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Article Excerpt
About a year ago I invited Harrell Fletcher to do an artist's project for the pages of Art Journal. Over time our conversation drifted to the new MFA in social practice he was developing, and it seemed a natural development that it would become the subject and content of his piece. What follows, then, is the record of a conversation among Harrell Fletcher and Sandy Sampson, Eric Steen, Amy Steel, Cyrus Smith, Avalon Kalin, Laurel Kurtz, Katy Asher, and Varinthorn Christopher, the first students in the Portland State University (PSU) program.
--Judith Rodenbeck
Harrell Fletcher: whether it's intentional or not, whatever you're involved with during this time in graduate school is part of the pedagogy of the program, and it can change as we go along.
Sandy Sampson: What do you mean, it can change?
Fletcher: Well, the pedagogical structure that we're using this year can change for next year and continue to change after that. I want it to evolve, and not be fixed and overly structured.
Sampson: It seems to me that shaping this program is social practice. For me personally, pedagogy and social practice are like two sides of the same coin.
Fletcher: I don't think they have to be, but having a teaching component to your work is an option for sure. My sense about social practice is that it can be anything, as long as it follows a few basic ideas that need to be there. Other than that, it's wide open. So, you could make projects that are really obnoxious and are not teaching anybody anything, but it happens to be out in the public and working within a post-studio approach, so it would be a subset of social practice. Including educational components in art work is interesting, but there is no mandate that social practice work needs to do that.
Sampson: That brings up a point of occasional discomfort for me. I feel an expectation when someone asks me, "What is social practice?" to speak for some giant monolithic Social Practice, instead of just saying what I'm doing or what I think. Does anybody else come up against that?
Eric Steen: Yeah, I do.
Fletcher: What do you say?
Steen: Well, I basically tell people how I understand the workings of this program. This program is in many respects the opposite of studio practice and the traditional approach to art educational. I do end up telling people that it tends to be geared toward having the social as a medium, although I don't always do that in my own work. What I haven't been telling people, but probably should, is that this has been a pretty experimental educational process. We are trying to keep a type of evolution or flexibility happening within the program, and that is what I appreciate the most about the experience so far.
Sampson: When you say the evolutionary process, you're referring specifically to this program?
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Steen: Yes. We are in our first year and are now shaping it, while at the same time trying to keep it flexible, because we won't always be here. Next year there will be seven more students, and they will be shaping it too, and onward from there.
Amy Steel: How do you guys describe social practice to people who aren't artists?
Cyrus Smith: I end up giving examples, and I try to give as varied an array as possible.
Avalon Kalin: What examples do you end up using?
Smith: I actually end up using all of your work a lot, because I think there are a lot of varied approaches within that. I talk about how Katy is working with a collaborative group, and how working with a group can be considered a part of social practice, because you're not working in a studio, you're having to socialize to even create. Their group tends to work with event-based projects, which seems to be another thing that fits into social practice, in that you're gathering a group of people to have an experience together. I also mention Laurel and Avalon's work in relationship to gathering people, but in maybe more of a spiritual sense, to explain that the act of gathering could serve a lot of different ends. And as business, Eric's approach--publishing--may be more connected to Varinthorn's approach, while education is what Sandy is working with, and play seems to be what Amy works with.
Fletcher: Laurel and Avalon are spiritual?
Smith: Maybe working with spirituality and community in different ways.
Laurel Kurtz: But I wouldn't say that overall that's what I do.
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Fletcher: Would you say that, Avalon?
Kalin: It's definitely there, gathering as a spiritual thing, for sure. But it's not necessarily always oriented that way.
Fletcher: I guess there are some things that obviously have a spiritual connection that you are working with. What's the place you are doing a project with called? Interfaith?
Kalin: Enterbeing. They are an interfaith storytelling group. I'm doing reenactments from the lives of the people there. It's a kind of residency with them. I'm interested in spirituality in general, and being ambiguous about spirituality. The dowser Laurel and I have been working with is a great example of that. We've dowsed public sculptures for auras, trees for energy lines, and the ground around Reed College for musical tones in the environment that we then had a vocalist perform.
Kurtz: The dowsing projects appeal to me because Mike Doney, the dowser that Avalon and I have connected with, is very open with his friendship and knowledge, and he likes to share experiences and information, something I value in communities. I have known Mike since I was twelve. The bird feeders came to be because my dad is very knowledgeable about the birds that visit our yard. He keeps a list, has reference books, and makes feeders and food for them. I wanted to share his knowledge with others as much as I wanted to learn about the birds myself.
Smith: I also use Laurel's work as an example for art and social activism. And Varinthorn does some activist work.
Kurtz: I did some volunteer work for the Police Accountability Campaign in 2000 because I was upset with police-and-civilian relationships. The stories and news reports I encountered were fearsome and led to the eventual project in 2005, which involved making rubbings of police officers' badges while they were still wearing them, and then showing the results at a donut shop. It was a way for me to have a personal relationship to the police officers and to conquer my fear of them. My current work involves doing volunteer work in a gentrified neighborhood. If the relationships I develop lead to other projects down the line, I am open to that, but in the meantime, I want to have as little impact as possible and do more giving than receiving.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Fletcher: I noticed that Kate Pocrass, who spoke here as part of the PSU lecture series, referred to "social sculpture" in her bio. The term comes from Beuys of course, but then it was sort of recycled and used in the 1990s, and then it seemed like other terms eclipsed it, but I guess it still resonates with certain people.
Sampson: Who are those people?
Fletcher: Well, Kate, for one. Some other Bay Area people like Lori Gordon use that term.
Steen: I don't think that just because there is a social element the work becomes social sculpture. For Beuys there was movement toward creating some sort of social structure, a system that all contribute to for the greater good.
Fletcher: You mean like helping to start the Green Party, that sort of thing?
Steen: Yes. But just using participation, I don't exactly see that fitting in with the term "social sculpture." It seems to have more of an activist feeling to it.
Fletcher: I think he also used it in reference to lecture events.
Sampson: I always understood Beuys's lectures to be examples...
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