I tend to have a lot of apprehension and reservation about community art projects, especially projects that attempt to involve "resource-poor" or inner-city and otherwise marginalized groups. I'm not sure what informs these reservations. I think it's a combination of my UBC undergrad education, where I spent a whole term in a seminar with Serge Guilbaut studying community and street art projects and interrogating their usefulness, and my conversations with social worker friends in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, who were often plagued by well-meaning but uninformed artists and non-profit organizations that wanted to "heal the neighbourhood" in some way or another through a community art project.
But, at the same time, I want to believe that successful and respectful community art projects, or collaborative and interactive art practices that engage the public in an accessible way, are possible. I still - maybe naively - believe that art can have a social and political function. That it can move people in a very particular way and accomplish or express things that other mediums sometimes cannot.
All of which is to say that I don't entirely know what to think of Darren O'Donnell and the Mammalian Diving Reflex, and in particular the current "The Duel in The 'Dale: Parkdale Public School v. Queen West" series of projects happening in Toronto's Queen West gallery area.
Things that seem positive or potentially interesting about the project:
It's had some pretty good media play as of late - especially this recent article in The National Post - and a couple of my friends have been helping out with organizing the events and seem really excited by the potential of what's happening. At least this discussion about the Parkdale neighbourhood and its relationship to the rapid gentrification happening in the Queen West neighbourhood (which the Queen West galleries have inevitably played a role in - intentionally or not) is being initiated by the project.
People often say that Americans don't like talking about race in order to pretend that it isn't an issue, but I often think Canadians - and Torontonians especially - don't like talking about class in order to pretend it doesn't exist. So I appreciate that O'Donnell's project is at least broaching the subject of what happens after a neighbourhood is gentrified by the arts and is re-framing the tension between Parkdale residents and what he calls "artsters" into a visible, if slightly over-the-top, series of performances.
Things about the project that unnerve me or rub me the wrong way:
I have some concerns about the motives of involving these kids in what are traditionally adult tasks (preparing a prix fixe menu, performing in a band at The Gladstone, giving a tour of an art gallery). As the National Post reporter accurately pointed out, one of the reasons these projects are bound to be well-attended is that the kids are "cute." The idea of watching them attempt to enact these adult roles seems to necessarily entail humour, but I sort of wonder at whose expense. Is it funny because watching these kids playfully do what adults see as quite earnest makes us embarrassed by how seriously we adults take ourselves? If I'm feeling super optimistic, I'd like to think that was O'Donnell's aim.
But the pessimistic part of me thinks that the humour actually lies in something far less self-aware and much more sinister. This part - let's call it the UBC indoctrinated part - thinks that the humour actually comes from a strange and almost colonial kind of child-adult anthropomorphism. That when adults see these kids trying to play grown up, the humour comes from the fact that we think they're "cute" in a patronizing way - that their inability to successfully inhabit these roles is funny in the same way that watching a dog awkwardly dressed in a human business suit is funny.**
Clint Burnham, a Vancouver-based critic and writer that's part of the Kootenay School of Writing, wrote a great article in The Fillip Review a few years ago called "No Art After Pickton" that laid out a lot of his concerns about community art projects in the Downtown Eastside that I often find myself coming back to. In it, he points out:
"It’s funny how people only worry about community art for poor people. Oh right, the civic galleries are community art for the rich. But you never hear anyone saying let’s start a mosaic project in Kerrisdale or Rosedale. No one’s collecting oral histories in Winchester or running a poetry storefront in Shaughnessy."
And later, he argues what I think I've been trying to say in a much more eloquent way when he says "the irony in much community art is that the masses being helped are actually doing stuff that in other contexts is either exploitation or bureaucratic indoctrination (to use extreme language: I mean ideology)".
The Mammalian Diving Reflex's description of the two contenders in the project is also sort of off-putting, especially when referring to the Queen West "artsters": "In the other corner are the artsters --predominantly white, mostly from other provinces, well-educated in the liberal arts, ready and eager to get drunk at gallery openings and always on the lookout for exciting but cheap ethnic dining experiences." On the one hand, this is sort of scathingly accurate (I fit into most of those categories). On the other hand, aren't the employees of the MDR also "artsters" by this description? If so, what is their role in this face-off between the Parkdale "community" as represented by the school kids, and the nomadic, parasitic "artsters"?
There's also something about the whole notion of "social acupuncture" (the name O'Donnell uses for these projects) that worries me - does that mean that, like when we visit a professional acupuncturist, we are leaving ourselves in O'Donnell's professional hands, trusting that he will make us feel better, even if the process necessarily involves a bit of pain? If so, why is it that we "artsters" want to feel that healing pain so badly? Is it a way of assuaging our guilt about our implication in the changes happening in Parkdale?
This is a rambling, messy post, but it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately and trying to make sense of in my own brain. Maybe I'm being too hard on O'Donnell and the MDR and community art practices in general. Interactive art practices are always problematic in some way and maybe O'Donnell has no intention to reinvent the wheel and solve all these issues with one project. In either case, I would love to know what other people think and how they feel about all this and to be convinced that there's something else here that I'm missing.
Addendum: more responses, comments and the occasional kitten-related gif can be found at Lorna Mills and Sally McKay's blog here.
__________________________________________
** I owe a lot of the ideas in this post, and this part in particular, to Cait McKinney who has been instrumental in making me think this through and wrap my head around it.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
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31 comments:
Wow, I really appreciate your thoroughly engaged post. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk about Mammalian's stuff so thoroughly.
I'll address a few of your concerns.
I'm doubtful of art's social and poltical effectiveness, too. All these social acupuncture projects are first and foremost about creating temporary and atypical social ontologies. Momentary and unusual ways of being together. Their effectiveness, beyond the moments they exist, is anyone's guess and something we're only now wanting to analyze. Mostly it's just for fun. But fun is fun, so it's hard to knock and does make people feel good. So that's something.
As for the motives of the current project: It's not about creating a cute encounter where the kids will be aping adults and falling somewhat short. What the intention is and, in my experience, what generally happens is that everyone has a great time, and that everyone is surprised by something. It's hard to predict what. With Haircuts by Children, I was really surprised by the reverence the kids brought to the task. I was surprised by the respectful dynamic between young stylist and older clients. The fact that sometimes the adults got what would ordinarily be considered a terrible haircut was not the subject of ironic laughter or anything. Laughter yes, but generous laughter, acknowledging the generousity and courage of both parties. And that it's all good - hair grows. The kid's efforts no matter the result - perhaps even more if the result was crazy - were taking at face value and always appreciated.
With Parkdale Vs. Queen St. We're creating a public encounter between two social groups (and a third, if you count the audience, but the audience will be mostly hipsters). It's a social opportunity mixed with some art production occurring between two groups who live in the same neighborhood but who never connect or socialize. We're trying to suggest or momentarily manifest a kind of community that we think CAN exist but currently doesn't, for obvious reasons. We certainly don't want anyone to laugh at the kids or patronize them and in our experience after working with these kinds of dynamics many times, that's doesn't happen.
We not helping the poor masses, or the poor kids at Parkdale, we're taking note of two exciting communities (queen street hipsters and Parkdale kids) and creating a momentary social space. If you look at the breadth of the project - which includes 10 rounds, some of which have happened and some of which are not public - you can get a better sense of this. See the website for complete descriptions:
http://www.mammalian.ca/
And we are certainly the artster, in the description. That's the whole point. And our role in that is simply to draw attention to who we are in this particular social system. From awareness comes shifts in understanding and shifts in ways of doing and being.
As for the Acupuncture metaphor. You bring up two points.
1. Am I asking you to trust me to make something better? I guess so. But I'm certainly not claiming that I'm a good acupuncturist.
2. Why do artsters want to feel the pain - is it because they feel guilty? The pain I offer is minimal - like the acupuncture needle. You stick the needle into areas of stagnation (over abundance of energy) or in depletion (under-abundance of energy). I think the lack of a strong relationship between the artsters living in Parkdale and the kids is an area of depletion, so I'm giving it a little poke to see if it might stimulate flow. Who knows what will happen, but at very worst, we'll have a good time. I don't think that people should feel guilty about what's happening in Parkdale, but that there are possilities to improve social flows. And why bother with that? Because it simply feels better. And that's all that acupuncture offers. social or otherwise. And the pain of this particular application of this kind of social acupuncture is, at worst, a little social discomfort.
Anyway, I hope this addresses some of your concerns and I look forward to continuing this discussion. Please forgive me if it takes me some time to respond to any responses, but I will!
And, again, I really appreciate this discussion and really appreciate how you approached Mammalian's work.
later,
Darren
actually, there isn't a complete list of the projects on our site. just the upcoming ones. I could get you one of our poster-brochures that list everyting, if you like.
"Am I asking you to trust me to make something better? I guess so. But I'm certainly not claiming that I'm a good acupuncturist."
That made me laugh out loud.
Been thinking about the cute factor that the National Post brought up, I'm generally allergic to cute (except as a weak disguise for unpalatable truths) and you have to be in some kind of weird universe where you'd see a bunch of kids and merely think cute. They are diminutive but complex (and unbearably dramatic.)
What I like more about your post Gabby is that I wasn't aware of critical writing that pointed out problems with community based artworks. I just thought people muttered about it amongst themselves. (so this is a UBC thingy?)
l.m.: Claire Bishop has criticised community art in Artforum and other arenas, here's an interview with her:
http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2006/07/socially_engage.php and you can log on to Artforum to read the article.
Also in the UK, Munira Mirza has spoken against it and written various things (generally against art as a tool for urban regeneration and community healing) and she's just been appointed the Cultural Policy Advisor for the new Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, so it'll be interesting to watch her influence there. Here's a link to her "Culture Vultures": http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/Publications.aspx?id=164
Darren takes a more selfish (I say that in the best possible sense) Art approach to his work, and as such should be critiqued from a performance art point of view first and foremost just as a painting would be critiqued. I'd like to see if anyone will actually look beyond the "kids in parkdale" thing and see the thing as art, because the fact that no one has so far (as far as I know) says more about our perceptions and ideologies than Darren's.
oh and i also wanted to add, it seems many people are finding it difficult to categorize MDR and wrap their brains around them. i find their work similar in so many ways to Walid Raad and the Atlas Group - but documenting the contemporary history of parkdale, not lebanon. i don't know if that helps a little.
Darren, I really appreciated your thoughtful and sincere response. It was good to hear about your ideas about the projects and to be reminded that humour - as a light-hearted and potentially ice-breaking or socially awkward-mediating tactic - is an integral part of the approach.
I think a key difference in my thinking is that I have often grouped the MDR projects into "community art projects" automatically rather than considering them as performance art pieces (as Anonymous pointed out). I think the MDR projects are much more like performance pieces, only the performers are kids in this situation rather than the artist that has set the parameters and envisioned the project. I'm not sure that, for me, I can consider them strictly performance art because of this. Isn't there a different dynamic that is established when you invite kids into the performance parameters rather than adults? In a tangible example, isn't Diane Borsato's use of tango dancing police officers or art students different from the MDR's use of children? Something about those two approaches seems fundamentally different to me, putting the MDR projects in the realm of "community art" while I see Borsato's work as performance, with the help of other community members.
As for LM - I don't know if the critique of community art is UBC-specific, but my experience at UBC definitely accepted and incorporated a lot of that critique. Claire Bishop is definitely one person who has written about it, but usually critiquing relational aesthetics in particular. Clint Burnham has written about it, and is from Vancouver, but Miwon Kwon, who teaches at UCLA (I think) also has a fantastic book called One Site After Another that has a great chapter looking at the misleading formation of homogeneous "communities" in community art projects.
Thanks for the links anon, I will check them out.
Now beware of the royal we. I always thought of his work as performance art, most artists I know do, and many speak of his work with admiration, so I don't quite get your concern about people not seeing the Parkdale thing as art. It's a strange sweeping statement to make. Unless you are thinking of the National Post as most people, or most people as most people, which in that case means that there's a lot more artwork in doubt than just Darren O'Donnell's projects and most of us are fucked and doing a lot of unjustifiable activities. (which describes my whole career very nicely shitfuckdamn)
I have a question for Darren, sometimes I've read your work promoted as theatre, other times as performance art, have you been doing that yourself? Do you care how it's postioned as far as PR goes? (obviously we all care about how our stuff is positioned critically)
Few things
Anon is correct that I'm selfish (in the best way)
:)
I'm trying to shape things around me in a way that makes my life better. Working with Parkdale PS means that suddenly I have 600 new friends who live in my neighborhood. But, on the other hand, I consider and I think most of MDR's stuff is considered more art than community arts. The distinction, I think, is in how the work is created and disseminated. From my limited understanding of community arts, there is rarely the intention to circulate the work in large-scale professional art events alongside other art. It's usually process-oriented and meant to fortify the community etc. While that's an aspect of what I'm doing, I am also interested in circulating it as Art Art. And that's generally what we do, with Haircuts by Children happening in high-end theatre and performance art festivals all over the place. Slow Dance with Teacher at Nuit Blanche is another example and now some stuff we're developing with festivals in Europe.
Gabby, I'm not clear why you think the inclusion of children changes the equation to community arts. You mention Diane's stuff but don't expand on it - you say "something" about the approach is fundamentally different. What is that 'something?'
And LM, the work gets positioned in a variety of ways because Mammalian does a variety of things.
This is how we're currently describing the company:
"Mammalian Diving Reflex is an award-winning contemporary, interdisciplinary company, which creates innovative and critically acclaimed events. Functioning like as a research-art atelier dedicated to investigating the social sphere, we are always on the lookout for contradictions to whip into aesthetically scintillating experiences, producing one-off events, theatre-based performance, theoretical texts and community happenings."
thanks for the discussion. nothing like people talking about your work to get you on the internet early in the morning.
While Darren O'Donnell talks a lot about fun and feeling good and opening up social flow, I do think there are important provocative elements to his work.
There's a couple of challenges implied in this project. One is the challenge to arsters to acknowledge the largley tacit (as Gabby pointed out) social boundaries in their neighbourhoods. While it's organised in the spirit of fun, and probably will be really fun, the challenge is a real one. O'Donnell says he doesn't want people to feel guilty, and that's a challenge too. It's like saying, "get over yourselves, fellow artsters, there's a wide world out here and we're a part of it."
Another provocation is the notion that kids can do the art content just as good if not better than grown up artists. This is a prod at the art system, and the institutionalisation of art experience. Again, it's in the spirit of fun, but the challenge is a real one. As artsters, we rely on the hierarchies of the artworld, and use them to navigate our careers, so it's not surprising that throwing them into question would induce some resistance.
O'Donnell situates himself as an arster peer, which is a good strategy, but there is still an element of being prodded to do something good for you. Like a mother making her kid go outside and play instead of moping around in the house. And, even if the kid knows it will be fun once she gets outside, there's a inevitable aspect of resentment. And also a valid questioning, who are you to tell me what to do? Darren O'Donnell is not the boss of me.
But O'Donnell isn't twisting anybody's arm. Participate if you want, stay away if you want. And if you participate there are no expectations, you can think what you want as well. He's careful not to suggest that there is some take home lesson we're all supposed to "get," leaving those aspects to the critics!
So when I find myself uncomfortable, I've got to start with my basic resistance to the provocations that are inherent in the work. And I mostly find the challenges interesting and worth the bother. But where I have difficulty is when I start thinking that these provocations are all just part of a Brechtian theatrical exercise. That the main motivation behind the work is to find a contemporary way to break down the fourth wall, and that all of the emotional aspects, the resistance, the fun, the socialising, are just devices to make a theoretical high art moment happen. I really don't want to be an unwitting actor in someone else's play.
O'Donnell shows us that he is himself immersed in the moment and grooving on the content. If I take him at face value, then I assuage this last fear. But I'm enough of a control freak that it still niggles at me. Then again, maybe it doesn't matter. It is what it is, no harm is gonna come to anyone, and I should just get over myself.
I haven't been able to put my finger on what that vague "something" is that distinguishes MDR from Diane Borsato's work, or makes me think the first is community art and the second is not. (which is why I was so vague about it). I think it comes down to a concern about the power dynamics that come into play when an event or performance is organized by adults but uses kids as performers.
But, as LM has rightly pointed out here and on her own blog, there is frequently a power imbalance in most collaborative performance art pieces, including when it only involves groups of adults. And the thing I find fascinating about the MDR projects is that they temporarily reverse the power structure, often allowing kids semi-anarchic free reign by deciding what happens in the events, which sometimes makes their adult clients (in the case of the haircuts) or audiences (in the case of the Duel in the 'Dale) uncomfortable. I think that is unique about the MDR projects and is what has me so engaged in what's happening.
A quick practical question for Darren, if you have a moment: can you briefly describe what the parameters are for the kids' involvement? Do you approach them with the project, and then they decide to get involved? Or is there a brainstorming factor where they help determine the direction of the performance?
Thanks again for all chiming in on this topic. It's been fascinating to think through with other people and have such engaged feedback.
Hey Sally,
You know, it's funny and it pushes the bounds of incredulity but I honestly often forget that provocation is anything but fun. so when I talk exclusively of fun, I'm speaking honestly, while neglecting to remember that provocation can be annoying and challenging. This tunnel vision, or assumption that everyone feels like I feel has gotten me into trouble with people who don't find what I do fun. But it always takes me by surprise and then I feel stupid. But fun is my main goal. I just find provocation to be fun, even when I'm the one being provoked.
All the challenges you cite are true and central to the project.
As to the question of whether or not I'm trying to make high art happen. I am, but strategically and only to pull the parameters of what is considered high art over to the particular content/context I'm trying to generate: the emotional aspects, the resistance, the fun, and the socialising. I want that stuff to be considered art.
I like Wochenklausur on this issue:
http://www.wochenklausur.at/faq.php?lang=en
They point out that the worst art is going to get more press than the most exciting social work, so the appellation art is tossed - like a versatile and gossamer shroud - over a whole bunch of activities as a strategy to make them more palatable to a media-saturated world where hipness trumps generosity. But I also feel that to the degree that I'm able to generate surprise, the uncanny and new ways of thinking and being, I'm also simply making art.
But at the core, with this project, the most driving motivation is to demonstrate that interesting cultural activity (aka ART) can be created by collaborating with civil institutions like Parkdale PS. I'm trying to make it hip so that it becomes much more commonplace and less ghettoized, less about helping out the poor disenfranchised kids and more about making some cool shit happen that makes the world (my world) more pleasant.
As for breaking the forth wall... been there, done that, zzzzzz. There are so many more interesting things to do and interesting things at stake.
Gabby: Again, not sure how the question of power dynamics shifts it into community arts. I don't think you mean to say that when kids are recruited to realize an adult's vision that that then is community arts. If anything the opposite is true. Community arts is more accurately characterized as driven by the participants and that capital A Art usually involves people getting paid to do what their told. In which case, I guess Diane's is more Art Art - though I don't think tells people what to do. Anyway, still not clear. But I really do think what makes art art is all about context and institutional and intersubjective tendencies.
Again, Wochenklauser is good to read on this.
The way we involve the kids varies, depending on the project. Usually I approach them with a concept, either through the school or - now, more and more - directly or through their parents. Once they're participating I try to maintain clarity as to the parameters of their participation - which is usually pretty easy, for example, "cut hair." And then I try to give them total freedom to work however they want. If things bog down, I step in and try to offer suggestions, direction, advice or whatever. Usually they have a pretty clear idea of what they want to do and they get it done.
It's a long process to work with a population like little kids and trust needs to be developed over time. Only now do I feel like I know the students and their families well enough to begin to include them at an early stage, when the concept are first generated. But I'll never turn over full responsibility to the kids because I'm generating a collaborative encounter and I want to be a part of the action. I also believe that giving over full responsibility to the students is irresponsible.
I've been involved with sort of anarchist conferences that were designed to be self-organizing and often it feels like the organizers are abdicating their responsibility. Oftentimes I want and need direction and will, in fact, contribute more if I have some parameters to work with.
later... gotta run: Parkdale vs. Chef Isberg at Coca tonight and tomorrow vs. Block Recordings at the Gladstone.
thanks, again, for the discussion. It's great to be talking about this while doing it.
Thanks again for all chiming in on this topic. It's been fascinating to think through with other people and have such engaged feedback.
[This is a comment I posted in a related discussion at Sally and LM's Digital Media Tree... which I wrote w/o reading the discussion here. Still reproducing it here, just cuz.--sandals]
Hey I'm glad you guys are talking about this... unsure whether to post here or on Gabby's blog, maybe will copy later.
I've been thinking recently too about projects, MDR's and others, that involve children in something explicitly along the lines of contemporary art making. The other project that comes to mind is Micah Lexier's recent collabo with Colm Toibin and schoolkids on a publication. Toibin wrote an original story for the school, the kids each handwrote one word in the story, and Lexier coordinated the connection.
In both cases, I, like Gabby, feel some misgivings. Maybe that's partly the point, as Sally has pointed out.
To be frank, some of my misgivings might be related to the fact that I don't get along with Darren O'Donnell personally. But I do find his works often engaging and seductive in their openness. What might generate the misgiving, then, all that said, is the question of whether that openness is manipulative or not. I think it is, but then maybe it is manipulation for good or useful result... isn't that what most artists do? There's also an ego thing happening, but that's common to the rest of artmaking (and admittedly writing) as well. "Bask in the reflected glory of me and my good ideas" whether those ideas involve other people's interactions or not, etc.
In the Lexier instance, I have fewer personal misgivings but I really don't know how satisfying it is to be a mass font-producer as these kids were, for some big-name author. Sure, it gets them recognition and better understanding of the conceptual art process, but there's not as much expression. Lexier has played beautifully on the expressiveness of handwriting in past works, like at the Sheppard TTC station. But for some reason it doesn't seem as poignant or effective here.
Overall, it's a thorny issue and I appreciate the opportunity to discuss it. And yes, bring the root canals!
[an addendum to those thoughts i posted on digital media tree and wanted to add here - sandals]
While doing dishes, I think I've had a breakthrough... one that LM alludes to in her latest post.
What I've been struggling with is this: while I think MDR has great generosity of spirit in artmaking, DO does not have great generosity of spirit in person.
And this is fine. This is life. If I had never met him in person I'd be able to enjoy that generosity in the art much more fully.
It also occurred to me: This is why I did not pursue writing formally (in print or whatev) about the work. The thought came up: should I pitch this? Review this? Write about the work itself?
And of course in that context I thought: No, I don't like the guy, I'm totally biased. So I shouldn't write about it. It was clear.
I guess in this context of blog commentary things (like my thinking) got more fuzzy. I thought it would be useful/entertaining/OK to engage those more personal feelings. But I think I'm just confusing things in the end, both for myself and others.
Thanks for bearing with me tho! - sandals
OK, now that I've read it all, one more thing...
Personal feelings aside, I do agree with Gabby that in a power dynamic between children and adults, the adults always always always have the upper hand.
This is why it is problematic (and selfish in a bad way, I'd posit) to engage children in artworks such as this that promote a particular organization or artist, even indirectly.
If MDR was really all concerned with empowering kids (poor or otherwise) it would address the needs and wants of the children themselves, maybe even individually. Food, love, care, nurturance, space, validation... whatever falls under this category of need.
As it stands (and again this might be getting too personal) but it's very possible in these "performance art" situations that the children are made to act out the adult-in-power's ideas of what an empowered childhood looks like.
Children are, after all (even though they are, of course, individuals in their own right) subceptible to the subconscious wants and needs of the adults around them. Adults are susceptible to those needs too, but at least they have enough autonomy on a basic level to take responsibility for themselves.
This further raises the issue of why MDR didn't engage the adults of colour in the Parkdale community, but rather the children. Would the adults perhaps not have been as open to accepting the kind of onstage, performance-art-related "power and autonomy" MDR was offering?
OK I think that's it for now. Forgive me should I post again!
I was on a plane somewhere over Manitoba when this thing got its second wind, so I'm just catching up now. I'm really glad Leah joined in and articulated (much more eloquently and clearly) a lot of what I've been trying to wrap my head around for a while now.
I think I'm really caught up on the power dynamic that I see implicit in the involvement of kids in an adult-designed spectacle. That word hasn't come up yet, but it accurately describes an aspect to this that totally irks me - the temporary nature of the power reversals and child performances and the fact that an audience, separate from the participants, is so central to the MDR projects. Maybe that says more about me than it does MDR. I really liked what Sally said about the difference between the MDR pieces and the recent Lexier project about the structure and the use of audiences: "In the case of the other pieces mentioned here there are three are groups of people, the artist, the participants/content-providers, and the audience.
That gets more fraught." I think that's a fundamental difference between the Harbourfront fish project, for instance, and the MDR projects. When the audience is invited to directly participate in a project or with an artist, there seems to be more of an even playing-field. But when there are participant-performers and then a separate audience watching these performers, there's an added layer of spectacle and objectification (for me at least). It reminds me of something Martha Rosler said about not photographing people in her Bowery series: that representing marginalized people "rarely serv[es] the purpose which (presumably) its makers intended – namely, to gather public support, to generate outrage, and to mobilize people for change. Rather, I argued, documentary photography may inadvertently support the viewers’ sense of superiority or social paranoia. Especially in the case of homelessness, the viewers and the people pictured are never the same people. The images merely reproduce the situation of ‘us looking at them’.”
Why is it that with the MDR projects, we are watching the Parkdale kids in a spectacle? Why, if O'Donnell wants to interrogate the role of the artster and the separation of these two communities, is there not more of an equal amount of active "looking" or watching one another going on? (I guess, in some ways, the Parkdale kids get to watch the spectacle of the artsters stumble drunkenly through their neighbourhood, which reverses the "us looking at them" to a degree).
But I also liked when Leah said "it's very possible in these "performance art" situations that the children are made to act out the adult-in-power's ideas of what an empowered childhood looks like." And this is the "something" that rubs me the wrong way in all collaborative, community-oriented performance works: when the people (artist, community organization, museum, gallery) in control of setting the parameters of the project are the ones who constitute what the "community" they are involving looks like and who is a member of it, often excluding tensions or discrepancies in how the actual community operates in order to communicate their notion of how they think this community operates in larger society or discourse. I think self-actualized or self-selected community groups in participatory art manages to side-step this issue, to a degree. Miwon Kwon talks about this alot, very articulately, and is my homegirl on the topic.
Zmijewski's Them is also a great counterpoint, because it hinges on the messiness of community formation and how there are sometimes unresolvable conflicts and internal contradictions within and between community groups.
And, finally, I also think I'm maybe being a little hard on MDR and am cautious about making them and O'Donnell the straw man for everything that is wrong with participatory community art. I don't think he's trying to resolve all of these potentially unresolvable issues with the MDR projects, or trying to fundamentally change participatory art practices. Maybe it also has to do with a difference in approaching these things with a theatre background as well? It seemed like, in much of O'Donnell's commentary, that he is trying to position himself as a kind of "director" in these performances moreso than as an artist.
I have a question regarding the power dynamics:
In Haircuts by Children the participants (the kids) get paid for their work in the project. I don't know what the deal is with the current project, but assuming that they do (and should) do you think that detail levels the playing field?
and gabby, I hope I misunderstood you being irked by "the fact that an audience, separate from the participants, is so central to the MDR projects" - what art can be without an audience? the audience is ALWAYS central to the art as far as I know, and preferable one that isn't the artist's immediate circle of friends and lovers.
i think MDR was more successful with HbC, the current project being posited as performance art is a bit of a stretch for me. It doesn't help that the main funders listed are Toronto Community Foundation and Laidlaw, so already blurring the Art Art aspect of it. But if that's where the money is right now... why not?
That's a good point, anon. I certainly didn't mean to say that the presence of an audience irked me, just the idea, again, of such purposefully constructed performer and audience groups that mighjt recreate the dominant group looking at the non-dominant group.
And the payment distinction is also an interesting one. I think the Haircuts project works a bit better because it recreates a set of social rituals almost exactly, only reversing the child-adult roles. And payment I think does help level the playing field a bit in that way and underscores the level of trust that needs to be given over to the kids by their clients.
yeah, but again, all our perceptions and ideologies are present here... in Canada, the role reversal thing is an issue, and fair enough. I don't even thing that's the most interesting part of the work because, in the other half of the world children work (with little or no pay) and it's part of Life. MDR purposefully target kids in the poorer neighbourhoods to collaborate, and pay them better than most artworkers I know. There are so many layers to HbC that make it so interesting, and I wish someone would critique it from an art point of view not a social one - even if unfavourably. I find the nuances endless, and I hope MDR can come up with work similar in strength in the near future.
our next project in this family of stuff is The Children's Choice Awards, an intervention in the Melbourne Festival in Australia. We're hiring a jury of kids and chauffeuring them around during the two weeks of the festival and they're judging the work based on criteria they've developed and giving out awards during a ceremony at the end of the festival. It's a project we developed with Alley Jaunt last year. I don't know if it's art.
Again we've asked to work with kids who are less likely to have had as many of these kinds of experiences, mostly because it seems strange to offer it to kids who have.
If anybody wants to talk to the kids who are involved in the projects and get an idea what they think, there are a bunch who are happy to talk to media, bloggers or whoever. Let me know and I get you in contact.
darren - a quick, possible dumb and off topic question - if you don't know if the MDR project that you're planning is art, then why are you doing it?
Because I think it's interesting to work in in-between areas where things are morphing. Expanding how I think about things necessarily means that sometimes I won't know exactly what to call what I'm doing. If it's always obvious what I'm doing then things are static and not evolving. Are they fins or legs? We don't know yet. Maybe they're neither.
Not a dumb question at all, and a good answer too.
back to a previous comment by Anon.
Yes, I agree that HbC is stronger conceptually than the current parkdale project, but I think the Parkdale project is more effective at instantiating a temporary community and is a more comprehensive attempt to manifest and study atypical ways of being together.
Again, you really have to take a look at all 10 of the projects that make up the over-all project and think of the effectiveness of the whole rather than the individual parts.
once things calm down and i have some time I'll post them all to the mammalian site. just been too busy.
but if you can get a copy of our brochure/poster/catalog thing, it has it all there. i know the Beaver has a bunch and at Mercer Union.
i have qualms about your temporary communities and your atypical ways of being together. you say it as if it's a positive thing but sometimes your social acupuncture feels more like social stabbing to some of us. I think even in that, "instantiating" the thing, HbC is more successful, it's just TIDIER.
The intervention in the Melbourne Festival sounds amazing.
this has been a nice discussion, thanks Gabby for allowing it on your blog!
And best of luck Darren with your projects.
yes, it's true that it's occasionally not pleasant for people. But, while it's not much of a defense, it almost always takes me by surprise. I like that word instantiate, it feels much more temporary and insubstantial than 'create' or 'manifest' or whatever. HbC is much tidier but I like the scattershot messiness of the Parkdale thing, though aspects of that one sometimes really had me wondering if I was still an artist or something very much else. Sometimes 'babysitter' came to mind.
I would really encourage you and others reading this to get in touch and talk to the participants. How these things sound on paper and how they are in fact can be quite different. And, all my utopian rhetoric aside, they are often at best, relatively blind and hopeful fumbling in the dark so missteps do occur. But, honestly, the last thing I want is for people to feel stabbed by any of this.
Also, I'm getting better at this, so some of the early stuff was indeed stupid and careless stabbings. But as Jackie Lacan says, the only way to learn the lessons provided by making a mistake is to make the mistake. Sorry if my mistakes have caused you or anyone you know any pain.
I have so many ways I'd like to respond to these posts - if I might join in. But I'll try to make things concise. I've had the opportunity to see several of Darren O'Donnel's projects mentioned, and participated in Haircuts by Children (by getting a uniquely gentle and careful haircut) and in Parkdale vs. Queen West as a visitor to a grade 1 class, and leader of various activities with the students and their teacher. I am out of town at the moment, and regret missing the public activities, as the project contains both the interpersonal/closed situations and the public/spectacular.
I think Darren's offer to invite his critics to "ask the participants, talk to the kids" is a significant part of his provocative challenge - to take the assumptions we have about children as merely "cute", or the presumption that any adult-child interaction hides an adult's self-serving intentions to a test. Seeing these works, and participating in them, has been an experience that for me - represents a critical intervention into the ways our relationships to each other in a city are organized and reproduced. And when teachers tell Darren at Parkdale Public School that what he is doing is "really good for the kids" - he has told me he responds in all sincerity that he is rather, "doing it for the artists." In my own experience of these works, it all seems true. And it's not just because there are now neighbourhood children with their families who now wave hello to me on the street.
I'm troubled that without looking closely at the complex and dynamic variables in of each of these works, and how they really play out for the participants and audiences involved - that critics can foreclose on any serious work that involves groups like children, on account of the implicit "imbalance of power." Who, if not artists, should then have the time with children instead? Are we so mistrustful of artists (who rarely get rich making "community art" or "Art" of any kind) that we can't see the opportunity to propose imaginative alternatives to the already problematic ways we relate to, educate, or indoctrinate groups like children?
I would like to relate my specific encounter, because I think the details matter when looking critically at works like Darren's. I was invited by Darren to apply the interests and questions from my own practice to create a few hours of activities with Grade 1 students. The only other stipulation, was that I found a reason to take the kids on a walk in the neighbourhood.
Indulging a recent interest of mine, I showed the kids pictures of fungi, and talked about their latin names, and their common names. The kids were invited to re-name the organisms, according to their own whims and associations, inventing new common names. We created movements in response to the forms of fungi, drew invented fungi, and finally threw a mushroom dance-party. Then, as our walk, we went to Mother India where mango lassis were made for everyone. I had the opportunity to intervene into the official curriculum, variously about science, dance, and art. Without exaggerating the effects of one morning's worth of activities, I was able to share in a fun and esoteric hobby, and to procure free delicious milkshakes for everyone involved. The teacher thanked me, she said the experience "gave her ideas on how to be more creative in her teaching." And if some of my intentions were met - then I was also able to propose to the students that natural science and dancing don't have to be so far apart, and that they might have the authority to invent new names for things.
I could continue to discuss so many other aspects of the morning at great length - because the children surprised me with their comments, their ideas, their drawings, and their dance moves, and I have been thinking about them, and about the artistic implications of the Parkdale vs. Queen West since then. I also think about how while I was there, I saw Ulysses Castellanos in another class leading the students in the destruction of existing toys so that they might be re-combined into bizarre sculptures and new inventions altogether. The artists Darren has selected to be involved in this aspect of the project (including Swintak, Sandy Plotnikoff, Stephanie Comilang and others) have brought their own distinct ethics and unusual imaginations and have been certainly dangerous - in just the right ways - subtly proposing all kinds of radical alternatives to mainstream curriculum and pedagogy, and enacting with "the powerless" a range of proposals for interpreting and constructing an alternative world. And just imagine the implications of that…
I'm really glad you shared your experiences here Diane.
It's a bit annoying to read some of the comments above to be honest, even a little blog can have so much power over the artist and the interpretation of his work. And though the debate has been good, it has unfortunately been peppered with one writer's usual self-important and conceited style where there's very little substance worth reading, and more about "Leah Leah Leah". It's unfortunate that she chose this forum to air her personal grievances and attack, but not unusual for Ms Sandals. And while she's arguing about power dynamics and adults always having the upperhand, she chose a juvenile and childish method to get her point across ("look at me! look at me!"), and so completely contradicting her argument, because it seems she has succeeded in having the most memorable commentary.
But to address some of what Diane has mentioned: the class workshops led by artists is again, I feel not the most interesting part of the work, however successful. This stuff is going on all over Toronto, the UK, pretty much everywhere where art is being used to correct deficiencies in the educational system, because, some might argue, it's cheaper than correcting the system itself. Having said that however, what makes MDR's work exciting and fresh, is the recontextualisation of everything, and finding new ways to present things.
There is nothing wrong in constructively pointing out parts of a work that need editing or reworking, there isn't enough of that in Toronto, which is why a lot of people are getting away with a lot of stale stuff. On the whole, I do think MDR is doing some of the most interesting work these days. Trying to ignore the Lacan quote (do we always have to quote the guy?) if your mistakes Darren keep driving you to do the extraordinary work that you do, then we'll just have to get our selves thicker skin.
Thanks, Diane, for your thoughts on the more "private" aspects of the project. We haven't talked much about those activities because I think a lot of people's concerns have to do with the audience's role in the public events, but the classroom activities do sound quite successful.
Following up on L.M.'s comment on her and sally's blog, I also wanted to say how much I appreciated Darren's ongoing responses and openness to this debate. The discussion has made me re-think the MDR projects in a new way and I've been really grateful that so many interesting and articulate people have shared their views.
Tim Rollins and Kids of Survival turned twenty five last year
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