Spratt & Winkle is a not-for-profit organisation based in London dedicated to delivering new commissions and multi-disciplinary exhibitions. www.sprattandwinkle.org launches in early September with details of all of our current and future projects.
Thursday, 3 September 2009
We Can Create: Art, Craft and Community
We Can Create: Art, Craft and Community is a symposium and exhibition which explores the work of a number of contemporary visual artists who use craft as a cultural instrument to provide a framework for artistic production, and focuses on particular practices which employ craft techniques and traditions in order to engage specific communities and propose alternative social and political realities. We Can Create… seeks to locate the cross fertilization between practices and explore how contemporary artists and makers have created new connections and possibilities for collaborative working. Artists who have been identified to participate and whose practice has informed the development of We Can Create… include: Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July, Jarbas Lopes, Mai-Thu Perret, Pedro Reyes and Andrea Zittel.
The symposium is scheduled November 2009 at Braziers School of Integrated Social Research and will explore current discourses concerning the relationship between visual arts and crafts, and will particularly focus on the use of craft in relation to utopian ideaologies. Through a series of presentations and discussions on the day, the symposium will explore how artists have exploited the perceived 'usefulness' of craft as a challenge to the status of the art object and used craft practices to provide a utilitarian or practical aspect within their work in order to create a sense of purpose, and often an opportunity for participation and direct involvement. The choice of Braziers School as a location for the symposium was made due to the fact that Braziers itself is a unique community, where utopian experiments in living together and strategies for group communication have been explored and documented since the 1940's. Brazier's School provides an inspiring venue, where a wide variety of discussions and workshops take place within an environment of exchange, understanding, shared values and creativity.
Further details relating to the symposium, including a list of speakers will be posted soon. For more information in the meantime, please email info@sprattandwinkle.org.
We Can Create: Art, Craft and Community is supported by The Crafts Council and Arts Council England.
Image: Braziers School of Integrated Research
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