Proposal

Show and Tell Vancouver is the collaborative creation of a durational community art piece by Genevieve Cloutier, Grant Hash, and Anna White. As the conference theme is Dislocation, Displacement, Diaspora, and the Creation of the New Village, we want to specifically address the housing crisis in Vancouver through the lens of social sustainability. Our goals are to encourage personal urban narratives, to encourage connectivity, and to encourage the sharing of resources. We are interested in the borders that are created in urban landscapes: between public and private, waste and commodity, man-made and natural, night and day. We are interested in exploring the depth and ambiguity of these binaries, and aim to bridge connections between communities of individuals in Vancouver by creating a space where people can share their knowledge and experiences. In line with a relational aesthetic, showandtellvancouver acts as art and activism and uses grassroots organization in that we are relying on all participants becoming performers in their engagement with the piece.

Show and Tell Vancouver currently exists as performance, installation, and ongoing traces. The three projects proposed are an interactive deck of cards, a blog, and video. Fort makin' is a video installation and documentation of our overnight group performance created for this event. fort makin' is a material intervention activating a dormant time-space through creative community engagement and activism. The three of us will meet at 11 p.m. on commercial drive and ride together on bicycle and a tandem bike with a 10 foot long bamboo trailer and safety gear throughout the alleys of east vancouver looking for materials and a possible location to build a shelter. Between 12 a.m. and 4 a.m we will build a structure and occupy it, sharing a meal cooked over a camp stove. We will tear down the structure putting everything back where we found it. The video will also be posted on our blog www.showandtellvancouver.blogspot.com for which we have created a deck of cards with tasks that embody the projects goals. For example:
-befriend and unlikely stranger
-what is your favorite mom and pop shop?
-walk/ride to the center of the lions gate bridge and watch the sun set
-go to queen elizabeth park, on a full moon, even if it's raining
-what kind of waste is created in your workplace? take responsibility for finding it a home.
Each person who receives a card has full access to co-authorship of the blog and is encouraged to document and share their personal urban narratives.

budget: $500.00
immediate expenses of the ongoing showandtellvancouver project: website registration, printing of directive cards, purchase of non- invasive seeds, worm casting, and powdered clay for guerilla gardening group session to take place during the conference
expenses for fort makin': dv tape, snacks, tea, propane, hot chocolate, and whiskey

technical requirements:
internet access, printing access, paper cutting, video and still cameras, bicycles, bike trailer, helmets, sun gun, laptop, t.v, editing equiptment

venue:
Vancouver city and online space, Gallery Gachet, and back alleys/ parks at night when everyone is sleeping

documentation:
ongoing documentation on blog from community participants in various projects
nightime performance will be documented in a short video and stills

resume

installation/traces

the installations and traces of march 18 and 25 investigated creative process through each artists level of trust and commitment to their object of inquiry. While some of the artists used stream of consciousness to embody social narratives and personal rituals, some opened the space up for interaction with these narratives. The performances illuminated the paradox of publicly performing intimate investigations. Through fictitious narrative and sculptural form Genevieve Cloutier activated a surreal mental landscape. Patrick Cruz, as a fertility bunny, performed an absurd script exploring cultural traditions, appropration, and divinity. Marianna Villasenor created an opportunity for the 'audience' to observe their own growing edges by presenting two very different changes of clothes to be tried on. With aid of a tub of dirty water and a tube, Grant Hash made visible a world of playful discovery and delight based on his philisophical exploration of the body as a tube. And Jennifer Somerstein, by examining her own mental narrative of what performance is, discovered a stream of conciousness in her mother tongue of what she was actually experiencing. She presented the awesome vulnerability of engagement with creative process as a living snap shot in time. The peices for me felt like an opportunity to bear witness to the process of art making. In the making of our art, our art is making us.