Friday marks one week until the Uproar Festival of Public Art returns in Orange County – a celebration of southeastern artists that uses big, public art pieces throughout Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough. The free outdoor showcase, which will feature 60 pieces up through the three towns, is a major undertaking. And it comes as the region and arts community is facing challenges presented by the catastrophic flooding from Tropical Depression Chantal earlier this month.
Returning after a successful first year in 2023, Uproar is organized by the Orange County Arts Commission. After reviewing and contracting work from both local artists and creators across six states, the group was coming into July and focused on shaping up the festival. But the floods of Chantal hit the commission’s headquarters and attention quickly shifted.
“Every part of our space was just completely devastated,” said Executive Director Katie Murray, who was the first to walk room by room surveying the water damage that Monday morning.
The USGS water gauge for the Eno River broke on the night of Chantal but reported a height of 24.75 feet on July 7 – resulting in the first flooding ever at the historic site off Dimmocks Mill Road. After seeing the extensive damage to the space, Murray put out a call for help – which is when, she said, she learned the true extent of local support for the arts commission.
“I ran over to Weaver Street where they had power, and I posted on social, ‘All hands on deck, we need help,’” Murray recounted to 97.9 The Hill. “We had 100 people show up in the first day. We got everything out that we could salvage. Some of our artists were out of town, so one of my board members rented a storage unit for them. We got all of their stuff we could safely salvage packed up, got our stuff into storage.
“People keep checking on us [over the course of the week] and asking, ‘What do you need,’” she said. “We had more help, eventually, than we had a need for. A lot of those efforts we’ve redirected down to Saxapahaw and [Liberty Arts in Durham.]”
After spending three days focused primarily on recovery and remediation, the Orange County Arts Commission’s attention returned to Uproar – where it hopes to see the same level of support and volunteers. The organization is asking for help from community members of all abilities and skill sets, with tasks ranging from installing the art pieces, distributing promotional materials, working as Welcome Center greeters and more. The result will be 60 outdoor art pieces that the public can search for, admire, and vote on for the $10,000 People’s Choice prize – with another $10,000 prize going to the first place jury selection.
Beyond celebrating and engaging with public art, Uproar is meant to help Orange County’s towns during a summer period that sometimes sees tourism dwindle. It worked well in 2023, so the hope is to build on that success – although Murray said ensuring the arts commission could move forward with the festival was not the only concern coming into August.
“We were worried about our capacity with everything that’s happened, but also the towns’,” she said. “Carrboro lost its entire [public works] fleet, Hillsborough lost a huge chunk of its fleet, so it was also about [whether] the towns have the capacity, because we are very reliant on their partnership in pulling this off. And we all, basically, agreed that it’s going to be hard…and we need it.”
For Uproar, public artwork created from a variety of media are placed around the downtowns of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough with a map of the pieces available on the festival website. These giraffes were part of the 2023 festival and were at Carolina Square in Chapel Hill. (Photo via the Chapel Hill Media Group.)
While the festival’s opening will be on the planned date of Aug. 1, the big kickoff party had to be moved from the Eno River Mill. But Murray said a fantastic alternative came up right away.
“Luckily, Eno River Brewing did not get flooded even though they are directly in front of us [at the mill,]” she said. “They’re fine, and so they – without us even asking – said, ‘Bring it here!’ It’s great, they’re great…they’re wonderful neighbors.
“It’s going to be crowded, it’s going to be busy, but it’s going to be awesome,” Murray added. “We still have Liquid Pleasure coming, we’re going to be doing screen printing, we’re going to have food trucks.”
Ultimately, despite Chantal’s flooding creating setbacks for the local arts scene and region, the Uproar Festival provides an opportunity to use artwork to spark joy and celebration – which Murray said is what she believes people need as part of the recovery.
“It also says to the community, ‘This is what we do,’” she said. “By showing up and providing this for the community, I think that’s just going to help our efforts going forward in terms of fundraising and support.”
As for the Eno Arts Mill Gallery, artist studios and commission headquarters, Murray said local fundraising matched with the county’s financial commitment will allow the group to eventually move back into its space. Summer camps resumed at new locations this week, and remediation of the building is already underway.
“It’s going pretty quickly,” said Murray. “I think by the fall, we’re going to be back in [there]. It’s huge – I’m so thankful.”
Featured photo via Steve Murray/Uproar Festival.
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