Ghost Factory are $5; they can be purchased at the door the night of the event, or online at www.ticketleap.events/tickets/ghostfactory/ghost-factory-dance-performance-at-luma.

The event is co-presented by LUMA, Binghamton University and American Dance Asylum.