Unitec Design 2009 Artists in Residence
February 5 - March 19
Two Russian situationist artists, Gluklia and Tsaplia will be the 2009 artists in residence at the School of Design; Unitec.
The Factory of Found Clothing (FNO) from St Petersburg, Russia are a collective of two women artists operating a highly ideological and politicized collective involving ongoing collaborative projects and public interventions. Their projects are politically and socially motivated and these artists work with a wide range of creative practitioners including photographers, graphic designers, composers, dancers, actors and film makers.Unitec Design 2009 Artists in Residence
February 5 - March 19
Two Russian situationist artists, Gluklia and Tsaplia will be the 2009 artists in residence at the School of Design; Unitec.
The Factory of Found Clothing (FNO) from St Petersburg, Russia are a collective of two women artists operating a highly ideological and politicized collective involving ongoing collaborative projects and public interventions. Their projects are politically and socially motivated and these artists work with a wide range of creative practitioners including photographers, graphic designers, composers, dancers, actors and film makers.The work produced by Gluklya and Tsaplya engages directly with contemporary political issues often involving social transformation; this process itself becoming the art work. Their longest running project; the Utopian Shop of Clothing produces and retails re constituted clothes/art objects made and sold by young female collaborators from all over regional Russia. The rationale is a deliberate attempt to provide alternatives for a post socialist society where 'backlash' consumerism rules. Refreshingly absent of irony, their project is a 'highly organized dream of compassion'; their manifesto stating; "The place of the artist is on the side of the weak. Weakness makes a person human, and it is by overcoming weakness that heroes are born".
The Unitec residency is part of a wider project involving exhibitions, symposia, artists talks and experiential learning. It is the culmination for Unitec staff member, artist and curator Marcus Williams of three years of research, writing and artistic collaboration with Russian artists and curators including a number of visits to Moscow, St Petersburg and Siberia.
Exhibitions will result at Snowwhite Gallery and at MIC Toi Rerehiko Gallery on Krd, Auckland. Symposia will be held at Unitec and at Otago Polytechnic. Generous support is acknowledged from CNZ, MIC, Unitec, the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Otago Polytechnic.
This project revolves around active engagement and collaboration with young artists and graduates from around Auckland; included in this group are 12 Unitec graduates from the School of Design and Performing Arts with representation from the graphics, photography, painting, jewellery and acting disciplines. Through February this group will work with Gluklya and Tsaplya in Snowwhite Gallery. The gallery will be open to the public during this time. The ensuing exhibition will include objects from the Shop of Utopian Clothing and documentation of the collaborative art making process.
'The Idiot' is the name of the project being developed at Unitec.
The title alludes to Dosteyevsky's bitter critique of the ruling class in his St Petersburg based novel 'The Idiot' (1868-69) Gluklya and Tsaplya will work with young New Zealanders from a range of backgrounds and facilitate the development of artworks aimed at social transformation. Determined by the young collaborators, the subject for this project will be, social change which reflects their concerns, rather than concerns held by 'the ruling class'.
People involved in The Idiot Project have been meeting since October 2008 and numbers continue to grow. Many have read Dostoyevsky's book; the group have been watching screenings of a 2003 cinematic version and learning about the work of Gluklya and Tsaplya.
They will work with Gluklya and Tsaplya in Snowwhite Gallery through February and the exhibit in Snowwhite will focus on the creative process. MIC gallery will show the results of the process and will also screen Gluklya and Tsaplya's award winning video work 'Three Mothers and a Chorus'; a radical hybrid of operatic and documentary idioms examining the pressures of contemporary motherhood.
All these event form part of the visual arts program of the Auckland Festival 2009.
Auckland Festival program 2009
The Symposium will be held at Unitec on March 7 from 9.00 - 5.00pm; Building One Lecture Theatre One. 'The organised dream; art and design as agency' will explore areas where art and design extend 'traditional fields of operation' to affect social change and assert political influence.
Gluklya & Tsaplya Situationist artists, St Petersburg, Russia
Jon Bywater Lecturer Critical Studies, University of Auckland
Mercedes Vicente Curator Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth
Alan Robertson Senior Lecturer Graphics, Unitec, Auckland
Dr Tressa Berman Adjunct Professor, California College of the Arts, US
Lisa Reihana Tohunga O Toi, Unitec, Auckland
Joan Farrer Associate Professor Fashion/Textiles, AUT, Auckland
The symposium will examine a number of perspectives relating to political creative activism including reflection on a graphic design project from the early 1970's situationiste period in Europe, the role of art & design in the emerging paradigm shift for Maori in New Zealand, Chto Delat? and the politics of the Factory of Found Clothing project, art in the land right issues of American and Australian first nation people and discussion of a project which explored fashion as a political tool.
22/01/09