Sat 19 September 2015 12.30pm – 4.30pm
Pricing: Members: Free / Guests: $5.00
Location: Radford Auditorium, Art Gallery of South Australia
Presenter: ArtsLaw
Bookings are no longer available.
Selected screenings from the 2015 CREATIVE TIME SUMMIT:
THE CURRICULUM at the 56th Venice Biennale.
“The place of the unbeing is already the place where the upheaval is possible.” Athi Joja, Gugalective Arts Collective
“Our collective future is determined by what is learned, how it is learned, and the conditions under which learning takes place” Nato Thompson, Chief Curator CreativeTime
Is your every waking hour saturated with terrible news from elsewhere? Confronted by ‘the golems and phantoms of distress and disorder’ it’s easier to close one’s eyes, read the facebook wall, the twitter feed, the 24 hour news cycle of content, or post another gorgeous image to instagram. And here in Adelaide, and all over Australia one of many settler nations around the world, a great many of us have the privilege of doing just that.
This event is about the power of art beyond it’s role as market force and commodity, and the power of art that works to reveal those forces. Just how does power operate, and what are the connecting forces at play? Does art have an obligation to reflect the times, or does it do that in any case? What role does it play in challenging perceptions of power and crisis, at a very immediate and local level, and on a wider scale through collaborations between diverse groups of people and organisations?
“These kinds of gatherings are a site of important discussions and difficult views.” Okuwi Enwezor, Director 56th Venicle Biennale 2015
If you are still reading then perhaps you are keen to think and talk about what’s happening art-wise socially and politically here in Australia in the context of a wider worldview. Come and share a Saturday afternoon in the company of other creative workers, players and producers. Watch selected screenings from the recent CREATIVE TIME SUMMIT at the VENICE BIENNALE. Share your responses, observations and thoughts about art and social change, plan a small action.
Let us know you are coming so we can be sure there are enough apples.
Read on for more context, local artist bios, and other links.
What happens on the day
A small selection of presentations from across the three day Summit will be screened in the Radford Auditorium interwoven with presentations by local artists and opportunities to discuss responses, strategies, observations. Bring a cushion for super comfort! Floor reclining, bean bags and tiered seating available. The screenings are online, watch beforehand and come and share your thoughts, or just come and watch the playlist in the company of others. On the ground here in Adelaide are Francesca da Rimini, Natalie Harkin, Brigid Noone, and Ben Leslie.
A taste of what we will screen from a series of ten minute presentations…
Please note, some of these videos will give context overall to the event though may not be shown at the Spring to Action Screening.
“Outside traditional institutions of education, alternative schools, online courses, and open-source information sites foreshadow more decentralized and anarchic spaces for acquiring knowledge. Meanwhile, marginalized knowledge systems are being reactivated through the exploration of indigenous, decolonized, experimental, or radicalized curricula.”
Nato Thompson. Chief Curator, CREATIVE TIME, Introduction
“The place of the unbeing is already the place where the upheaval is possible.”
Athi Mongezeleli Joja (critic, member of Gugulective Arts Collective)
Section 3: Geography of Learning
“Our first step is to abandon everything we think we know.”
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, New York basedwriter.
Session 1: A Curriculum’s contents.
“We are not waiting for the decision by anyone to invest, we’re looking for technologies that work in the situation that are also relocatable.”
Michael Gerace, artist, architect, curator, Re-locate Kivalina
Section 3: The Geography of Learning
Paul Ramirez Jonas, New York based artist and educator talks about the mode of art that acts as an open inquiry, unpicks the concept of ‘pedagogy’ and traces the historical of trajectory of the ‘artist’ from the idea of talent, to that of creativity, ending up with Joseph Beuys “Everyone can be an artist”.
Section 4: Art as Pedagogy
“There’s a lack of empathy toward black pain.”
Simone Leigh, Simone Leigh is a studio artist from New York, and is the creator of the Free Peoples Medical Project.
Session 5: Knowledge as Collective experience
Hope Ginsberg presents her work of open inquiry based on her “muse the sponge … a kindred species” a model of collectivity, a “bender” and “blender” of productivity. Curiosity about the natural world, “learning by doing,” and knowledge exchange inform Hope Ginsburg’s work, which takes the form of live events that explore the images, objects, and spaces that they generate. Though one could so easily typify this work as ‘Art and Science’ or art and biotech, there’s a lot of humour and wit here as she talks about the Colablab experiment.
Section4: The art of pedagogy
On the Ground in Adelaide
Natalie Harkin
Natalie Harkin will give a context to the cultural precinct on which we stand, and screen and read some of her recent writing. Natalie Harkin is a Narungga woman from South Australia. A member of Adelaide-based Unbound Collective she has written poetry for many years. Her PhD research is an archival-poetic response to her family’s Aboriginal records, informed by blood-memory and haunting. Her book Dirty Words has just been published by Cordite Books.
Francesca da Rimini
Francesca da Rimini will report from her hex world of piracy and precarious labour. “As an adolescent I was introduced to the inspirational work of Latin American educator, Paolo Freire, who developed methods to foster disempowered groups’ collective development of critical faculties (‘conscientization’) that could then drive social change. Subsequent experiences as an artist and writer further shaped my intellectual evolution and creative processes. Impulses and ideas materialised as projects exploring socio-political issues: the construction of madness, gender identity, cyberfeminism, the non-commodified pornographic imagination, neoliberalism and the redistribution of power, and radical social possibilities emerging from the inherent disorders of informational capitalism”.
Brigid Noone & Ben Leslie
Brigid Noone & Ben Leslie from Fontanelle in Brompton, inner city Adelaide Both artists, Brigid and Ben will talk about future models for their artist run initiatives in relation to an expanded notion of The Curriculum. Fontanelle houses two gallery spaces, studios, a workshop space for artist led classes, and a darkroom. Fontanelle is a creative hub that provides an incubator for contemporary arts emerging and established artists and curators in South Australia to work, take risks, engage in dialogue and debate and exhibit their work.
Brigid Noone is an artist, curator, educator, cultural innovator, Brigid Noone is currently the Director of Fontanelle Gallery & Studios (Adelaide, Australia). Along with her own visual arts practice Brigid has been instrumental in supporting the Adelaide arts community with a vision to create and support arts infrastructure for emerging artists. Noone has curated numerous exhibitions which showcase emerging South Australian artists in national and international contexts at a range of venues including Fontanelle Gallery, the SASA Gallery, the West End Association, FELT Space, the Fringe Festival and Format Festival.
Ben Leslie is an artist, writer, collaborator. You can see some of his work and add context to his name here.
Teri Hoskin
Convenor and curator on behalf of Guildhouse.
Teri Hoskin projects@guildhouse.org.au | 0410 370636
CREATIVE TIME is a New York based arts organisation dedicated to social justice. Since 2009 the annual CREATIVETIME Summit has operated as a platform for discussion located at the intersection of art and politics. This year’s Summit, THE CURRICULUM, is a provocation that explores the myriad of spaces in which we come to know the world. A diverse range of artists from all fields examine the conditions under which knowledge is produced outside of institutions. Nato Thompson, Chief Curator Creative Time writes, “Outside traditional institutions of education, alternative schools, online courses, and open-source information sites foreshadow more decentralized and anarchic spaces for acquiring knowledge. Meanwhile, marginalized knowledge systems are being reactivated through the exploration of indigenous, decolonized, experimental, or radicalized curricula.”
The live summit was arranged under five sessions with short films, statements/reports in-between. We’ll screen just a small selection from some of the sessions.
1. A Curriculum’s Contents, what are the decisions that go into crafting a curriculum, and what knowledges are missing from contemporary curricula?
2. Educational Institution as Form looks at the practical and pedagogic implications of artist-initiated educational institutions. Methods for decentralizing education are explored with a critical attention to traditional educational structures.
3. Geography of Learning: sited knowledge, what happens to knowledge when large forces of displacement move people from sites. Think of Aboriginal cultures here in Australia, of war torn Syria, Afghanistan, Armenian diasporas.
4. Art as Pedagogy, the production of art as learning, and art as a form of open inquiry.
5. Knowledge as collective experience, producing spaces of becoming that not yet known.
All videos from days 1 & 2 online with bios
Complete Venice program