Inventory

Anthea Black
Keep Queer­ing the Syl­labus, 2019
16-page zine with hand-stitched bind­ing, lim­it­ed edi­tion let­ter­press book­mark on Mohawk car­ni­val yel­low paper
Zine: 7.5 x 4 .5 inches
Book­marks: 1 x 9 inches

HANDBOOK: Sup­port­ing Queer and Trans Stu­dents in Art and Design Edu­ca­tion, 2018
Edit­ed by Anthea Black and Sham­i­na Chherawala
Print­ed by Nick Shick and Queer Pub­lish­ing Project
6 x 9 inches

Keep Queer­ing the Syl­labus is a con­tem­po­rary art fanzine that con­tains per­son­al snap­shots of queer and trans artists, writ­ers, and cul­tur­al pro­duc­ers, com­piled by Black. The fanzine expands on the for­mat devel­oped by Black for the ‘Queer­ing the Syl­labus’ sec­tion of HANDBOOK: Sup­port­ing Queer and Trans Stu­dents in Art and Design Edu­ca­tion, which was the first resource book of its kind to help fac­ul­ty of all ori­en­ta­tions incor­po­rate anti-oppres­sive teach­ing prac­tices and queer cur­ric­u­la into their class­rooms. The fanzine also includes a lim­it­ed-edi­tion book­mark that can be detached and giv­en as a gift to a queer and/or trans student.

 

Susan Jaho­da and Car­o­line Woolard of BFAMFAPhD
Mak­ing and Being Cards, 2018
Set of 171 cards print­ed and die cut on card stock with an instruc­tion sheet
Book­let and excerpts from Mak­ing and Being
Cards: 3.5 x 5.5  x 2 inches
Instruc­tion sheet: 8.5 x 11
Book­let: 8.5 x 11 x .25 inches

Susan Jaho­da and Car­o­line Woolard con­tribute to the ongo­ing work of BFAM­FAPhD col­lec­tive. The artists are moti­vat­ed by an under­stand­ing that, as teach­ers in Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts and Mas­ters of Fine Arts pro­grams, their ped­a­gog­i­cal spaces are rare places where stu­dents can gath­er and find a com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple who do not ques­tion the val­ue of the arts. And yet, while Jaho­da and Woolard appre­ci­ate project-based and expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing in stu­dio arts ped­a­gogy, they believe stu­dio pro­grams may be fail­ing stu­dents and fac­ul­ty who want to talk about col­lab­o­ra­tion, heal­ing, pol­i­tics or the polit­i­cal econ­o­my, and who are often iso­lat­ed or dis­cour­aged from hav­ing these con­ver­sa­tions in stu­dio pro­grams. In response, they cre­at­ed a card game to offer stu­dents and fac­ul­ty a resource to encour­age dis­cus­sions and the devel­op­ment of art projects on these topics.

 

Jen Delos Reyes
Phone Sculp­tures, 2016-present
Print­ed cards, acrylic cell phone case
6 x 3 x .25 inches

Jen Delos Reyes’ instruc­tions invite stu­dents to col­lec­tive­ly pro­duce a ‘phone sculp­ture’ with their cell phones; the phone sculp­ture must be con­struct­ed at the begin­ning of each class and then remain intact for its dura­tion. The instruc­tions are inspired by diverse art forms and prac­tices from the his­to­ry of mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary art, rang­ing from Dada poet­ry to Con­cep­tu­al art. This provoca­tive and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry activ­i­ty was designed by the artist to address what she refers to as the ‘men­tal absences’ or ‘dig­i­tal dis­trac­tions’ caused by exces­sive cell phone use.

 

Josh MacPhee
Cel­e­brate People’s His­to­ry, 1998-present

Con­tribut­ing artists: Jesus Bar­raza, Blan­co & Peter Cole, Dave Buchen, Jen Cartwright, Julio Cor­do­va, Court­ney Dai­ley & Act Up Philadel­phia, Cheyenne Gar­ri­son, Shan­non Ger­ard & Mary Tremonte, Lana Grove, Sam Ker­son, Josh MacPhee, Dylan Min­er, Ricar­do Levins Morales, and Car­rie Moyer.
14 posters
2 col­or off­set print­ed posters
11 x 17 inch­es each

The Cel­e­brate People’s His­to­ry Posters are root­ed in the DIY tra­di­tion of mass-pro­duced polit­i­cal pro­pa­gan­da. They bring moments in the his­to­ry of social jus­tice strug­gles to life such as the fight for LGBTQ rights, Black lib­er­a­tion, and labour reform. The posters tell sto­ries of mar­gin­al­ized and oppressed peo­ples – such as Indige­nous resis­tance leader Gabriel Dumont, and civ­il rights activist Sylvia Ray Rivera – and oth­er pub­lic intel­lec­tu­als, activists, and edu­ca­tors who are typ­i­cal­ly writ­ten out of offi­cial his­to­ry. A num­ber of dif­fer­ent artists and design­ers con­tributed to the col­lec­tion in an effort to embody the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy, inclu­sion, and group par­tic­i­pa­tion in the writ­ing and inter­pre­ta­tion of his­to­ry. Today, Cel­e­brate People’s His­to­ry posters hang in dorm rooms, apart­ments, com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters, class­rooms and city streets. Over 125 dif­fer­ent designs have been print­ed over the past 20 years, with more than 300,000 posters print­ed. 14 are includ­ed in this kit. These posters help to rup­ture dom­i­nant nar­ra­tives in school cur­ric­u­la and invite stu­dents to find alter­na­tive ways of under­stand­ing, research­ing, and writ­ing the past.

 

Elana Mann
The People’s Micropho­ny Song­book, 2013

Con­trib­u­tors: Andrew Choate, Alli­son Adah John­son, Ari­anne Hoff­mann, Audra Wolowiec, Chris Cuel­lar, Daniel Goode, Danielle Adair, G Dou­glas Bar­rett, Dou­glas Wadle, Elana Mann, Heather War­ren-Crow, Iván Sánchez, James Klopfleisch, Jen­ny Dono­van, Juliana Snap­per, Kala Pier­son, Kim­ber­ly Kim, Mikal Czech, Michael Matthews, Pauline Oliv­eros, Rachel Finkel­stein, Sascha Gold­hor, and Sibyl O’Malley.
Newsprint
9 x 11.5 inches

The Peo­ple’s Micropho­ny Song­book con­tains resis­tance songs inspired by the People’s Micro­phone (also known as the Peo­ple’s Mic or the Human Mic), which is a tech­nol­o­gy that enables pub­lic speak­ers at large assem­blies or gath­er­ings to be heard with­out the use of elec­tric ampli­fi­ca­tion. Many con­trib­u­tors orig­i­nal­ly wrote songs for the Los Ange­les-based exper­i­men­tal choir the Peo­ple’s Micropho­ny Cam­er­a­ta. The songs explore human voice as mate­r­i­al, polit­i­cal and sen­so­r­i­al. The People’s Micropho­ny Song­book makes these songs avail­able to a wider pub­lic to nav­i­gate and to engage with the Peo­ple’s Mic, through active lis­ten­ing and the use of voice with­in a col­lec­tive space.

 

Syrus Mar­cus Ware
Activist Love Let­ters, 2012-present
String, clothes­pins, poster and print­ed doc­u­ments Dimen­sions variable

Activist Love Let­ters prompts par­tic­i­pants to con­sid­er their own activism, and that of peo­ple who inspire them. The project is inspired by the pow­er­ful, and often hid­den let­ters sent among activists and organizers—words of sup­port and encour­age­ment, rage and fear, cau­tion and inspi­ra­tion alike. Activist Love Let­ters asks, “If you could reach out to one per­son who moves you through what they do, who would it be? What would you say?” The objects and exer­cis­es lead you through the process of ini­ti­at­ing a group writ­ing per­for­mance, includ­ing the steps involved in host­ing an event and mail­ing the let­ters afterwards.

 

Shan­non Ger­ard with Press­ing Issues Students
Counter with Care Poster Series, 2018

Con­trib­u­tors: Mad­die Belli­no, Leah Benet­ti, Geryl Cabr­era, Rocio Car­doso, Angel­i­ca Grana­dos Lopez, Riel Hat­tori-Caspi, Megan Moore, Cleo Peter­son, Celi­na Sieh, Fran­cis Tomkins, Rebec­ca Vaugh­an, Regi­na Xiao, and Dana Zamzu, and artist-researcher Andrea Vela Alarcon.
4 posters, envelope.
Screen­print posters: 17 x 22 inches
Enve­lope: 6 x 9 inches

This mul­ti­coloured poster series, cre­at­ed by Shan­non Ger­ard and stu­dents enrolled in her Press­ing Issues course at the Ontario Col­lege of Art and Design, con­tains a whim­si­cal array of screen-print­ed images and tex­tu­al descrip­tions. When unfold­ed, the posters reveal the faces of impor­tant fem­i­nists, writ­ers, artists, and oth­er rad­i­cal edu­ca­tors such as Sis­ter Cori­ta Kent and Adri­an Piper. Counter with Care was pro­duced and designed in response to a cur­ricu­lum doc­u­ment of the coun­ter­cul­ture move­ment from the 1970s called Blue­print for Counter Edu­ca­tion. Blue­print for Counter Edu­ca­tion is a box set con­tain­ing three large dia­gram­mat­ic posters and an instruc­tion­al man­u­al pro­duced by Mau­rice Stein and his for­mer stu­dent Lar­ry Miller. After study­ing the orig­i­nal posters, Ger­ard and her stu­dents made their own syl­labus, one that push­es back against the West­ern, white and male-cen­tric per­spec­tives of the orig­i­nal and invites users to do the same.

 

People’s Kitchen Col­lec­tive (Sita Kurato­mi Bhau­mik, Joce­lyn Jack­son, Saqib Keval)
Kitchen Reme­dies, 2016
Dupli­cate forms, ingre­di­ents, alu­minum foil pouch­es, rem­e­dy cards
Dimen­sions variable

When you didn’t feel well as a child, what reme­dies did your par­ents, care­tak­ers, or elders give you? In Kitchen Reme­dies, People’s Kitchen Col­lec­tive invites par­tic­i­pants to bring the sto­ries, tra­di­tions and wis­dom of our elders and ances­tors into the kitchen.

The col­lec­tive seeks reme­dies for every­thing from upset stom­achs to the patri­archy (because we know that these are, in fact, con­nect­ed). Ingre­di­ents hold sto­ries of our resilience. In the face of oppres­sive sys­tems such as White suprema­cy, cap­i­tal­ism, patri­archy, the prison indus­tri­al com­plex, and police vio­lence, heal­ing our­selves is an act of self-deter­mi­na­tion. Through the act of heal­ing we feel the strength of those who have come before us. Kitchen Reme­dies includes four cards cor­re­spond­ing to four reme­dies from the People’s Kitchen Col­lec­tive. Open a con­tain­er and pass it around. Read the match­ing rem­e­dy card. What does it smell like? Are the reme­dies famil­iar or unfa­mil­iar? Is there a sen­sa­tion or feel­ing evoked with each remedy?

 

Alexa Hatana­ka
Cut & Paste, 2019
Booklet
11 x 7 inches

Hatanaka’s instruc­tion­al book­let sends par­tic­i­pants on a sur­re­al jour­ney through city streets in search of words with which to con­struct their own chance-based poems. Con­tent is record­ed through relief rub­bings of his­tor­i­cal plaques, maps, sig­nage, or van­i­ty license plates. Stu­dents then share the found words with one anoth­er. Hatana­ka intends this exer­cise to spark con­ver­sa­tions about pub­lic space, local his­to­ry, or social prac­tice method­olo­gies. The activ­i­ty asks stu­dents to embrace uncer­tain­ty and to find inten­tion with­in the lim­i­ta­tions it sets out.

 

PA Sys­tem
Future Snow­ma­chines in Kin­ngait (Process Book) & Res­o­lu­tion, 2017–2019
Youth col­lab­o­ra­tors: Jan­ice Qimir­pik, Lachao­lasie Ake­suk, David Pud­lat, Moe Kel­ly, Nathan Adla and Chris­tine Adamie
Self-pub­lished book and instruc­tion­al insert
11 x 7 inches

Res­o­lu­tion is an instruc­tion­al card that play­ful­ly draws on self-help strate­gies or visu­al­iza­tion goal set­ting exer­cis­es. It invites the par­tic­i­pant to make a minia­ture sculp­ture of a need, desire, dream, or goal, there­by mak­ing their inten­tion tangible.

The sculp­tures are meant to func­tion as a form of ‘sym­pa­thet­ic mag­ic,’ which is based on the idea that objects can sym­bol­i­cal­ly imi­tate or rep­re­sent one’s desires or inten­tions. The insert is paired with the Future Snow­ma­chines in Kin­ngait (Process Book), a book­let that doc­u­ments an ongo­ing project with Kin­ngait youth liv­ing in Cape Dorset, Nunavut. Youth sculpt­ed imag­i­nary snow­mo­biles out of play­dough, which were then 3D print­ed and enlarged into alu­minum sculp­tures. The sales and com­mis­sions of these snow­mo­bile sculp­tures fund Kin­ngait’s Lands and Cul­tur­al Lead­er­ship Pro­gram. Since the sculp­tures fund real snow­mo­biles for the lead­er­ship pro­gram, the youth alchem­i­cal­ly turned their play­dough ges­tures into func­tion­al machines.

 

Helen Reed and Han­nah Jickling
Tacky Forms, 2019
Vinyl enve­lope, prompts, chi­cle, mas­tic and larch resin
9.5 x 7.5 x 1 inches

“Pulling out of my mouth the strangest forms / I sud­den­ly real­ized / the exis­tence of an extra­or­di­nary col­lec­tion of abstract sculp­tures / pass­ing between my teeth.” — Ali­na Szapocznikow

Tacky Forms is a series of chew­ing prompts that invite par­tic­i­pants to explore the sen­so­ry qual­i­ties of three raw gum mate­ri­als (chi­cle, mas­tic, and larch resin) and the result­ing forms sculpt­ed by their tongues, teeth, jaw and cheeks. This body of work was inspired by Ali­na Szapocznikow’s Pho­to­sculp­tures depict­ing minia­ture blob­like pieces of mas­ti­cat­ed chew­ing gum. Helen Reed and Han­nah Jickling’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the sci­en­tif­ic and expe­ri­en­tial qual­i­ties of gum is adapt­ed from a work­shop series called BUBBLETROUBLE, an exten­sion of their ongo­ing project plat­form Big Rock Can­dy Moun­tain. For this project, the artists devel­oped a recipe in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Grade 6 & 7 stu­dents from Queen Alexan­dra Ele­men­tary School in East Van­cou­ver. The gum, spe­cial­ly sourced for Instant Class Kit, is accom­pa­nied by chew­ing prompts for ‘mind­ful chew­ing’ activ­i­ties that trans­form raw gum into an alter­na­tive mate­r­i­al for art.

 

Rodri­go Hernandez-Gomez
Call­ing, 2019
Seashell, fan­cy textile
Dimen­sions variable

Class Feed­back, 2019
Amate paper, vinyl lettering
Dimen­sions variable

Muse­um With­out Entrance, 2019
Dig­i­tal print on silk
Dimen­sions variable

An Emp­ty Shell, 2019
Album cov­er, vinyl record
Dimen­sions variable

Lis­ten­ing Exer­cise, 2019
Per­ma­nent mark­er on found postcard
Dimen­sions variable

Her­nan­dez-Gomez adapts the brief, open-end­ed and occa­sion­al­ly absurd nature of the Fluxus score into a series of instruc­tion­al pieces that can be per­formed either inside or out­side the class­room. The artist sub­verts the stan­dard form of Fluxus scores, which are typ­i­cal­ly print­ed on small white cards, by pre­sent­ing his on silk and amate (a type of bark paper used by Indige­nous peo­ples of cen­tral Mex­i­co). Some prompts are also hand­writ­ten on found mate­ri­als like post­cards and album cov­ers. The instruc­tions cov­er three lev­els of time and scale: imme­di­ate action, week­long activ­i­ty, and longer-term field trips. The instruc­tions call upon par­tic­i­pants to per­form myr­i­ad activ­i­ties, includ­ing: whis­per­ing into seashells, teach­ing art his­to­ry from an Indige­nous per­spec­tive, vis­it­ing the homes of col­lec­tors, and per­form­ing eso­teric numer­i­cal calculations.

 

Tania Willard
BUSH Gallery Man­i­festo, 2018 (writ­ten 2016)
Laser-etched Birch­bark har­vest­ed in Secwepemcul’ecw
12 x 14.5 inches
Muslin draw­string bag 14 x 18 inches

Willard has curat­ed a selec­tion of state­ments from the man­i­festo of BUSH gallery, a text that she often uses as a start­ing point for talk­ing about Indige­nous epis­te­molo­gies with stu­dents. BUSH gallery is an exper­i­men­tal, land-based res­i­den­cy that exam­ines how “gallery sys­tems and art medi­ums might be trans­fig­ured, trans­lat­ed and trans­formed by Indige­nous knowl­edges, tra­di­tions, aes­thet­ics, per­for­mance and land use sys­tems.” The state­ments are print­ed on bark har­vest­ed from the Secwepemcul’ecw ter­ri­to­ry in British Colum­bia, where BUSH gallery is locat­ed. By blend­ing con­tem­po­rary laser-etch­ing tech­niques with local­ly-sourced mate­ri­als, Willard trans­pos­es the time and space of BUSH gallery into new ped­a­gog­i­cal settings.

 

Mare Liberum (Jean Bar­beris, Ben Cohen, Dylan Gau­thi­er, Arthur Pois­son, Suni­ta Prasad, Kendra Sul­li­van, and Stephan von Muehlen)
Liberum Dory, 2008/2018
Reprint­ed broad­sheet with Dory stencils
22.5 x 33 inches

Rad­i­cal Sea­far­ing Broad­sheet, 2015/2018
Reprint­ed broad­sheet with Punt stencils
22.5 x 33 inches

Com­mis­sioned for the exhi­bi­tion Rad­i­cal Sea­far­ing, curat­ed by Andrea Grover for the Par­rish Art Muse­um, South­hamp­tom, New York, 2016

Liberum Kayak, 2011/2018
Reprint­ed broad­sheet with Kayak stencils
22.5 x 33 inches

Com­mis­sioned for the exhi­bi­tion Sea­Wor­thy, EFA Project Space and Flux Fac­to­ry, curat­ed by Jean Bar­beris, Ben­jamin Cohen, Dylan Gau­thi­er, Michelle Levy, Geor­gia Muen­ster, and Kendra Sul­li­van, New York, 2011

This set of broad­sheets and sten­cils, pre­sent­ed as a mul­ti­page news­pa­per, is designed for ama­teur boat builders and sea­far­ers. Step-by-step instruc­tions guide par­tic­i­pants through the fab­ri­ca­tion of three ves­sel types: Dory, Punt and Kayak. Fol­low­ing a method­ol­o­gy loose­ly drawn from rad­i­cal design­ers such as Enzo Mari, DIY boat builders such as John Gard­ner, and the crit­i­cal ped­a­gogy of edu­ca­tor Pao­lo Friere, the Mare Liberum col­lec­tive has designed and released plans for a num­ber of water crafts to inspire oth­ers to build boats as plat­forms for art, inquiry, envi­ron­men­tal learn­ing, and activism. The name Mare Liberum is Latin, mean­ing ‘free­dom of the seas.’ With this phrase, sev­en­teenth-cen­tu­ry jurist and philoso­pher Hugo Grotius pro­claimed that all nations should have equal access to the sea. Fol­low­ing his prin­ci­ples, par­tic­i­pants are encour­aged to launch their new­ly con­struct­ed boats in local water­ways, where they become vehi­cles to explore issues such as local his­to­ry, process­es of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, and ecol­o­gy and cli­mate change.