Critical Craft forum session at caa, 2014
Chicago
2014 5th Critical Craft Forum: Craft and Social Practice
Co-chairs: Namita G. Wiggers, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Pacific Northwest College of Art and Elisabeth Agro, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Michael Strand, North Dakota State University
Sarah Archer, Philadelphia Art Alliance
Jen Delos Reyes, Portland State University
presenter information:
Michael Strand is Head of Visual Arts and Associate Professor of Art at North Dakota State University. As a potter, Strand’s work moves seamlessly into public practice through projects that utilize the inherent participatory nature of craft-based media as a trigger for social engagement and change. His work has been published internationally with recent articles in Hemslojd, Public Art Review, Studio Potter, Ceramics Art and Perception/TECHNICAL, Ceramics Monthly, The Chronicle of Higher Education and a forthcoming feature article in American Craft.
Through 25,000 years of participatory history, craft has been a building block of culture and human civilization. From prayer shawls to food storage vessels the "useful" nature of craft will continue to be an instrument of social change. With an increasingly digital and technologically connected world, craft-based media has an exceptional advantage in social practice because of its inherently relational capacity. http://www.michaeljstrand.com/
Sarah Archer is a writer and curator based in Philadelphia. As the Senior Curator at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, she organized numerous exhibitions including a site-specific installation by Beijing-based artists Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen. Previously, she was the Director of Greenwich House Pottery, and a curatorial assistant at the Museum of Arts and Design. Her articles and reviews have appeared in the Journal of Modern Craft, American Craft, Artnet, Ceramics: Art and Perception, Hand/Eye, Modern Magazine, Studio Potter, and The Huffington Post. Archer recently guest-curated “Bright Future: New Designs in Glass” at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery.
Unlike a museum staging a food-related event in a dedicated gallery space, “Heirloom” will use the existing ecosystem of the Philadelphia Art Alliance to introduce visitors and diners to ideas that are germane to craft practice in an unexpected way. Marketed as a culinary experience, Gregg Moore’s collaboration with chef Pierre Calmeis of La Cheri, the PAA’s onsite restaurant will explore food and domesticity as an example of social practice and craft. http://www.philartalliance.org/craft-culture-panel-discussion-with-chad-curtis-ethan-lasser-and-sarah-archer/ and http://www.philartalliance.org/exhibition/gregg-moore-heirloom/#more-1963
Jen Delos Reyes is an artist originally from Winnipeg, MB, Canada. Her research interests include the history of socially engaged art, artist-run culture, group work, band dynamics, folk music, and artists’ social roles. Jen is the founder and director of Open Engagement, an international conference on socially engaged art. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Portland State University where she teaches in the Art and Social Practice program.
What can craft learn from socially engaged art practice? How can forms of social practice benefit from current craft dialogues? Delos Reyes will discuss the need to teach social practice at a foundations level and the impact that this would have on arts education including a re-evaluation of the role of craft and the function of design. http://jendelosreyes.com/openengagement/about.html and http://openengagement.info/oe2014/
Collaboration:
Critical Craft Forum at College Art Association
For those of you heading to College Art Association, here is the double-header session for this year’s Critical Craft Forum panel and discussion. For 2014, we partnered with co-chairs Lisa Vinebaum and Kirsty Robertson’s session “Crafting Community: Textiles, Collaboration, and Social Space.” The Critical Craft Forum session immediately follows from 5:30–7:00 PM in the same room to extend the conversation on “Craft and Social Practice.” For those who are not attending CAA, the CCF session will be recorded and released at a date TBD later this spring.
CCF Breakfast: Friday, February 14, 8 am at Yolk; limited seats; Sign up on Facebook
Join co-founders Elisabeth Agro and Namita Gupta Wiggers for breakfast, discussion, and camaraderie.
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Crafting Community: Textiles, Collaboration, and Social Space: Thursday, February 13, 2:30–5:00 PM;
Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor, Boulevard C, 720 South Michigan Avenue; CAA fees required to attend
Chairs: Lisa Vinebaum, School of the Art Institute of Chicago;
Kirsty M. Robertson, University of Western Ontario
Crafting Threads and Social Space in Late Medieval Paris
Nancy Gardner Feldman, School of the Art Institute ChicagoInsecurity Blankets
Nicole Archer, San Francisco Art InstituteCrocheted Strategies: Women Crafting Their Own Communities
Janis K. Jefferies, Goldsmiths, University of LondonI Am Ai, We Are Ai: Confirming and Connecting the Collective Tradition of Indigo in Japan
Rowland Ricketts, III, Indiana UniversityBaked Goods: Interweaving Cake, Craft, and Cocaine
Julia Skelly, Concordia UniversityA Community of Non-Citizens: Proving Worth of Citizenship through Stitching Samplers
Aram Han, School of the Art Institute of Chicago