White Room

I asked people to paint anything

Created by everyone.

White Room Art Installation, Collaborative Art, Performance and Wearables created by invitation for Chashama Gala and Chashama Rama in November, 2021.

It is inspired by clean rooms, and white spaces where activity is tightly controlled and unauthorized actions are prohibited, and the white canvas every artist has had to face.

It investigates the universe as the ultimate art-making machine, and human creativity as the ultimate art protocol.

White Room Timelapse - The Big Bang

People in my performance and installation art perform creative acts as opposed to being background actors.

White room embodies my vision for a creative civilization spreading into the stars, wormhole art, no borders, no guns, and no coins but art for the betterment of humankind.

A 21st-century creative collaboration with people from all walks of life, the white room creating a circle of light with the everyone-creator at its center, a throwback to the ideas of the Renaissance for human-centered and humanistic art.

As I was working on the outcome in photographs of the white room I realized I've seen it before, I recognized the concept. It's the Big bang.

White Room After Day Two, with White, a reckless painter

I had this realization of the universe as the ultimate art-making machine, and if we are a simulation - the ultimate art protocol.

I've always loved the idea that Buckminster Fuller had of the universe as the ultimate technology, but I see it as the ultimate art. Where neutrinos and all kinds of particles stream, pulsars and supernovas, and galaxies colliding, art created in all spectrums not just the visible, with fields splashing instead of paint.

White Room After Day One and Two

The work was painted twice thus creating two distinct crusts - two sets of canvases. Entire new canvas was installed and painted on Day 2.

My original idea for White Room was for an enclosed all white paintable space. A tongue-in-cheek reference to my obsession with NASA clean rooms, and the white canvas every artist has had to face.

The idea evolved in the context of the Chashama setting. I extended the White Room universe with White Room branded characters, signage and elements, paintable roaming wearable, as well as several secret mini-installations within the room.

White Queen in the White Room

Many of the ideas within the White Room universe were inspired by other artists working alongside me on their installations and performances, and in creative collaboration with Anita Durst, Creative Director and Founder of Chashama.

The White Room Universe

As the White Room developed I decided to extend the White Room universe by creating branded characters, branded signage and elements, paintable roaming wearable, as well as several secret mini-installations within the room.

White Room Art Installation and Collaborative Art - Day One

In my favorite movie the title character says that every weapon has a manual. I thought that if my art is to be effective it also needs a manual.

I started incorporating signage as instructions. Every wall of the White Room, the White Queen bag, all wearables had instructions as part of the artwork, you couldn't miss the purpose.

White Room Art Installation and Collaborative Art - Day Two

White, a reckless painter

White, a reckless painter identity and wearable for which I developed a branded suit, a reprisal of my Ingredients of a Subway Car character: https://www.mirenarhee.com/ingredients-of-a-subway-car. Wearable and performance by Mirena Rhee.

The White performance included inviting people to paint and developing rituals around “people entering” the White Room like helping people put on shoe covers, clothes ponchos and gloves, handing them brushes and paint, helping “people exiting” the room taking off show covers, ponchos and gloves. In addition, White had duties like cleaning brushes, replenishing paint and maintaining White Room functionality, as well as photography and videography, time-lapse and action photography.

It all goes back to the rituals of clean rooms I have seen in media and movies, but also keeping the installation contained as not to create thousands of dollars worth of cleanup mess. White also wore special painting extensions, with brushes attached to hair braids, with which some people painted.

White in the White Room Performance

White Queen Wearable and Performance

White Queen is a paintable dress, cape, bag, and shoes I created as part of White Room in creative collaboration with Anita Durst, and performance by Anita Durst, Creative Director and Founder of Chashama. The bag contained brushes, paints, markers and paper flowers. Artist Todd Monaghan developed the idea for paper flowers.

White Queen Performance

White Queen Wearable

Paint Tube Telescope

Mini-installations which led out of the White Room into the universe of the Chashama Gala 2021 and out into New York City. A Empire State viewing periscope out of a tube of paint.

My White Room Art Installation had a view of the Empire State Building which I had to cover up so I made a Paint Tube Telescope that you can unscrew the paint tube cap and peek at the view.

Mini-installations which led out of the White Room into the universe of the Chashama Gala 2021 and out into New York City. A Empire State viewing periscope out of a tube of paint.

Listening tube and more

Listening tube which listened on sounds and music from the next room, a video of a future project, colored smelling papers.

More mini-installations in the White Room - Listening Tube, Smelling Papers and Hidden Animation for a future project.

Extending the White Room Universe - other wearables and signage

I created several elements branded with the white room stamp in several variations as I wanted them to belong to the same universe: like clothes cover ponchos, shoe covers box, gloves box. I branded and stamped the elements with the White Room Paint Anything brand.

White Room Clothes Cover Wearables

Clothes cover ponchos painted with the White Room Paint Anything brand. I helped participants put on and take off the ponchos if they wished to protect their clothes, but also to reinforce the ritual of “entering” and “exiting” the White Room space.

White Room Elements

White Room - Wave Function. I made the bottom of the canvases with a curly lip to allow for artists’ feet, but also paints. I made a special gloves box and disposables box branded with the same signage.

Building the White Room Installation

You know how in their clean rooms they don't even allow dust? What would happen if they allowed anything in there? I have always been obsessed with NASA and their clean rooms. People scuttling around in pure White.