Denver’s RiNo Art District Side Stories 2023 Participant
Side Stories 2023, which took place Feb. 24-March 5, was the final year for the program.
Since launching the event in 2019, Side Stories generated hundreds of concept submissions, successfully showcased tons of films, partnered with local businesses, building owners and organizations to feature incredible films across the exteriors of Denver’s RiNo Art District, engaging with countless attendees and participants along the way.
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SNOWCAPPED
My submission drew on my fascinations from the previous year, diving deep into Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the origins of the National Parks Systems in the United States.
After touring around the PNW in 2021, my curiosity about the origin of US National Parks was piqued.
In the process, I spent time reading about the mid to late 19th century, how the industrial revolution flipped the script on humanity’s relationship with nature.
Eventually landing on the visionaries who saw the landscape not as a resource to profit from, but as an entangled web of life that must be preserved.
I was initially not selected. The email came in and I went back to New Zealand Planning and working. It was disappointing, but understandable.
15 days before we were set to leave, I had a message on my phone urging a quick return call. Someone had dropped out and I was next up.
There was an interview in 36 hours, assembling a plan to piece together a billboard sized 5 minute looping video, and somehow had to implement the vision I pitched now over a month earlier.
It had been a snowy winter, and on a few trips up and around Colorado’s high elevation, I was struck by how much snow was already at the tops of the mountains.
In an attempt to connect with how the 19th century visionaries saw the landscape with immense depth, I tried to capture the scale of the water systems that the peaks along the continental divide create, capturing atmospheric moisture, and dissipating it slowly trickling down the valley, flowing into the 5 major rivers with headwaters in Colorado.
Side Stories provided each participant with a grant, which I saw as an opportunity to push my boundaries, allowing me to gain & share some new perspectives.
As time has passed, I’ve seen more and know that the perspectives shared were far from novel, but as a kid from the midwest, the mountains’ scale still blows my mind, and it was neat to have the opportunity to give it my stamp.
Since Side Stories,
I find what I put together for this rather unappetizing, which I guess makes me an artist? It wasn’t even out yet and I had already started to subject myself to inner strife.
The internal conflict is frustrating, but as time has gone on the pride has re-emerged. I am proud of what I was able to assemble considering the constraints, and I am honored to have had my light shone on a corner of a street in Denver.
Considering where I’ve started, where I’ve been, this was a huge milestone, and I’m excited to finally share it here.
I’m Payson Wick, a Digital Brand Creator & Social Strategist rooted in Colorado and always looking for inspiration across the horizon.
With nearly ten years in digital marketing, I bring insights gathered from wide-open vistas discovers along the trail, channeling my work into helping brands craft stories that resonate with authenticity and purpose.