The Dig

I began concretizing my ideas. 

At the time, many of my classmates, including me, were voicing out a specific difficulty about being in art education. We were neither fine arts students, nor education students, so many doors were closed to us. I discovered it was similar even in the realm of Fine Arts at Concordia: painting majors were not allowed into Fibers courses, for example. The need to create more open interactions between Concordia students became my cause.

The art of today involves many aspects; art cannot be created in a vacuum. It resembles social work in the sense that the art of today takes "as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interactions and its social context" (Bourriaud, 2002). It differs in its method. Many artists of the Green Museum interact with their environment and its inhabitants to create a dialogue about the important issues that need to be discussed. These include especially environmental issues, but also consumerism, poverty, the battle for power, among others. 

The building of relationships became the central component of the project.  

At the time, I still needed the performance in three parts:  I called these the Encounter, the Dig, and the Union. Bourriaud describes relational art as creating a lasting encounter- a meeting between two entities which creates a bond between the two, culminating in a union of the two (2002). 

At first, dancing and drawing were to observe each other, like the gauging of two characters during a handshake.  A set of drawings would be created by half of the participants, inspired from the movement of the dancers. It is important to note that for this first part, the participants would remain in their comfort zones; those who drew were 'specialists' in drawing, similarly to the dancers who also were 'specialists' in dancing.

The second, and separate, performance was comparable to a conversation. Those who drew inspired their drawing from those dancing, and the dancers themselves were to inspire their own actions from those drawing. Each would observe and mimic the other- one by drawing on a piece of paper, the other through an exploration of his/her body (through a dance). It was meant to be an exchange of movement.

The final part was to be performed separately, once again. The Union would consist of roles being exchanged; the dancer became the one who drew, and the one drawing became the dancer. The two entities would have become one, both accepting each others differences and experiencing the world from the others' point of view. The point was to eliminate this sense of 'the Other'. In other words, "the boundary between the self and the Other is fluid rather than fixed: the Other is included within the boundary of selfhood" (Gablik, 1995, p84). 

I knew many people comfortable in drawing, but dancing was a whole new world I'd never reached into. I needed to find people to dance, so I created this poster below, and  went to Studio 7 to advertise my idea.
 

RESOURCES

Bourriaud, Nicolas. (2002). Relational Aesthetics. Les Presses du Réel, (pp.11-24). France : Dijon. Found on http://wiki.daviddarts.com/images/3/38/Bourriaud.pdf

Gablik, S. (1995). Connective aesthetics. In S. Lacy (Ed.), Mapping the terrain: New genre public art, (pp. 74-87). Seattle: Bay Press.