What happens when you cram 17 artists into an abandoned administration building without heat or running water for a weekend?

UW art history graduate Grant Mandarino didn’t know either, but he wanted to find out.

“I had the general idea of a collaborative environment where artists would live a while ago,” Mandarino said.

With help from friends and the Sand Point Arts and Cultural Exchange (SPACE), Mandarino’s idea was brought to life last weekend.

The project’s goal was to explore how cohabitation affects the way visual artists generate and execute ideas. From proposals submitted by artists, 17 were chosen to participate in the experiment, which was dubbed the Zoo project.

The facilities — an abandoned administration building of the former Sand Point Naval Base located at the north end of Magnuson Park — were provided by SPACE.

The 17 artists lived in the space for three-days straight. With the exception of trips to the Honey Bucket, artists were not allowed to leave the site.

Inside the building, each artist was given a room of their own where they could put their ideas into action. Artists were encouraged to move from room to room and into the larger communal spaces of the building with the hope that, over time, the interactive experience would become visible in their own artwork.

During the day, the project was open to the public, allowing visitors to interact with the artists and engage in the environment themselves.

“Opening the environment to the public so they may witness the event as it unfolds increases the level of interaction and fosters further collaboration,” read the project’s promotional flyer.

Artist Tory Franklin worked with acrylic paint, paper with silkscreen patterns, graphite and water-soluble crayons to make a portrait of every artist in the building before the end of the weekend.

The best parts of the project were “having access to this many people” and “getting a lot of work done since there is limited time,” said the 2000 graduate of Cornish College of the Arts, who runs a large art studio in Seattle.

Karla Freiheit, who graduated from the UW with an art degree in fibers, said her art space involved a visual representation of the networking of the brain.

Drawing from surveys filled out by visitors, Freiheit created a web of multi-colored string that represented answers to questions involving executive and multiple intelligences.

Elizabeth Nixon, a UW freshman who is looking into graphic design and architecture, worked on traditional block printing and a bead mosaic.

“[Living in the building] brings out a certain craziness in people,” she said as she carefully laid down fragile printed papers. “People get a little antsy. They are used to free will — being able to go anywhere and contact friends. We have no cell phones here. It’s a new situation.”