Enter the Feelscape of Time This Summer

NEWSLETTER #01

Announcing Immersive Summer Series

We have been up to a great deal recently at Open House of History. After our inaugural summer last year and a steady stream of programs since then, it is my pleasure to announce this year’s summer series: Emotional Currents: Between Survival and Freedom—an immersive convergence of sound, art, video, performance, discussion, and environmental encounters exploring the emotional forces shaping life across time.

Running June 19 through August 16, the series brings together local artists, performers, historians, fishermen, environmental workers, and community members to ask how emotions such as joy, excitement, anger, resentment, fear, and hope shape the ways people understand themselves, respond to one another, and experience the places where they live through daily life and work.

At a moment when many people feel isolated, overwhelmed, or divided, we wanted to create a space where people could encounter one another—and the places where they live—in a different way. We invite people to slow down, listen, and recognize the emotional forces that not only move through everyday life in Maine but connect us across time.

On the upper floor of the building, visitors will enter the feelscape of time through a series of rooms designed by me and artist Jan Arabas, who has created life-size portraits of five community members. This multisensory environment of sound, moving imagery, maps, drawings, environmental materials, and local voices draws on the experiences of lobstermen, shellfish harvesters, and community scientists to explore uncertainty, work, change, and the search for stability and connection. It is a space to contemplate our place within a deeper horizon of history and to reflect on the role emotions play in shaping it. Jan was able to develop part of this installation through a Project Grant from the Maine Arts Commission.

On the ground floor is another major component of the series: 19 Towns / 20 Stories, an installation by Studio B featuring photographic portraits by Hannah Latham and personal narratives connected to substance use disorder across Lincoln County. One participant from each town in the county, along with the experience of an unhoused individual, form a collective portrait of rural life shaped by struggle and grief, but also by endurance and care.

We will have regular open hours—Wednesday through Friday from 3–7 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 11 am–3 pm—to experience the exhibitions, including on Waldoboro Day, Saturday, June 20, from 9 am to 5 pm. Special events, all free and open to the public, will take place at both the Waldoboro Custom House and at sites in the community.

The series begins on Friday, June 19, with Jasper Stahl’s Emotional History of Waldoboro at 5:30 pm.

Additional events throughout the summer include lectures on freedom and political divisions, community discussions about emotion and labor in natural settings and generating new forms of value, a site-specific musical performance along the Medomak River, and a guided paddle exploring the ecological, historical, and emotional currents of the river itself.

For more information on all the events, please visit our website and explore the program booklet, designed by Conrad Winslow. I will also be sending out a weekly newsletter with reflections and upcoming events.

But more than anything, I invite you to come to the building itself and become emotionally engaged. Open House of History continues the tradition of the Custom House as a place of exchange—later serving as a post office and library—where people gathered to seek knowledge, share information, and make sense of the world around them.

Today, within the quiet, resonant, elevating, and reflective atmosphere of the building, we continue that exchange by helping people see themselves within a wider horizon of possibility.

— Michael Amico
Director, Open House of History