As the culminating public component of his 2022-23 CMCA Artist Residency, Maine-based artist Shane Charles will present his public art projection, Waiting for the Sun to Rise, on the facade of The Island Institute in downtown Rockland for a period of three hours beginning at sunset on May 10, 11 and 12. The projection will last for three hours each evening.

The photographs in Charles’ projection document the sun setting over Matinicus Island in late 2022. The filmed sun acts as a public symbol of a new dawn and new beginning, tying together people from Rockland and afar. For Charles, the project also celebrates a new generation of contemporary Wabanaki artists. Shane Charles is a direct descendant of the Penobscot Nation, and his collaborators include Maya Attean, an enrolled Penobscot member and photographer; and Juliette Sutherland, a French-American artist and filmmaker. The Wabanaki people are “People of the Dawnland” and have inhabited the northeastern part of what is now known as the United States, for 12,000 years.

Shane Charles is the inaugural artist for the new, annual CMCA Artist Residency, presented by CMCA in collaboration with the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation. Special thanks to The Island Institute for partnering on the public presentation of Shane Charle’s public art project, Waiting for the Sun to Rise.