Step Right Up! Voting Booth
January - November 2020
On the road throughout the Midwest, the Step Right Up! Voting Booth initiative brought carnival-style voting booths to art festivals in an effort to facilitate conversations about our voting systems and encourage voter registration.
A marriage of sideshow carnival and fine art, Step Right Up! Voting Booths consisted of a series of interactive installations for each event, combining traditional art show style tents and settings, outfitted with gamified candidates for participants to choose from.
The original Voting Booth consisted of shelves of customized, hand-drawn and painted carnival knock-down figures (punks), with participants asked to exercise their right to ‘vote’. Ballots are cast through the act of throwing provided projectiles in an effort to knock down their choice of candidates. Some elements are rigged, illustrating gaps in past and current voting systems.
The second Step Right Up! Feed the Candidates iteration featured gape-mouthed candidates, to be ‘fed’ with ballots in a ranked choice vote. Votes were cast during the 2020 Art Shanty Project on beautiful frigid Lake Harriet in St. Paul Minnesota, with the tally tabluated at the end of the performance day.
The final Step Right Up! Your Voices, Your Votes installation featured a cojoined Donky and Elephant, made up of reimagined political yard signs. The Pushmi-Pullyu form held ballots, where participants could rank their confidence in their vote, their trust in their neighbors, and their level of hopefulness in the voting process. Votes were gathered and tallied daily throughout the exhibition.
