Description

99 _{These included Liam Gillick, Dave Beech, David Blamey (UK), Annie Fletcher and Sarah Pierce (IRE) who subsequently became part}

The four-week alternative art school project was christened Our Day Will Come, (ODWC),

which took place in the spring of 2011, and comprised Paul O’Neill along with nine invited international artists and curators of his selection. Their presence was centred within the precinct of the Tasmanian School of Art (TSA), part of the University of Tasmania, at the campus located in the dockside area of Hobart’s Hunter Street.

O’Neill and I worked collaboratively to develop the project within the curatorial premise of

Iteration Again,a programme of thirteen parallel public art projects across Tasmania. Each was conducted sequentially over a four-week period. Like the other twelve sub-projects, ODWC was developed to include four iterations or chapters over the four weeks, and this scheme lent itself to developing a curriculum. It was envisaged that students, local artists, members of the

general public and academics would make up the participating student body and audience, to be led by a group of invited international cultural producers ranging from artists, performers, curators, writers, designers, students, researchers and academics.

O’Neill developed series of four topics, posed as questions. We sought to create a community of inquiry by broadcasting the questions to the invited participants, artists, and the wider community. They were; What is a school?, What is remoteness?, What is autonomy?, and What is Usefulness? From these weekly questions, O’Neill devised a loose schedule of activities to unfold as the artwork itself. The questions were to be offered up for discussion at the beginning of each week, the ensuing conversations to be hosted by one of the four international guests.

O’Neill and I applied to various funding sources for support for ODWC. We were successful in gaining grants from Culture Ireland and the University of Tasmania’s Visiting Scholar

Figure 19. Workmen constructing the verandah of the school

Figure 18. The ODWC caravan before and after Image source: Fiona Lee

Programme. Apart from the economic benefits, these sources of support invested the project’s visiting participants with particular formalised official visitor and a sort of ‘cultural ambassador’ status. The University of Tasmania uses the Visiting Scholars programme to bring in outside knowledge; the Irish funding body supports its artists being abroad. Visiting Scholar status made Wilson and O’Neill official guests of the TSA, and as such, they participated in the weekly Art Forum programme, and met with various staff members about research matters and had practice-based critiques with students at the school.

Some formal components of the ODWC school had visual impact, but they presented a mystery at first glance. We borrowed a portable 1950s workers’ tearoom from the Hobart City Council and relocated from its resting place in bush land to the forecourt of the TSA. (Fig 18)

The repurposed caravan was completed with a porch: a rough timber deck with a white awning held aloft by the trunks of two salvaged ‘Hills Hoist”

clotheslines100. We repainted the caravan Pantone 222C, the burgundy colour of a European passport.

Astute observers, or those who were in the vicinity the week before, would have noticed the gradual transformation of the small caravan, from a graffiti-ridden relic to a curious purple ‘hub’. It looked more like a beachside shack, awkwardly out of place in a hard surfaced yard. (Fig 19) Its visual presence created

100 _{A quintessential Australian icon the ‘Hills Hoist’ was a five- pronged rotating, height adjustable clothesline set in nearly every back}

yard from the md 40s until today.

Figure 20. The ‘conversation table’ by Gareth Long(US)

Figure 21. The T-shirt designs were by Paul O’Neill himself (L) and by British artists Liam Gillick, David Blamey. Image source: Fiona Lee

absurdity that seemed to momentarily replace its meaning as a school.

A central visual feature of the school was the unique table on the front porch which was the designed ‘conversation table’ by Gareth Long, a New York-based Canadian artist. (Fig 20) He constructed the two-seated table to which O’Neill invited participants to book in for a one-on- one conversation with a visiting artist from 2 and 4 pm each day. The topics they discussed included references to the week’s topic but focused the questions in relation to their own practice.

Figure 22. Our Day Will Come, 2011 email flier

It was not clear at first glance that O’Neill was deliberately driving this project as a structured entity that would look, sound and feel like a school; the name alone was odd, and there were no mandatory terms used such as ‘classes’, ‘students’, ‘teachers’ or ‘assessable outcomes’.101

The schedule of semi-planned events provided some structure to the school, but this was continually challenged when conditions changed and flexed to the needs and availability of the participants. The schedule ended up being more akin to a list of things to do, not so much a formal curriculum, and a series of T-shirts, (Fig 21) designed to be seen as ‘uniforms’ were instead given away as a means of enticing participants.

Participants were invited to join the school by word of mouth and through the limited channel of Iteration Again’s web-based communications. The formal promotion, disseminated as mail outs, brochures and regular advertisements, were addressed through CAST’s network and general email fliers. (Fig 22) Once having signed up to the project, participants were kept informed of events via a weekly ODWC email bulletin.

Initially, the project drew few participants. CAST’s promotions led very few members of the wider public to the school, and as Iteration Again took place towards the end of the academic year, the pressure of work precluded full-scale commitment by all those except the most genuinely curious students and staff at the School of Art. Despite the friendly, haphazard ensemble that greeted people in the courtyard, it did not immediately look like an artwork, lacking recognisable tropes. However, once passers-by engaged with the caravan, or were drawn to accept a free T-shirt, they entered the fray, and the elements of the artwork became clearer. The language, the topics, the references to international artists, writers, philosophers and thinkers all pointed to this not being just about a visual disruption in the shape of a purple caravan in a school yard, but an experiential undertaking.

The weekly programme proceeded with a series of events including films, lectures,

performances, discussions, readings, dinners, dances, installations, open radio broadcasts, and other performative events. These were presented by the guest visitors: Mick Wilson, Irish educator, writer and artist – who stayed for the entire month long duration; Annie Fletcher, curator at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven Netherlands; Rhona Byrne, Irish artist; and Jem Noble, a UK-based artist. O’Neill also remotely included in the schedule, the work of 5 other

101_{Our Day Will Come is a term appropriated by O’Neill from the Irish Republican brotherhood. It is used as a depoliticised, hollow}

tool to be populated by his various projects such as conferences, publications etc. In this instance, it was used as a name for a school. The logo font and design references a combined Guttenberg Gothic /Fratur font used by the Nazi party—it was designed by Tom Williams commissioned and is likewise considered empty and universal, ready for appropriation. O'Neill, Paul. 2011a. "Curating as Research Practice:Practice as Curatorial Research." Art Forum, http://www.utas.edu.au/art-viscom/events/2011/september/art-forum- paul-oneill.

artists: Gareth Long, New York–based, Canadian artist; Garrett Phelan and Sarah Pierce, Irish artists, and David Blamey and Liam Gillick, UK artists. They worked remotely by sending Skype and email instructions, material designs and writings.

The main regular features of the schedule were the workshops to introduce the weekly questions, which were organised and run by one of the visiting international artists first thing on Monday mornings. The participants acted as provocateurs. Flip charts were produced

during the sessions to record keywords developed by the participants. These then gave the groups assembled something to work in and around the week’s question.

Four weekly School Dinners(Fig 23), hosted by Mick Wilson included presentations of works by local artist and designers, as well as visiting artists in Tasmanian as part of the broader

Iteration:Again programme. The School Dinners were loosely themed around the week’s topic and presenters gave illustrated talks about their art practice, followed by a discussion and critique, all accompanied by a home cooked meal (predominantly Irish fare prepared by Wilson, and potluck contributions from locals). About thirty people came and went during each of the evenings at which a few participants would volunteer to present an aspect of their art practice in a PowerPoint presentation to all the guests. (Fig 24) They were offered in return the opportunity for critical engagement and reflection. There were a series of film screenings and in the week of What is remoteness?, the School Dinner hosted a Skype discussion with the organisers of Tranzit.hu, a free school in Budapest Hungary.

Figure 23. Mick Wilson, School Dinners. 2011 held at The Writers Cottage inBattery Point, Hobart, where the artists were staying. Image source: Fiona Lee

Figure 24. Mick Wilson, School Dinners. 2011. A film screening at The Writers Cottage in Battery Point, Hobart. Image source: Fiona Lee

The atmosphere and particular stakes of the brand of hospitality at play at the School Dinners are the subjects of a co-authored published research paper, ‘The (Neo) Avant- Garde and (Their) Kitchen(s): Potluck and Participation’ (Lee and Kunda 2012b) (see Appendix B).

Each week, material gathered from the events was incorporated into a publication, a ‘zine’ or magazine, one launched on each of the four Fridays from the verandah of the caravan. 102_{(Fig 25) Along with local participants, artists,}

writers and theorists from across the world contributed input, generated from the week’s question, into the zines. After the conclusion of the project, these publications remained as a tangible trace of proceedings. The first issue had thirty pages, which increased incrementally over the four weeks to eighty-eight pages in week four.

102 _{A ‘zine is a term for a small magazine or publication that O’Neill uses as a way to record and distribute text and visual material}

generated through his dialogical projects.

Figure 26. ODWC Sign up board for the ‘conversation table’.

Image source: Fiona Lee

Figure 25.ODWC ‘zine’ launch every Friday evening. Image source: Fiona Lee

Five artists in the ODWC project delivered work remotely: Liam Gillick, Garrett Phelan, David Blamey, Gareth Long and Sarah Pierce. At the ‘conversation table’ by New York-based artist Gareth Long, between 2 and 4 pm participants could book a half hour conversation each with one of the visiting international artists. As word got around this became one of the most popular elements of ODWC, and connected about 30 local artists with the visitors. (Fig 26)

The ‘conversation table’, used by O’Neill for recorded discussions, gave an outlet for those wanting to question or challenge his project. The conversation table came to be recognised in the wider Iteration Again community as a place where you could (along with someone else) test theories, play with ideas and question your own practice. By discussing their work in a one-on- one encounter with the international visitors, the event set up an opportunity for university students and local artists to situate their own practice within a different context. The chance for a conversation about ones own personal practice with someone from somewhere else did not occur very often. While artists in Tasmania were not extremely isolated in this regard, opportunities for cross mingling with international curators and artists who were coming to the state to see MONA, had not presented itself to the local community at the time of this project. SHortly before MONA had opened the founding purpose of the program of public events that culminated in the Iteration;Again programme was developed, which sought to locate and

situate local artists within a realm of international dialogue. (see Appendix C) During the week of What is Autonomy?, curator Annie Fletcher came from the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands. She gave a public lecture on autonomy in art production and consumption, a subject that the Van Abbemuseum had been considering for some time. (Fig 27) She also led a workshop and discussion around issues such as

‘independence’, ‘emancipation’ and ‘freedom’ in art. Participants produced the weekly zine that momentarily placed the project into international territory when it was presented at a major

Figure 27. ODWC,Autonomy lecture by Annie Fletcher Image source: Fiona Lee

conference in the Netherlands the following week.103 _{In addition, that week, local arts writer,}

Michael Denholm gave a public talk on the story of the Progressive Art Movement in Adelaide founded in 1974; Professor of Philosophy, Jeff Malpas, presented a Philosophy Café. Throughout the four weeks, there were a number of public screenings of films loaned from the collection of the Van Abbemuseum.

Towards the fourth week, British artist Jem Noble produced The Matter Of Self-Improvement, a workshop and performance that appropriated found footage of self-improvement material from

old technologies (predominantly of fitness exercises from the seventies on VHS and cassette tapes), collected by participants in the weeks leading up to the project from Hobart charity shops.(Fig 28)

During the week, we addressed the question, What is usefulness? Irish artist Rhona Byrne conducted three events that addressed humour and its use in society. She held a humour workshop led by ‘Joyologist’ Annette Psereckis (Fig 29). A workshop was set up to build a black balloon cloud, which was paraded on market day through the Salamanca precinct, to St David’s

103 _{Professor Nikos Papastergiadis, who subsequently joined the next case study in 2013, recalled hearing about the ODWC project, and}

the zine publication when he was taking part in the Van Abbemuseum’s The Autonomy Project symposium several days after the it was produced and sent to the Netherlands in 2011.

Figure 28. ODWC, performance by Jem Noble called The Matter Of Self-Improvement. Image source: Fiona Lee

Park, where a public laughter workshop was conducted with members of the Hobart Laughter Club. Byrne also conducted an artist talk on her work at the School Dinners. During the week of

What is remoteness?, Bryony Nainby, a curator from the local Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, gave a presentation on the remote art organisation in Western Australia called IASKA.104 _{That same week a local scientist/participant, Tisham Dhar, from the CSIRO}

(

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

remote sensing in orbit.

Over the last two weeks of the project, Irish-based artist Sarah Pierce produced the

performance work, Exaggerate! Strengthen! Simplify!… a work that infiltrated (and disrupted) the School’s hallways, library, café and entrance area, unannounced. Pierce produced the work remotely, with five local participants, over series of workshops run via Skype from Dublin. In general, protest and demonstration about the environment has been the focus within Australian unrest, perhaps until the recent Indigenous stolen generation rallies or activities around the lesser ‘occupy movement’. Disturbances are relatively uncommon and are generally contained to fringe and marginalised groups or to small pockets of isolated discontent against

104 _{IASKA= International Art Space Kelleberrin, a Western Australian art organisation formed in 1998 by farmers and art professionals}

interested in exploring cultural identity through art. It was remotely located in the small town of Kellerberrin, 210 kilometres east of Perth until 2008.

Figure 29. ODWC humour workshop by Rhona Byrne Image source: Fiona Lee

government changes or inadequacies. Some of the artists in ODWC touched on protest, and dissent and at times encouraged participants to move out of their area of comfort to debate, critique and write about issues pertaining to education, autonomy, geographical location,

isolation and functionality in art, among others.

In a series of three short performances within the TSA, Pierce’s work was an attempt to disrupt the status quo—as much as it was a critique of dominant power and authority. (Fig 30) She worked remotely from the UK, with five members of the ODWC student group via Skype from Dublin, where she coached them to produce a performative work that randomly infiltrated the School of Art. The performances were developed as subtle versions of protest, which the artists designed to ‘interrupt’ as much as ‘disrupt’ the everyday workings of the school.

Pierce’s work was a formal instructive protest, one that she likened to Berthold Brecht’s choruses. She also employed dialogue from the repertoire of terminology regularly used in a typical 3D studio sculpture class. The performances aimed to create a ‘temporary diversion’ for onlookers and everyday users of the TSA, by repeating instructive elements in short bursts of formal chanting-as-instruction. Accompanied by a series of props they were performed in the

Figure 30. ODWC Sarah Pierce performance, Exaggerate! Strengthen! Simplify!…2011 Image source: Courtesy of CAST

Café, outside the Library and in the hallway by the five performers to a bemused, nonchalant audience of students in the laid-back atmosphere of an indifferent art school.

In an environment that completely lacked interest in dissent, it nonetheless both mocked and highlighted the apathy or stereotypical ‘she’ll be right’ Australian attitude of the ‘non-

oppressed’ student body—and Australian society in general. Rather than cause anarchy and disorder, Pierce merely sought to break peoples’ train of thought by disturbing the regular routine of a normal working art school.

Irish artist Garrett Phelan ran a series of seven hour-long broadcasts transmitted live on Edge Radio, a local radio station located on the University’s Sandy Bay campus. Transmissions occurred between 3 and 4 pm each day and were relayed over loudspeakers at the ODWC van at the School of Art in Hunter St. Ironically, dialogue within this format was predominantly a monologue; it challenged the idea of the free and

democratic space of discourse.

The work involved participants from the group of regular followers to broadcast a live dialogue called one truth teaches another/common sense... It was a tense work where the contributor had to speak on his (Phelan’s) behalf for an hour on a topic of Phelan’s choice (such as the colour