Sometimes I wonder what the Network of Casual Art is up to but then I realize that they are all around, walking & talking & meditating silently, all the time.
I’ve been working on a lot of stuff lately that I can’t really blog about because
- I’m writing about it elsewhere,
- it isn’t finished yet,
- it’s none of your business,
- I need confirmation to continue,
- or it already takes too much out of me.
Peggy Diggs said this in our recent conversation with her:
TS: How do you deal with the emotional weight of working with difficult content and collaborators who have suffered, and perhaps caused, enormous trauma? What tips would you share with others who might want to work in places like prisons and aren’t sure how to contend with the constant moral and ethical challenges that arise in these environments?
PD: It is so interesting that nobody has ever asked this question of me, and I think it’s a very important question, and I guess I would answer it this way.
I keep a journal while I’m working on a project in order to be able to record things like that because they do disappear. The first day that I went into the womens’ prison and talked to the two women who had killed their abusers, I set aside an hour and a half afterwards to go have a cup of coffee and sit with the journal and write about everything I was going through. It was extremely moving being in the presence of those women, in that context, and finding myself shocked, for instance, that for them being in prison was safety and was protection and in many ways was the ideal place for them to heal. These encounters would sometimes challenge views that I had before going into these specific situations and I never expected to think of prison that way.
This is an essay I wrote for the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, a series of wonderful publications and projects edited by friends in CA. Not sure when it will be out, but consider this a preview of sorts, and go over to their site to see some archives & catch up on other projects.
Posting this in preparation for the next installment of The Free Store – a massive undertaking (because every project has to be massive, right?) that we’re excited about. We (The Free Store) will be occupying Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois at Chicago from January 26 – March 6, 2010.
& guess what else is there — Art Work: A National Conversation… the recent project that we (Temporary Services) put together will *also* be residing at G400 for that time frame. Expect chaos! And be prepared for freedom. I’m hoping that the CTA decides to reinstate the original routing for the 44 line so I can have a faux-private driver for the duration. Read more…
About this site – is it a blog? isn’t this an events page? What’s going on? I’m not always sure what the “blogging” portion of this site is for. Optional Events, as some of you know, was my idea from a few years ago, when Read more…
PDF above with details of Dylan A.T. Miner’s January 2010 exhibition at ARC Gallery in Chicago. More information at http://www.dylanminer.com/
ART WORK: A NATIONAL CONVERSATION ABOUT ART, LABOR, AND ECONOMICS
PDFs –
http://www.artandwork.us/download/
WEBSITE (up & good but we’re still adding stuff) — http://www.artandwork.us/
TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK
those who have committed to distribution or contributed to the project will get copies delivered to them soon. anyone else who can promise to give copies away and not just sit on them and furthermore give them to people who want to read them, email me! servers a t temporaryservices dot org
this is the thing that has been making me stay home at night (well, that, and the fact that the “everybody who loves salem send me a dollar” campaign didn’t work):
coming up in Cleveland, Chicago, and around the country!
Temporary Services is continuing work on a large newspaper project and exhibition themed around the economy, labor, artists, and cultural workers.
We are working to get free copies to a venue near you. Distribution will be available in all fifty states as well as Puerto Rico.
We’ve just confirmed an exciting variety of contributors and are working with the SPACES organization in Cleveland, Ohio to get this project to your doorstep.
Do you have any suggestions for places, venues, or people that should be distribution points for us? Can you pledge to take, like 10-20 copies and make sure people in your network read them?
Are you interested in programming an event or exhibition at your space using our newspaper as the catalyst?
Contact us asap at servers at temporaryservices.org if you have ideas or answers for distribution or hosting/programming. We really need your help – and your contacts in other states – in order to get this to the places that it needs to go.
ok, seriously now, rural readers, correspondents from faraway lands, stalkers in other cities – now is your chance to collaborate. Make it happen. This thing is going to be good. We have contributions from famous-and-really-smart and not-so-famous-but-really-smart people alike. Reblog, repost, realize your true potential.
gosh, I need a haircut.
“gary indiana give me a haircut or let me borrow some shirts i am feeling neglected & you are directed to touch me where it hurts” (“Gary IN”, song, by Mondo, JR’s old band)
Pop’s on the tumblr now, so get over there and encourage him, will you, my internet fiends?
