Craig Stephens counts grains of rice for the Mass MoCA installation. The 875 million grains are used to represent a variety of populations. (Mark Wilson/Globe Staff)

Mass MoCA show uses rice to feed our global curiosity

By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff | February 21, 2007

NORTH ADAMS -- Brazil's time was up, so Jake Oldershaw climbed atop a 4-foot - high pile of extra-long-grain rice. Using a metal container the size of a dog bowl, he dug into the mound, methodically scooping up enough rice to fill four heavy bags. After about an hour, the pile had shrunk: The rice that had just represented the approximately 180 million residents of Brazil -- one grain per person -- now stood for the 135 million people who live in Latin America on less than $2 a day.

For much of February, Oldershaw and a handful of colleagues have been sorting such piles of rice as part of an installation at Mass MoCA. "Of All the People in All the World" runs through Sunday.

Stan's Café, the British-based collective creating and staging the 15-day exhibit, calls it "performance theater." It's a kind of three-dimensional Harper's Index, the seemingly endless line of statistics translated into starch by four-to-six men and women on any given day, their identical uniforms -- neat ties and slacks under knee-length coats -- meant to create a '50s-era laboratory vibe.

In all, 16 tons of rice, or about 875 million grains, have found their way into the Hunter Center, a 10,000 - square-foot hall at the museum. That total is meant to represent everyone in North, South, and Central America.

But the point is not just to haul a lot of rice into an art museum. Stan's Café wants to use those mounds to tell stories and bring faceless statistics to life.

One day last week, Craig Stephens and Oldershaw, both members of the collective, worked in the back of the room at a long table. To the side lay sacks of rice from a company in Stuttgart, Ark . In front of them, on the table, rested tweezers, pencils, and tattered notebooks in which they jotted calculations. There were also small tabletop scales with weights as small as jelly beans to help convert the rice's mass into population numbers. When a new mound had been installed on the room's floor, Stephens, in a businesslike monotone befitting an airline worker announcing a flight delay, leaned forward to speak into a microphone.

"Attention. New in the western zone. Africa's migrants who reached the Canary Islands in 2005. Thank you."

Some individuals have attained special status. Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks and Microsoft's Bill Gates scored individual piles, meaning one grain of rice on a sheet of paper listing their names. The recently engaged radio host Howard Stern shared a space with his fiancee, Beth Ostrosky . Elizabeth Taylor and her many husbands were also given special billing.

Other piles were created to make more serious points.

In an Iraq section, palm-size piles showed the confirmed dead from 9/11 and from US military deaths in the conflict. A much larger mound lay next to them. It represented the civilians killed in Iraq since 2003. Across the room, the artists juxtaposed the population of New Orleans pre- and post- Katrina. They placed the Katrina victims next to a much larger pile representing people killed in the Asian tsunami in 2004.

"It doesn't devalue the lives or the deaths of the people in New Orleans," says Oldershaw. "But if you look at it in perspective against the tsunami, that's just an incredible number of people dying in one day. This whole room is quite open to interpretation. Somebody might look at the US terror suspect list and say, 'Fantastic, we're on top of them' or they might say, 'That's scary.' "

James Yarker, artistic director of Stan's Café, developed the idea for the project five years ago. Stan's Café, founded in 1991, has typically performed original plays. But with Yarker's guidance, "Of All the People in All the World" was developed. It has been staged repeatedly around the world, with the rice representing different regions.

"I've always been confronted by numbers and statistics on the news and television but not really been able to imagine what 300 million people is," says Stephens. "You can hold that rice, and it's got a form to it. And the fact that it's a staple food, it's already got a link to humanity."

All month, school groups have been passing through the auditorium, watching as grains are counted and Stephens and others methodically sweep up wandering souls. That theatrical act is part of the point. The count has to be accurate, and you can't have anyone kicking around loose on the floor.

Some categories and piles will remain unchanged throughout. The massive mound representing the United States, for example, will not be altered. Other statistics are in constant flux.

There are Massachusetts-specific piles charting, among other things, the number of unemployed people in North Adams (450) and people at a Red Sox-Yankees game in 1935 (47,627). There are commentaries, through rice counts, on fast food, the automobile industry, and slavery. And the work remains current, as Stephens and his crew scan the Internet and scour census figures. In the Mexico section, a pile represents the number of people who protested the rising prices of tortilla flour in Mexico City on Jan. 31.

"It visualizes things that would otherwise be numbers on a page," said Lee Venolia, a museum visitor from Williamstown. "The question is: Are the people who really need to see this, our policy makers, going to see this? They're probably not."

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com. For more on the arts go to boston.com/ae/exhibitionist.

"Of All the People in All the World" is at Mass MoCA through Sunday. 413-662-2111, massmoca.org