A new art installation titled “Hatched: Breaking through the Silence,” opens today, January 22, at the Hatch Memorial Shell along the Charles River Esplanade, and runs through February 21, 2021.
The project marks the 20th Anniversary of the Esplanade Association’s public-private partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).
The four week illumination and sound experience is intended to provide a family-friendly and physically-distant celebration at the famed Hatch Memorial Shell, where The Boston Pops perform regularly along with other musical acts.
The Hatch Shell is accessible by taking the Arthur Fiedler Footbridge at Arlington Street in Boston’s Back Bay. Here is a map of the Esplanade with various footbridges.
The work is an original 15-minute visual and sound performance led by Boston-based creative Maria Finkelmeier of MF Dynamics and is shaped specifically for the 80-year-old amphitheater itself.
The projection-mapped visuals for Hatched will celebrate the many sounds that Hatch Memorial Shell performers have expressed over the facility’s impressive musical history. Finkelmeier and her team will feature geometric shapes of musical instruments as kaleidoscope pieces, human hands magically tapping, scratching, and creating beats on the surface itself, and colorful animations accentuating the Shell’s Art Deco form – all set to new music composed by Finkelmeier and recorded by local musicians. Featuring a team of predominantly female-identifying artists and directors, Hatched will bring to light a balanced pedestal, an opportunity for underrepresented communities to “break through” and share their skills, vision, and voice.
Powered by Epson laser projectors, “Hatched” will bring vibrant color and form to the inner surface of the Hatch Shell. With custom-built weather housing for the projectors, the experience presents a rare opportunity to experience projection mapping in the winter months and will bring joy no matter the New England winter weather.
The Esplanade is part of the Charles River Reservation, a 20-mile stretch of open space along the Charles River offering numerous activities, from picnics and playgrounds to sports fields, boating, and bike paths.