Hen Institute, a mobile chicken coop as a public artwork, classroom, and community space will be on Raleigh City Farm from July 5th-August 8th, 2021. Stop by to visit the chickens and learn more! The eggs that the chickens produce will be donated to A Place at the Table, Raleigh's only pay-what-you-can café and Raleigh City Farm's Farmshare partner.
Hen Institute is a public art project sponsored by the Raleigh Arts Commission as part of SEEK Raleigh. It is composed of a mobile chicken coop and classroom inhabited by egg laying chickens. Hen Institute invites artists and community members to use hens as a curatorial framework to create artistic, community-based, and educational programs.
Hen Institute is a program of SEEK Raleigh. SEEK Raleigh is an annual series of site-specific art installations and performance art events that engage the community through public art. SEEK 2021 features local artists creating temporary installations and performance pieces in the City of Raleigh Parks, greenways, and/or community. SEEK 2021 projects connect visitors to the site, park landscape, community, and/or history of the neighborhood. All works are free to the public.
Adam Carlin is a curator, arts administrator, and social practice artist that lives and works in Greensboro, North Carolina. He is currently the Director of Greensboro Project Space, an off-campus contemporary art center at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro, and Director of Community Engagement for UNCG’s College of Visual and Performing Arts where he creates and supports community engaged programs and advances partnerships between the college and the community. He is also a lecturer at UNCG in social practice and arts entrepreneurship. Carlin’s socially engaged projects often take the form of institutes as artworks which spawn from the impulse to give artists the power to redefine institutions within their sphere and to utilize ambiguity as a tool to attract more collaborative participants for the projects. Some of these projects include Creek Colleges an organization that creates schools on the banks of rivers, lakes, and creeks that are going through active restoration and Hen Institute, a mobile chicken coop that uses hens as a curatorial framework to engage and educate the public. To learn more, visit https://www.adamcarlin.us/.