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Article Excerpt
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This summer, thousands of travel-weary art watchers will meet in Italy for the 53rd Venice Biennale. Curated by Daniel Birnbaum, the exhibition will loosely consider collectives, exploring new spaces for art to unfold outside of institutional contexts and the art market. (1) Whether or not Birnbaum is successful with his theme "Making Worlds" there remains a global interest in collective activities and their challenge to social, economic, political and philosophical phenomena. It has been within this climate that the project Reverse Pedagogy (2008-) has gained an increasing amount of attention in Canada, its rotating cast of artists challenging art contexts by collectively directing their own experimental residencies. With members of the project communally living, playing, working and eating in a 16th-century Venetian palazzo, Reverse Pedagogy will be enacted during the first 10 days of the Venice Biennale. The artists will use the space as their own self-directed art school, collectively determining their day-to-day activities, while swapping methods and ideas that explore democratic exchange as an opportunity for breeding artistic growth and agency. Playing the role of informal facilitator, artist Dean Baldwin will be joined in Venice by Katie Bethune-Leamen, Nicholas Brown, Sarah Cale, Catharine Dean, Kristan Horton, Kelly Jazvac, Karen Kraven, Kelly Mark, Gareth Moore, Douglas Paulson/Parfyme, Mitzi Pederson, Joe Pingue, Paulette Phillips, Clint Roenisch, Jon Sasaki, Ruti Sela & Maayan Amir, Swintak, C.hen Tamir, Kara Uzelman and the project's initiator, Paul Butler.
Butler first enacted Reverse Pedagogy at The Banff Centre in November 2008. Known for his work hosting "Collage Parties," he has travelled the world for years facilitating performative art events in galleries where invited guests and passersby are asked to take part in constructing collages from various magazines, newspapers, posters and other found materials. While some of the collages are selected and displayed, the overall emphasis of the Collage Party is to test approaches to art-making while fostering social exchange. Butler has also explored alternative gallery models through his work directing The Other Gallery, a nomadic commercial gallery that focuses on overlooked Canadian artists, and TheUpperTradingPost.com, a non-profit invitational forum for artists to trade their work. Interested in continuing to build communities and foster artist-directed activities, Butler approached Kitty Scott, Director of Visual Arts at The Banff Centre, with the idea of facilitating an experimental art school through the Centre's residency program. With Scott's support, the artists Zarah Ackerman, Dean Baldwin, Melissa Brown, Sarah Cale, Chris Dupuis, Gerald Edwards III, Amelie Guerin-Simard, Kristan Horton, Sara Kundelius, Stephen Lavigne, Jennifer San Martin, Ashley Neese, Kristin Nelson, Mitzi Pederson, Gordon Peterson, Scott Rogers, Swintak and Justin Waddell arrived in Banff in the middle of winter to enroll in Reverse Pedagogy I.
Unlike most visual arts residencies...
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