“Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.” -Seneca
Consider your relationship to material objects. We live on a tipping point, in an age of consumption unparalleled by history. Consider the objects around you and ask yourself which of them you need. Create mindfully remembering that every one of us impacts the world around us. Be conscious of your footprint in all things. Remember that for every action you take, there are seven billion others taking their own actions. Use your art to wake the world up, make them ask the difficult questions and examine their own relationship to things.
Clare Cumberlidge heads up 13 Ways, an organization combining curatorial and communications expertise to produce high profile campaigns and cultural events. Recently 13 Ways is helped the Museum of London as they relocated and rebranded. For this project they issued an open call for projects that can benefit the city of London. This sort of campaign speaks very much to how 13 Ways operates. Cumberlidge explains, “a lot of our skill and capacity is around bringing partners together to share delivery and cost.” Another project brings 13 Ways to Hull, the UK City of Culture for 2017 to work with Linda Brothwell who “practices jewelry as a form of public repair.” Her series Act of Care makes public repairs around the UK using “local technique which would speak of the craft and industrial heritage of that region.” In Hull, 13 Ways brings Brothwell together with local libraries to make public repairs documenting the history of hull as well as human interaction with tools.
Jill Moser has an exhibition currently at Lennon, Weinberg called Play Replay which explores how we tell and retell, act and re-act in an endless loop. Growing up in New York City, Moser spent a lot of time in the basement of the Whitney where she says she cut her teeth on abstraction. 1970s abstract filmmakers strongly influenced Moser who began creating non-narrative films in high school. Her films like the films of the artists she loves were “in no way telling a story but they were looking at the every day…telling stories through the visual entirely.” Eventually Moser came to painting where gesture played a large and immediate role. Gesture, Moser says, “is at the base of every visual mark.” More recently Moser has begun to play with the temporality of multiple printing processes.
Interviews are available on iTunes as podcasts, and for Android please click here. All weekly essay pieces in a sharable format are here. The full archive of interviews here.
Books to Read
What are you reading? Add your titles to our reading list here. User Masha Melnik is dedicated to Walk Through Walls by Marina Abramovic while user Beatriz has only just put down TRIBE: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger.
Opportunities / Open Calls
Phileas is currently accepting applications for its 2018 grant season. Applications support ambitious contemporary art by Austrian and international artists. Applications must be submitted through an institution though grants can fund exhibition of a solo artist. Deadline is July 21.
A Few Words to Keep in your Pocket
Contemplate what it is you truly need, the objects that fulfill necessity rather than desire. Cherish your art, the people that you love, and those few things that make life possible and then ask yourself what to do about all the rest.
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Deadlines
Weekly Edited Grant and Residency Deadlines – review the list here.
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More Resources – For Artists Only – (weekly articles)
Make Your Own Weather — Read more here
Hans Ulrich Obrist — Read more here
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Popular Writings –
Non-profit spaces to know –
London, UK Non-Profit Spaces – read about some of the best.
Los Angeles, CA Non-Profit Spaces- read about some of the best.
New York City Non-Profit Spaces – read about some of the best.
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Self Illumination –
Conquering Fear – read about methods and Pema Chodron.
The Trap of Self-Esteem and How to Break Free- read more here.
F*ck the Art World, F*ck Consumerism! – read more here.