Site Stories at NWSS: September - December 2016
Wednesdays, 12:17-1:37pm plus guest visits & field trips TBA
Teaching Artists: Julie Hammond & Mark Cunningham
Classroom Teachers: Jenny Simpson & Dragana Sacco
Barbara Kruger, School Bus, 2012
You + Place + Ideas + Time = Art
SITE STORIES is a semester long project led by artists Julie Hammond and Mark Cunningham. Over the next 13 weeks, you and your classmates will explore the site and stories behind NWSS using tools and techniques from contemporary art.
As you know, New Westminster Secondary School (NWSS) is an uniquely storied site. Beneath its crumbling carpark lie an Aboriginal burial ground, a number of unmarked Chinese graves, and barracks once used by the Royal Westminster Regiment. Today over two thousand students learn and gossip in classrooms and hallways that have been slated for upgrade since 2002. From asbestos to lightning strikes, hauntings to the drinking water incident, there are stories to be shared and discovered.
Over the course of this project you will:
- Become more familiar with the various histories that intersect in the site of NWSS;
- Share and activate your own stories about the school;
- Learn about a diverse range of strategies that various artists have used to engage place, spaces, stories, and people over the last 100 years;
- Devise, execute and display (exhibit, perform…) your own artistic project that responds in some way to the site of the school.
Outline: what we will be doing when-(ish)
Weeks 1-4ish: What do artists actually DO, anyway?
Richard Long, A Line Made by Walking, 1967.
Over the first four (or so) weeks, you will be introduced to a diverse range of artists, readings, and art practices from the last 100 years. Using the practices of these artists as inspiration, we will undertake weekly group and individual activities that begin to engage with various sites within the school.
Weeks 5-8ish: And what exactly are WE supposed to do again?
Adrian Piper, Catalysis III, 1970.
Working individually and in small groups, you will continue to explore the work and practices of living artists, specifically artists chosen based on your own interests and research to this point. During this phase, you will begin the messy process of developing, sharing, and critiquing each other’s studies or concepts for your final projects.
Weeks 9-12ish: You want us to do WHAT?
John Baldessari, I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, (1971)
For the final phase of the project you will be invited to imagine the classroom and school site as a studio where you will conceive, research, and implement your own artistic projects. Each piece will be developed for or based on a specific location within the school, and may take the form of an installation, performance, audio or walking tour, video, or whatever. We will do our best to enable you to work in whatever form or medium you feel best suits your project.
Week 13: Show and Tell
GIllian Wearing, Dancing in Peckham, 1994.
Yes, you will be making work to be publically exhibited, performed, or displayed in some way. How and where exactly this all happens is yet to be decided. It will depend on the kinds of projects you make, and the way the project progresses throughout the semester. Following this public showing of work, you will be led through a basic critical protocol to share feedback and reactions to each other’s work.
Other bits and pieces
David Shrigley, Untitled (I will show the world how brilliant I am), 2014.
Each student will be provided with a SITE STORIES journal. While some in and out of class exercises will be completed in your journal, these books are primarily places for you to gather ideas, notes, stories, and images. We encourage you to make this your own space. Please note: you will be invited to share some content from your journal with your classroom teachers and the teaching artists to assist us in tracking your work and in supporting the development of your individual projects.
SITE STORIES will use the NWSS site, and the stories associated with it, as primary material. Other physical materials--from paint to paper and items we haven’t thought of yet--will be provided. We encourage you to find ways of making art with materials and technologies that are widely available. If your project (see Weeks 8-12) requires specialty equipment, we will do our best to make it happen. No experience with art making of any kind is necessary for you to take part in this project.
All students are expected to actively participate in the SITE STORIES project, and you can expect to be actively supported by artists and teachers alike in undertaking your projects. Your participation includes completing in-class exercises, out of class reading and research, and actively supporting your peers. In addition, each student will contribute at least one post to the SITE STORIES blog. That's HERE!
3 comments:
"Sometimes making something leads to nothing." -Francis Alÿs 1997
This quote, and the project by the same name, is one of the big influences for my final project. I believe pushing the ice block around Mexico City while the ice melts away is a metaphor for the people who, similar to the ice block, melt away without leaving any permanent imprints upon the world. The ice only left streaks of ice shavings and moisture, only for them to be melted and evaporated into nothing shortly after. Even the marks it left as it "walked" became less and less as the ice block got smaller, similar to how the older we get the less impact we can have on the world around us. The art is trying to say that we should try to make a difference earlier in our lives, when we have the most power and control over the world around us.
mc perzon
Art is all about discovery discovering new thing,new world and discovering new art aside from painting and drawing art can be another way of showing it to the people.Like women dancing with no music my people think she crazy but for others who can understand arts for them it is an art.
Reply to Jaewon.L
When we were first introduced to this project, I admit I was confused. I didn't fully understand why the artist was doing this. But after reading your interpretation, I understood. It's intersting how you were able to personify the block of ice and give it meaning. I also thought it was interesting how this was one of your main influences towards your final project.
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