Sask. art project invites strangers to spend 6 hours in a hole while people watch

It's hard to imagine what it might feel like to spend six hours in a hole with a strangerwhile a camera relays your movements to an audience 60 kilometres away.

Saskatchewan artist Linda Duvall is inviting people to do just that.

Her project In The Holeinvites artists to spend six-hour periods in a hole while a video camera livestreams their activities to the Paved Arts gallery in Saskatoon. Theproject will run for about six weeks starting on May 5.

Element of surprise

Duvall said the artists can sing, talk, read or do nothing. The only requirement is that they don't return to the surface until six hours have passed.

"I think there will be some surprises and that's part of the tension, I guess the risk, in it," she said.

"I'm also really excited to see what people do because I have no idea."

Duvall said she had spent a lot of time at the hole since she dug it five years ago.

When she started to notice signs of animals using the hole, she set up a trail camera that snapped pictures of foxes, deer, coyotes, skunks and grouse.

She originally created the hole for a photography project but she was unsatisfied by the images because they failed to relay the sounds, smells and other sensations inside the hole.

Duvall hopes her latest project will help share that experience with the artists who join her in the hole, and the people who watch it from the gallery.

She said she was interested in exploring sustained experiences.

"I think there will probably be an awkwardness, you know, maybe about the first hour and then the transitions that happen as you stay there," she said.

"So, depending on when people come [to the gallery] they will, I think, have different experiences.

"It will probably be interesting for people to come later in the day so they see, like, what state are we in after five hours."

The deadline for artists to join the project is Feb. 15.