The Service Project: Winfield Mounds

The Service Project  involved a series of performances in which I serve tennis balls at Winfield Mounds Forest Preserve for an extended period of time (usually 1-2 hours). Winfield Mounds is an ancient Native American burial ground, somewhat lost in the Western Chicago suburbs. You can find out more of the history of the mounds here.

I love tennis. I played tennis competitively as a junior, and still enjoy playing tennis today. Hitting tennis balls is so much a part of my muscle memory that it is practically in my DNA. But I also recognize it is a sport fraught with tension: it is primarily seen as an "elitist" sport, played mostly by the upper classes. As such it is a sport which calls in question the distribution and use of resources: environmental, economic, and temporal (in this way it is not unlike art).

By hitting serves at the mounds, I hoped to find a way to personally connect with the spaces, to call attention to them, and to acknowledge the tension related to their history through ritualistic action. 

The pun in the project title is intentional. To me, this project asks fundamental questions about the nature of art: What is the nature and purpose of art? Does art serve a purpose?  Can art be service? It is my hope that the work is paradoxical, perhaps even ironic, without being cynical.
David JP Hooker and Greg Halvorsen Schreck.
The Service Project: Winfield Mounds. Winfield, Illinois.
more work by Greg Schreck

Videos

Excerpts from performances of The Service Project. These are shortened clips. Each performance runs 20-30 minutes.
The Service Project:Spring. Winfield Mounds. Winfield, Illinois. March 2012
    
The Service Project:Summer. Winfield Mounds. Winfield, Illinois. March 2012. Cinematography by Joonhee Park.
The Service Project. Winfield Mounds. Winfield, Illinois. February 2012
The Service Project: Fall. Winfield Mounds. Winfield, Illinois. October 2011

About David  

David J. P. Hooker lives and works in the greater Chicago area, where he is an artist and Chair of the Art Department at Wheaton College. He received an M.F.A. in Ceramics from Kent State University and a B.A. in English from Furman University. 
 
His artistic practice explores the inherent value of materials, objects, and places, hoping to find ways to better connect and understand the world we live in. Recently he was awarded the Dunhuang Ceramic Residency and spent two months as artist in residence in Lanzhou, China. 
 
When David is not freaking out over deadlines, he enjoys spending time with his wife, Elaine, his children Abbey and Samuel, and the family cat, Evee. He also enjoys baseball, BBQ, and tennis—not necessarily in that order.
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Contact David