Quark Park

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Quark Park - Now On DVD

Discover what can be grown in a garden


This is a movie about how one man's vision galvanizes hundreds of townspeople, who work together to create an amazing people's park featuring installations by sculptors and artisans of many disciplines creating works based on the research of local eminent scientists. 

After Peter Soderman approached Kevin Wilkes about turning an ugly vacant lot into a Folly Garden, the machinations of transformation were put into motion and the talents of multiple scientists, landscapers, artists, beaurocrats and enthused townsfolk were utilized to create a temporary people's park.

The big winner was the community of Princeton which, for the summer and fall of 2006, had a wonderful gathering place to come together in. They turned an eyesore into a delightful sculpture garden which hosted many concerts, lectures and dance performances in addition to being a thought provoking labyrinth to wander through. 

The film is 70 minutes long. The DVD's bonus tracks include 2 short films by Chris Allen. One is "Writers Block", focusing on the folly garden which was installed in 2004 in the same space as Quark Park.  The other is "Herban Garden", another intriguing garden project from the mind of Peter Soderman.  The disc's other bonus tracks feature Rob Goldston and Ron Berlin. Rob talks about climate change and the challenge of bringing greenhouse gases down in a world of expanding energy needs, by applying science in creating new, clean forms of energy, specifically, the stellarator.  Ron discusses the pyramid on the dollar bill which inspired his Writers Block folly, explaining the symbolism of this early American symbol and how it relates to the concept of 'liberal patriotism'.

Read Anthony Stoeckert's review here: http://www.packetinsider.com/blog/movie/?p=41

"Cast" includes: Paul Muldoon, Emily Mann, Rush Holt, Shirley Tilghman, Rob Goldston, James McPherson, Peter Singer, Paul Schimmel, David Dobkin, Lincoln Hollister, Alan Goodheart,  Tracey Shors, Perry Cook, Ge Wang, Jeff Nathanson, Jon Shor, Ron Berlin, Rein Triefeldt, Nancy Cohen, Carol Critchlow, George Scherer, Bob Kuster, Robert Cannon, David Newton, Naomi Leonard, Steve Weiss, Dolph Geurds, Carlo Momo, Bob Hughues, James Chavel and Kate Graves.

DVD copies are available for $17.00. 
Add $3.00 shipping and handling.

PayPal: Use Seller ID of chrisallenfilms@comcast.net

or send check or m.o. to:

Chris Allen Films
28 Wilson Road
Lambertville, NJ 08530

For further information, contact chrisallenfilms@comcast.net


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Quark Park - The Movie

Quark Park is the story of bohemian lawn care artist and dreamer Peter Soderman, and self confessed "cold hearted realist" Yale architect Kevin Wilkes. Together they created two distinct art collaborations on a Princeton NJ vacant lot, now being developed into condos. Both projects were recognized with awards from the New Jersey Society of Architects.

 

From his cell phone in a pick-up truck, Peter convinced Paul Muldoon, Joyce Carol Oates, Cornell West, Fran Lebowitz,  and seven other literary luminaries to pair up with local architects and builders so they could be deified and enshrined in the bucolic paradise that Peter and Kevin called Writers Block. In a space of six weeks, each team erected a garden folly with all of those "talked into the project," still skeptical until its final completion. 


Two years later Kevin and Peter stage an encore, returning to the same vacant space celebrating another home town denizen, Albert Einstein, and his annus mirabilis by matching twelve scientists, sculptors and landscape designers. This garden opus is called Quark Park.

 

This film is laden with interviews of academic celebrities, sculptors and average Joes who get caught up in the non stop action packed whirlwind of thought, work, and borderline delusional task mastering.  About three hundred townsfolk from municipal workers to intellectual recluses, get involved in this town Renaissance. The soundtrack is provided by top tier musicians David Sancious and the Tony Levin Band, both of whom graced Quark Park's stage during its brief life.

 

With both gardens already gone, what is so exemplary and hopeful about this documentary film is what a community can accomplish for itself when a small group of people are willing to do whatever it takes by harvesting their own human capital. Its two-fold message is clear ~ the greatest love that you can give a community is your labor and that anything on that premise can be grown out of a garden.


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