Subduction is a meeting of two tectonic plates—one slips beneath the other towards Earth’s mantle while the other rises above. This force gives rise to land masses including the Lesser Antilles, a group of islands in the Carribbean where Greg Kelly first met Zack Worrell in 2003 during an engagement party for mutual friends.
“Zack was building a stone staircase for his son on the beach,” says Kelly. The fragile structure, stairs from sand and stone, was a suitable first encounter; subduction defines the partnership of Kelly and Worrell—something falls apart, something new develops.
 Craftsmen: Greg Kelly (left) and Zack Worrell (right), founders of the Bridge, celebrate the one-year anniversary of their film series and another year of creating artistic dialogue beyond their space in Belmont. |
In 2004, Worrell asked Kelly for help disassembling a chestnut barn in Afton to salvage the wood. Kelly, a multimedia artist, had no experience in construction and was working at the Mudhouse to fund artistic collaborations around town (painting sets for the Zen Monkey Project and multimedia dance parties thrown by friends). Worrell, a triple threat of art, construction and business, says he contacted Kelly because the project was an “opportunity to get to know [him].” For a couple of weeks, Worrell and Kelly pulled down planks of the 120-year-old chestnut and bonded over politics and culture; “The rides to and from Afton were hilarious,” says Worrell.
In 2001, Worrell purchased a small brick box in the Belmont neighborhood for cheap (thanks to housing regressions following September 11, according to Worrell). In the fall of 2004, Kelly and Worrell began hosting art exhibits billed as “New Art Across the Bridge” (eventually shortened to “The Bridge”). An eclectic early mix of exhibits and events anticipated the space’s more recent tea ceremonies, rock shows and the space’s popular bi-weekly film series—a turning point for the Bridge, according to Kelly.
In the spring of 2005, Sarah Lawson, a Bridge volunteer, proposed screening short films by director Hollis Frampton, an idea that won support from Virginia Film Festival director Richard Herskowitz and drew about 25 people to the brick building. On the night of the screening, the destructive spirits of 209 Monticello—which Worrell refers to as “the gremlins of 209”—wrecked two projectors, but the show carried on with a third.
“Something’s gotta go wrong, or it isn’t right,” says Worrell. Break down to build up, and start all over again.
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Greg Kelly puts aside the soccer ball he has been throwing into the audience at the “Sporting Life” film night on March 8 and thanks the audience for coming out. After a few comments about the films (one featuring a ski jumper and the other soccer star Zinedine Zidane), Kelly announces that the next film night (“Underground Music and Noise” on March 29) is also the one-year anniversary of the film series, the Bridge’s only regularly scheduled event.
The projector burns out less than 20 minutes into the first film, a documentary by Werner Herzog, but another projector is located, and Worrell and Kelly show the Zidane film twice that night due to audience demand. At the evening’s peak, Worrell estimates 60 people in attendance.
On April 6, Bridge volunteer and artist Johnny Fogg opens his “Mother/Father” project, a collection of thousands of postcards bearing pictures responding to a prompt from the artist, with the help of Worrell and Kelly. Following a weekend exhibit, Fogg plans to tour in a mobile “sanctuary,” designed and built with the help of the staff at the Bridge. The genesis of the “sanctuary”? Worrell, Kelly and Fogg—the true gremlins of 209—tore down a neighbor’s chicken coop (initially made from metal siding donated by Worrell) and started from scratch, building up from the broken down.
The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative celebrates the one-year anniversary of its film series on Thursday, March 29. Tickets for the 7pm screening are $4.