EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – An immersive art installation created by an El Pasoan made its latest stop at El Paso Community College (EPCC) Valle Verde campus on Tuesday, April 8.
EPCC said this mobile art installation, housed in a converted school bus — Paradox Traveling Art Bus — was created by artist Laura Turón, who was born in El Paso but raised in Acapulco, Mexico.
The current interactive installation inside the bus is titled Enchanted Skies, and it’s inspired by the movement of the Northern Lights, EPCC said in a news release.
EPCC assistant professor of art Isadora Jackson assisted in bringing this installation to the Valle Verde campus, which was free to students and the public, according to the news release.
“This unique installation brings immersive art experiences to communities with limited access to traditional museums and galleries,” read the news release.
During her visit, Turón spoke to dozens and discussed her trip to photograph the Northern Lights and the development of the bus.
“I came about this idea back in 2013 when I was trying to create sculptures, and set them up in unconventional spaces, like parks, outside of houses, and in the desert,” Turón said. “So, it was a little bit expensive and difficult to create the structures and move them around, but around that time, there was a big movement of busses being turned in to houses and food trucks, so I thought that a bus could be my moveable sculpture, so that’s what I did and created it in 2017.”
Turón said she hopes that students walk into the art bus and experience it differently and become part of it. She added that there is a science aspect to it, inspired by the movement of the Northern Lights, according to the news release.
“It also features a song by one of the artists I was with in the art residency in Iceland, along with pictures that inspired this art installation. The music picks up noises from the environment and mixes it with piano and synthesizers,” Turón added.
“She is also working with electromagnetic labs, sound designers, scientists, and travels to do the artist residency, so it allows students to see the multiplicities of how an art practice can look and an artist from our region do on a national scale,” Jackson said. “We’re exposing the larger campus to so many different ways of making art, and that’s really exciting to me.”
EPCC said the Paradox Traveling Bus will make a stop at the Transmountain campus on Wednesday, April 30, and it will also be free entry and open to students and the public.
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