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[prairieartsters]

[…]

One week ago, Tamir Rice, 12 years old, was fatally shot by a police officer while playing at a park.

Officials claim that proper procedure was followed.

And we all know what comes next: “He was a thug.” “He had it coming.”

I’m sure someone will find a photo, maybe one as innocuous as him holding a basket of flowers, or as a baby, being bathed.

And who among you will then see a criminal, instead of a child? Who is willing to learn from history? And which history will you learn from?

How does perception shape our society?

How can you change this?

[prairieartsters]

It feels good to write again. Not that I ever stopped, but I did, sort of. I describe it as being on a strike that nobody notices. That feels pretty accurate. This is maybe how accompanying musicians in silent cinema felt at the introduction of the talkie. Their art and craft in bringing the images to life was suddenly built in, creating a monolithic experience, and soon, people forget that silent cinema was ever accompanied by live musicians all together.

I am talking about art reviews. Like, real serious art reviews. I gave up the hustle, and I don't really want to go back. Go back to what even. The form has been reduced to three to four hundred word blips that often say nothing because they mean nothing. I still write one on here and there, and I'm trying my best to still care.

Somewhere along the way, words and language fell fell fell. Artists used to write a lot, and poets understood the visual. I'm talking about the 70s now. I wasn't there, so I'll move on. I began writing for others in the 2000s, which feels really gross when I try to think about it. I try not to think about it. Words became mechanized into bombs, and you had to drop the same bomb as everyone else to prove you knew how to play. These are still ideas, not new, maybe not even mine, but they are ideas and they are forming.

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I sometimes forget I have a blog or two. It’s only been two weeks, but I feel it has been much longer.

I spent the past little while in Northern Alberta, getting ready for the opening of an exhibition I had been working on for three years. This is a first in terms of committing to anything for...

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I haven’t posted anything in two weeks. I have been away. I spent the first few days in New York attending this conference. My brain is still fried from it and I have not recovered. I will write about it, but where do I begin?

Every time I have tried to talk about it, I start from the...

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Last night, the latest edition of Western Front’s Past is Prologue featured a new work in progress by Project Rainbow focusing on parts of the dance history of the Front, specifically Jane Ellison. A video work of Ellison’s early movement work was screened, as well as a video by Paul Wong and...

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Video credit: MUSEUM HOURS - 1st FESTIVAL TRAILER from GRAVITY HILL on Vimeo.

One of the best films I saw this year at the Vancouver Film Fest was Jem Cohen’s Museum Hours, a wandering of sorts through the great halls of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Art Museum following none...

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from yesterday’s Walls and Bridges event, The Naked Truth, at the New School  

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"Anything we want" from Fiona Apple at SXSW. thanks to Radio David Byrne for this one.

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A near year long project

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Jack Kroll interviewing Susan Sontag and Agnes Varda (1969) re: entry of the freaks into mainstream media. 

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Agnes Varda, I want to live in your world.

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At the very end of my Deveron Arts fellowship/residency in 2011, I conceptualized and organized a two day arts writing symposium called Who Are We Writing For? in the town of Huntly, Aberdeenshire (UK). As an intimate platform for invited arts writers, artists, and curators, WAWWF? brought...

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I am glad that this conversation is happening, but is this complete infringement of my intellectual property?

Here is the dialogue that transpired between Megan and I earlier this year.

This is what she is referring to: http://www.whoarewewritingfor.com

Hi Amy, I read online about the presentations/discussions/workshops as part of your Who Are We Writing For project. I think it’s a brilliant idea - this is a question I am constantly asking myself, and I know the answer is always changing. Before coming across your initiative, I’d been thinking about doing something similar as part of my Writer-in-Residency at Latitude. Finding out that you’d already done something similar XXX I want to engage local arts writers in similar activities and discussions that centre on this question that is fundamental to our practice as writers. I suppose I have two questions for you. The first being, would you be able to share any of your insights with me? What was successful or wasn’t, what would you have changed or kept the same? What did you enjoy the most about the process? The second, if I get this project off the ground, would you be interested in attending? I’m thinking about a weekend towards the end of March. Thanks so much!! Megan

9 January

Megan Bertagnolli

***Finding out that you’d already done something similar made me very excited and not feel like I'm the only one who keeps coming back to these questions. Sometimes there's a disconnect between the writing and the reader, which is not always the fault of the author, but also of the person requesting the writing.

9 January

Megan Bertagnolli

Sorry about that!! (And for any confusion about the edit!) Megan

9 January

Amy Fung

Hi Megan, could you email me at amyfung@fastmail about this. All of my messages/files are stored there about work. To quickly answer: The only thing i would have done differently is to have under 20 participants and more artists who write. People behaved better as they were from all over, so the infighting of the scottish scene mellowed (fyi re only local voices). I didn't pay anyone as it was a workshop, but i didn't charge anyone either and offered travel stipends for anyone who requested. It worked because it was a secluded two days with one agenda. I may hold another in the future, in another country on another scene. For your march one, i will need to know more details as to what you are planning before confirming anything. I am also in vancouver these days and i would request my a travel fee if i were to attend. I think this topic resonates with more people than anyone is willing to admit, but my only advice is careful it doesn't slide into a bitching session. af

Who Are We Writing For? takes place this weekend at Latitude 53, the Art Gallery of Alberta, and dc3 Art Projects in downtown Edmonton, including Andrew Forster’s public talk at Latitude 53 on Friday at 7, where you can meet the workshop participants as well as a discussion with John Shelling,…

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I feel this

WHEN NOBODY HAS ANY GOOD IDEAS AT THE EDIT MEETING

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This is probably a press release of sorts for the exhibition I've been researching and organizing, premiering in 2013.

Photo cred: Divya Mehra, 2012

I have been stuck on the side of an unmarked road in the middle of Saskatchewan not once, not twice, but three times now. Facing flatness at any one of the available three hundred and sixty degrees, I never know where to begin. A few artists and curators...

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I spent the past two weeks away from the West Coast, traveling back west (my west) to Northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. While things appear booming in Grande Prairie and Demmitt (saw the soon to be opened Art Gallery of Grande Prairie, dinner with recent Montreal/New York transplant...