Unitat Project 2017 - onward
Unitat Project is the latest undertaking in a series of projects by artist Mark Parrish involving solo exploration and nomadic, off-the-grid art/research labs.
Unitat (universal habitat capsule) is a light weight, exploration pod. It is a mobile, rapidly-deployed, self-sufficient, self-contained, experimental, sustainable, field studio. The Unitat is in the service of art and exploration.
Mission
The Unitat Project will be a physical hub for the transfer of ideas, crossing multiple disciplines in creative professions, generating innovations emerging from works using the Unitat as a tool.
Art/Research Labs
Art Research Labs are the utilization of 3 or more Unitat pods invited to temporary locations where the Unitat Project can establish platforms to help cross-pollinate traditional, contemporary, local, and global ideas.
Colleagues
Colleagues are invited from the fields of the arts, humanities, and sciences. This work can include endeavors such as land art to human sustainability, biomimicry to waterworks, and sound pieces to permaculture farming. Setting the stage for discovery, participants will be amazed as they explore hidden corners of our known world.
Off-the-Grid Sites
Rainforests, deserts, canyons, abandoned factories, historic ruins, waterfalls… Hanging from trees or standing on their telescoping legs, each pod provides shelter from the elements, as well as the dangers of less hospitable sites.
Click to view the website for Speaking Waters, the location of the latest Unitat installations.
Rapid Deployment
Unitats can be assembled or disassembled by two persons, within two hours, site-ready.
Self-Contained
Independent facilities: sleeping cabin / cooking ‘galley’ / WC ‘head’ / field research area.
Self-Sufficient
Solar powered 12-volt electricity / two 12 gallon water tanks / waste is collected within holding tanks and recycled / propane fuel cooking.
Sustainable Field Innovation
Built-in gauges track water, fuel and electricity usage in ‘real-time’.
Each user is encouraged to develop innovative sustainable techniques for managing their vital resources in the field. This collected knowledge is to be open-sourced.
Unitat Project PersonalText
Unitat, originates from Latin ūnitās, from ūnus (“one),” noun - unity (state of being united).
"My own personal quest for meaning has led me to sacred sites around the world, to explore shamanism, meditation and mind-altering substances. I know I am not alone in this, I have met many on their own path of discovery. The unseen which binds us all is understood in many ways, by some as spiritual, others energetic and others the stuff of quantum physics. Singular molecules of water make up the grandeur of the whole ocean."
"As an urbanite, I have at times felt isolated, frenetic in motion and surrounded by technological noise. By stepping out of this environment into nature, I have had an opportunity to experience myself as I truly am, part of a much larger organism. I have found myself being accepted by my surroundings as much as my surroundings have been accepted and internalized by me. The Unitat project satisfies the need to share what I’ve found."
"My vision of this project is to offer a solo time/space experience that invites humans to see themselves as part of nature and nature as a part of themselves. I have been inspired to create the Unitat so that others may have a way to see separateness collapse and unity emerge. Living in the canopy layer of the trees for even three days opens up a feeling of confidence and security that can breed inspiration and channel the artistic spirit. The Unitat user can focus more clearly, as it can become a meditative place, taking this from merely a social, architectural project into a spiritual one. We 'return to nature', experiencing ourselves as whole and complete with all that is, a merging of self with a higher/super-consciousness."
Mark Parrish
