In Like Riding a Bicycle, Katie Hargrave and Brett Hunter manipulate the differences in type and handwritten text and read and spoken word to build a web of relationships between each participant. The writing styles, from the neutral sans-serif of the instructional text to the various handwritten messages, create a plurality of unique voices. This effect is amplified by the auditory experience created when one pedals the provided bikes. The audio, a loop of various individuals sharing their own memories of learning a skill, is personal and familiar. That the viewer must pedal the bike to trigger the recording magnifies the sense of intimacy - we are active participants in this relationship. Hargrave and Hunter encourage us then to add our own voices to the project, by calling in to record a story for the audio loop and writing, in our own hand, an addition to the skills wall.

Katie Hargrave and Brett Hunter spent several days in Terre Haute installing this piece. While the project is ongoing and has been displayed in several other venues, each incarnation is unique and site specific. Understanding that the work is enriched through participation, the artists used existing gallery features and architecture to create an inviting and distinct environment for the installation.

Artist Statement

Like Riding a Bicycle is a series of participatory skill shares on bicycles. Taking the axiom about memory and ability, “like riding a bicycle," the project creates a platform for convivial skill shares, conversations about lifelong learning, and forums for exploring how bicycles and learning function alternately as instruments of freedom and fear in our culture. Our communities are full of resources embodied by the knowledge of locals. By riding together we shift our perspectives, connect through shared activity, create an opportunity to make visible networks of skills, and expand these networks across generations and demographics.  

About the Artists

Katie Hargrave and Brett Hunter started collaborating as professors in 2013.  Through a year  of team teaching they found many shared sensibilities and interests and in 2014 began planning collaborative projects.  Like Riding a Bicycle is an ongoing set of projects, hatched while sitting beside the Unisphere at the Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens. Watching people ride around the world in the dry fountain bed and discussing skills that we share with each other.  Variations of "Liking Riding a Bicycle" have been exhibited in Nashville, TN; Minneapolis, MN; Hornell, NY; with an additional version (including a bike tour skillshare) upcoming this spring in Chattanooga, TN as a part of the Causeway Challenge.   

Katie Hargrave is an artist who lives and works in Chattanooga, TN. Hargrave is interested in a poetic and quiet activism that can exist within the history and politics of life in the United States. Each day the decisions, thoughts and actions we make accrue meaning. It is rarely evident and often hard to imagine, but these tiny moments that fill up our past collectively create our current realities. Using archival and community-sourced research, I make artworks that ideally allow the audience to see themselves as shapers of systems as broad as the environment, the historical record, American political thought. We all have power; we all own this history. She's been riding bikes all her life, though now that she lives in the mountains, her bike has a lot more gears.

Brett Hunter is an artist and educator living in Hornell, NY. Through installations, public projects, and events he investigates place, memory, community, and provides a catalyst for public dialogue. With a belief that the stories we tell and the questions we ask form the foundation of our communities, Hunter creates structures and moments to facilitate, collect, and share these conversations. He is co-founder of Broadway Union, an arts programing organization and set of physical spaces dedicated to linking artists and their work with the varied communities of Hornell, supporting committed citizens and their role in shaping the places they live. He thinks far too much about bikes and would much rather pedal up than coast down.