installations/traces

Genevieve Cloutier

Patrick Cruz

Fransisco-Fernando Granados

Jennifer Somerstein

Victor Chan

Yota Konishi

Derya Akay

Andy Lee

Grant Hash


Martina Comstock

Ruben Castelblanco

Jennifer Norquist

Lindsay Page

Community Art Practice: Bonnie Sherk

A Living Library/A.L.L. is a comprehensive community educational art project that considers the history of a site, it's current uses, and it's potentiality as a learning environment. Using archived city planning maps to locate natural creeks covered by development, Sherk works with architects, labourers, educators, students, and gardeners to break up concrete and build gardens that function as living libraries to facilitate relational education about biodiversity, biology, literature, and social sustainability through experience.
A.L.L. is the continuation of work Sherk began with Crossroads Community, or The Farm in the 70's. It is linked with 60's/70's "back to the land" ideologies that have been mainstreamed as 'eco-living' and 'going green' as part of the current environmental movement. Sherk uses grassroots organizational strategies and takes advantage of the growing interest in sustainable agriculture.
Where some artists, Germaine Koh for example, are bringing nature to the gallery to shift society's perception of space, Sherk has stuck to her guns for 40 years now on her community based art practice. She has paved the way for artists such as award winner Amy Franceschini and her Future Farmers collaboration.

Durational Performance Artist: Kimsooja

For the durational performance titled A Laundry Woman- Yamuna River, India (2000) Kimsooja was inspired by a spot on the river near where cremations take place. Flowers and debris from the ceremonies were floating on the surface of the water creating images and reflections. She decided to stand facing the river for as long as her body could withstand it. She describes her experience as being "completly confused...is it the river that is moving? or myself?" (217)


Her work explores movement, the impermanence of all things, and blurs the lines between art and life, self and other. Historically artists such as Allen Ginsberg, Tehching Hsieh, and Ann Carlson have also navigated the thin line between art and life, challenging self and others to step back and see it all as the work. Her work also relates to Marina Abromovich's exploration of the temporality of things placing focus on the mind, rather than the body in performance.

Kimsooja's practice provokes contemplation and with a buddist alignment to compassion can jolt us out of our habitual way of seeing.
www.kimsooja.com/

Works Cited
Kimsooja. Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art. Ed Jaquelyn Bass and Mary Jane Jacob. University of California Press, Ltd. London, England, 2004.