THE SECURE BASE
A proposal for the TED & POSCA Global Artist Residency
“Repair begins by creating the conditions in which life can flourish.”
Images 1-3
Above: Installation view of an evolving series of hare drawings that established the visual language for The Secure Base. This work serves as the foundation for the proposed residency, where the surrounding habitat will be created through community participation over the course of three Third Fridays.
Above: Conte and soft pastel drawing of a hare moving through hibiscus flowers grown in my garden and a swirling ribbon. Part of an ongoing body of work exploring vulnerability, resilience, and the symbolic language that inspired The Secure Base.
Above: Studio view of a large-scale hare drawing in progress, surrounded by flowers grown in my garden and used as live reference. The work explores the relationship between observation, cultivated nature, and the symbolic language of the hare within a toile-inspired composition.
THE IDEA
Four years ago, following a profound family tragedy, I entered a period of isolation. For nearly three years my studio became both refuge and laboratory, a place where I immersed myself in the creative process as a practice of repair.
During that time I returned again and again to the hare. The hare became a symbol of vulnerability, instinct, resilience, and emergence. The work was private and necessary. It gave form to experiences I was carrying alone.
The Secure Base grows directly from that body of work. It marks the first time I have invited others into a process that has, until now, remained deeply personal.
THE PROJECT
Over the course of the residency I will create a monumental installation across a twelve-by-thirty-foot wall in my studio at Bridgeport Art Center in Chicago.
I will create a series of large-scale hand-drawn hares, intentionally leaving the surrounding landscape incomplete.
Over the course of three Third Fridays, visitors will each contribute one element to a shared habitat... flowers, grasses, ribbons, native plants, and other living forms. Together these contributions gradually transform the landscape surrounding the hares.
Participants do not complete the artwork. They create the conditions in which it can fully emerge.
THE SECURE BASE
In psychology, a secure base is the environment that allows exploration, growth, resilience, and connection.
What happens when a community chooses to build that environment together?
Each participant contributes one careful drawing. Together those individual marks become a landscape shaped by many hands.
By the end of the residency, the installation has evolved into a thriving ecosystem—a living portrait of attention, care, and the conditions that allow life to flourish.
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
The installation takes place in my studio at Bridgeport Art Center, one of Chicago’s longest-established creative communities.
Bridgeport Art Center’s Third Fridays is a well-established monthly open studios event that welcomes artists, collectors, neighbors, designers, and the public into the building.
This project grows from an existing creative community that already gathers in this space each month.
Participants need no artistic experience. Simple demonstrations and partially completed botanical drawings prepared in advance allow people of all experience levels to contribute confidently.
Each contribution becomes part of a shared habitat that could not exist through the work of a single artist alone.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORK
Phase One
Large-scale hares occupy an open landscape.
Phase Two
During three Third Fridays, visitors contribute one element of a shared habitat. Flowers, grasses, ribbons, native plants, and other living forms gradually transform the installation one gathering at a time.
Phase Three
The completed installation becomes a thriving ecosystem, a visible portrait of collective care, resilience, hope, and the understanding that repair begins by creating the conditions in which life can flourish.
Anything else?
I have spent my career creating artwork that asks people to slow down and look more carefully. Following a period of profound personal loss, my studio became a place where I immersed myself in the creative process as a practice of repair. The Secure Base marks the first time I have opened that deeply personal body of work to public participation. It feels like a meaningful next step in my practice and one that aligns closely with the spirit of this residency. I believe some of the most meaningful acts of repair begin quietly, with one mark, one drawing, and one person creating the conditions in which another can flourish.
Ann Latinovich
Chicago, Illinois
annlatinovich.com