The Heap

The Hoboken Historical Museum and Hoboken Business Alliance are pleased to present “The Heap,” the creative character developed by Paul Andrejco of Puppet Heap. Please be sure to check out The Heap walking through Hoboken on Friday, September 22, 2023 beginning at 3pm and journeying to the Hoboken Historical Museum. The Opening Reception for “The Heap” will take place on Sunday, September 24, 2023 from 2pm-5pm.

History
The Story of the Heap
A multimedia Exhibition
Overview

In 2012, the Hoboken Historical Museum graciously hosted an exhibit by Puppet Heap, a character design studio in town founded by designer Paul Andrejco. The exhibit was titled “Strange Neighbors: the Art & Imagination of Puppet Heap” and featured original puppets, set pieces, designs and footage from some of the company’s short films. The films take us to the town of Spudbottom, a mythical village constructed of found objects and populated by a strange mix of familiar characters from nursery rhymes, folklore, and song. We are guided through town by the voice of an unseen and less than reliable narrator. But who is this mysterious tour guide? And where is this Spudbottom, anyway?

2023
Now we’d like you to take a step back… way back… for a bird’s eye view revealing the astonishing truth: that the town of Spudbottom is actually a mountain of lost things, people, places, stories, old jokes, regrets, bad ideas, and trauma heaped upon the creaking back of an eccentric old man who, it turns out, has been muttering about the townsfolk all this time to anyone and no one. Nobody knows his name, so we simply refer to him as “The Heap.” This exhibit is not only his story, but Puppet Heap’s as well. It’s a lot like my story, and for that matter, probably a bit like yours too.

The Opening
On the opening day of the exhibit, The Heap, a larger than life size walking puppet, will lurch forth from our homebase at the Monroe Center for the Arts and slowly make its way through town, stopping to gather whatever, or whoever, it encounters along the way and adding them to its towering pack.

The Exhibit
The exhibit itself will feature a multi-media installation depicting a glimpse of the Heap later in life, after his burden had become so heavy that he has sunk halfway into the earth. Unable to move and with no one around to help him, he spends most of his time sleeping, rattling the reeds with his sonorous snoring. This attracts the attention of a curious species—part animal, part root vegetable—sprouting from the loam to marvel at this great god bearing gifts from another world.

The Closing
As the sun sets on the last day of the exhibit, the Heap will pull himself out of the “ground” and emerge from the museum. Outside, he will slowly straighten his back with a thunderous crack and rise to his full twelve foot height, freed at last from all of his earthly encumbrances. Bidding farewell to a lifetime baggage, the little children of the dirt, and all who have come to witness his transformation, he will stride forth, embracing the world once again, but this time from a new vantage point and bound for new horizons.

Statement of Purpose
As a maker of puppetry, I am constantly engaged in the art of crafting performing objects. I work with objects of narrative, whether I construct those objects or find them. All objects possess certain properties–their weight, the way they catch the light, the way they move–that in effect make them function as carriers of signals. With every puppet, every performing object, attention is needed to hear what the object has to say, what story it is carrying. Sometimes they are designed to tell those stories, sometimes the story is put upon them, and when these objects interact, through play, not only do those stories have a chance to be heard but new ones spring to life. And that is what makes it all so worthwhile. It’s a kind of spiritual practice for me. So part of the exhibit will show these puppets and performing objects, how they were designed, and how they were made.

Much of the inspiration behind Spudbottom comes from Hoboken, its architecture, its history, its people–and, frankly, all of the cool stuff I’ve found walking its streets over the decades. The more I live in this town–the changes I observe, the more I learn about its history–the more ghosts I see everywhere I look. As if all the years, all the people, the triumphs and tragedies all exist simultaneously and the community carries it all as it pushes ahead into the future. It’s as if there’s only so much space in this tiny square mile and it seems to build and build until it’s bursting at the seams and the only way out is forward. And like one can read the history of the British empire in a cup of tea, Hoboken’s history is world history. War, migration, global warming, floods, and fires, the major events of Hoboken reflect and affect those same events the world over. So, if in some small way The Heap reflects Hoboken, may it then also reflect our relationship to the rest of the world.

And it’s as much a personal allegory as well as a social one. The older I get the more I’m haunted by a non-stop party of ghosts who have overstayed their welcome. I have made a lot of mistakes, learned from some of them, while others will always remain unresolved. I have accumulated friends and loved ones, responsibilities, many questions, but few answers. And yes, stu, I have more books, pictures, toys, and sentimental objects than I can count and they travel with me from place to place. I’m plagued with a sort of magical materialism. To possess a book is to possess its knowledge, a toy its aspiration, my grandfather’s compass a sense of direction. And I have children, three of them, who I love more than anything, and my greatest honor is my legacy to them. That as I watch them grow I see what lessons I have taught them, but also what burdens I have heaped upon them. And there will come a time when I am too weak to carry it anymore, and what happens with it, for better or worse, will be up to them.

So in the end, I guess this installation is about all the things we accumulate over the course of a lifetime and what it takes to let those things go when the time comes. It’s about realizing the pile of things that define a self, or even a city, once you strip them away, is empty underneath, and how the lightness of that realization might finally set us free.
-Paul Andrejco, 2023