Sound & Visual Art Exhibit at Old Mill Trail to Open Season

Hinsdale, MA — Art Close to Home (ACTH), in partnership with Berkshire Natural Resources Council and the Berkshire Museum, announces the opening of their 2^nd season with an outdoor visual art and soundscape installation entitled “nowhere to go but everywhere,” by multimedia artist Simone Couto. The free exhibit is scheduled to run from June 5-19 at Old Mill Trail in Hinsdale. 

According to Stacey Silkey Schultze, ACTH Executive / Creative Director, the incoming show marries the arts and nature and provides fodder for critical conversations for people of all ages. She adds that the organization, with the generous support of Mass Cultural Council, will provide materials about the exhibit and its themes to several area schools, which will be incorporated into their curricula. 

“We’re delighted to open our exhibition season with so much community support and featuring such a talented artist. Simone’s work captures what many of us cherish about living in the rural Berkshires — the experience of connecting with nature and how our paths overlap with each other over time and seasons.” Schultze added.”

Simone Couto’s contemporary art installation will include a series of 8” round “trail markers” featuring photographs of tree canopies that “re-describe a landscape outside of our understanding of time,” the artist explains. The photos will be displayed on trees along the trail and accompanied by an original soundscape designed by Daniela Stubbs. 

For guests to access the exhibit’s audio files on site, ACTH’s new Exhibition App must be opened on the device the guest will be using during their visit prior to arrival at Old Mill Trail to ensure caching, as there is no cell service on location. Caching stores data in the device’s memory—Access the app at HERE.

In a written statement, Couto invites viewers to walk the trail imagining that different seasons exist at the same time and questions, “what happens in the body and mind when perception is shifted through visual displacement and sound.”

Simone Couto (born in Brazil, 1975) received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) Practice Program, New York, a BA in Creative Arts from the University of San Francisco and studied Theater Arts at The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her work has been shown in the United States and internationally, including Gwacheon National Science Museum, South Korea, Argentina, Brazil; and Pioneer Works; Invisible Dog Art Center; Electronic Arts Intermix; El Museo de Los Sures; all New York. Couto is a Fine Arts faculty member at the School of Visual Arts.

This program is supported, in part, by grants from the Pittsfield, Dalton, Windsor, Northern Berkshire, Richmond, Lee, Otis, and Sandisfield Cultural Councils, which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.