Yesterday we went for a walk around Dennings Point with our good friend Katie who showed Gryffin how to pick wild wine rasberries. Katie, a raw food chef and owner of Sweet Mama's, asked me about my ideas for this project, and in talking with her I realized that I want to articulate the journey I've travelled this past year which has led me towards working with the ideas of the self and community.
What happens when we bring art home or bring home to art? How can a dining table be a site specific art event space especially when it's not open to the public?
Or more simply, how can I call a Sunday dinner an art project?
Or more simply, how can I call a Sunday dinner an art project?
The short albeit arrogant sounding answer is both simple and profound: I can (call it that) because I am (and I'm an artist). I could also argue here that I'm an artist because I call myself one, but that's getting into another discussion. The long answer is something I hope to both demonstrate and flush out through this blog, my art and pedagogical research and through the dialogue that is created and exchanged both during and after each Sunday dinner event.
Nicolas Bourriaud famous for coining (and writing his book about) the term “relational aesthetics” (or relational art), wrote in the 1990's that "...the role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever scale chosen by the artist." I like the idea “ways of living” as if, here through my work, through this practice, I am creating a preferred way of life for myself. And as an artist who is also an art educator, I am beginning to see all of my creative, that is to say 'creating' acts as part of my practice as an artist. Through my experiences at Goldsmiths, (internationally known for it's progressive art school) and through the work of artists I continue to explore like Andrea Zittel, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Fritz Haeg I feel contemporary art has given me this licence to realize that for the past decade, my art work has been and is a pedagogical community practice. I will go into more about this in coming posts, but in general, I've realized that although I've continued to create work in fine art photography and design, more of my creative time over the past few years has been spent making connections to and with other artists in a variety of ways including developing artist groups, community art projects and events. Each of these connections have included teaching and learning where I have acted as facilitator and have co-created learning spaces for artists and the public.
With this project, I'm focusing on the idea of sharing good food and recreating a sense of familial community with those I call dear friends, while at the same time looking at how these dinners which represent and actualize my connection to others are also a realization of my self. It is a very personal project and it brings up many questions I want to explore such as:
Who am I?
What is art?
What is community?
and where am I positioned within all of this as an artist-teacher-researcher-writer?
Nicolas Bourriaud famous for coining (and writing his book about) the term “relational aesthetics” (or relational art), wrote in the 1990's that "...the role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever scale chosen by the artist." I like the idea “ways of living” as if, here through my work, through this practice, I am creating a preferred way of life for myself. And as an artist who is also an art educator, I am beginning to see all of my creative, that is to say 'creating' acts as part of my practice as an artist. Through my experiences at Goldsmiths, (internationally known for it's progressive art school) and through the work of artists I continue to explore like Andrea Zittel, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Fritz Haeg I feel contemporary art has given me this licence to realize that for the past decade, my art work has been and is a pedagogical community practice. I will go into more about this in coming posts, but in general, I've realized that although I've continued to create work in fine art photography and design, more of my creative time over the past few years has been spent making connections to and with other artists in a variety of ways including developing artist groups, community art projects and events. Each of these connections have included teaching and learning where I have acted as facilitator and have co-created learning spaces for artists and the public.
With this project, I'm focusing on the idea of sharing good food and recreating a sense of familial community with those I call dear friends, while at the same time looking at how these dinners which represent and actualize my connection to others are also a realization of my self. It is a very personal project and it brings up many questions I want to explore such as:
Who am I?
What is art?
What is community?
and where am I positioned within all of this as an artist-teacher-researcher-writer?
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