Art Careers at Satellite Part 2

Friday April 25th saw the Art Careers 12 group return to the satellite gallery for a full day workshop.  The plan included working with the artists, developing imagery and then creating a collaborative installation of the artwork developed in the Gallery's "window space".

The group worked with the artists creating contact microphones from scratch.  They used the mics in the area collecting sound native to the location, a strategy that the grad students used themselves.

 They then ran the collected sounds through a program called "Audacity" which transformed the sounds into abstract images, which were then projected onto the walls of the gallery.

Pinning paper up the walls, the students responded to the images projected, tracing, colouring, drawing.
It was interesting to see the development of their collaborative process, beginning quietly, tentatively, safely, and developing into a more interactive and discussive, though still fairly tentative, relationship.

Now they had the challenge, using much the same collaborative strategies as were used in the Grad student's exhibition, to inhabit the window space and, using their developed imagery as well as any found items, to install a "stream of consciousness exhibition.  I stayed outside and watched (which they said made them feel like "gerbils in a cage" :) and it was fascinating.  I watched them learn how to work with one another and how to work with what they had to develop an interesting, engaging and meaningful exhibition.

Art Careers at Satellite! PART 1

On April 23rd 2014 the PG Art Careers 12 class travelled to Satellite gallery after school to meet some artists.  These artists are Grad students at UBC who were in the midst of creating a time-based, perpetually developing, collaborative art exhibition which explored the history of the Satellite gallery space and explored the collaborative process and audience participation/interaction.  Check out more about the project on the Satellite website: http://www.satellitegallery.ca/extended-party-mix.html.  This was to be part 1 of a two part workshop for the students in which they explored these themes from a curatorial, as well as artistic angle.  Our goal was to introduce the Grad's project as well as the grad's themselves as well as entice our own students to begin thinking about these themes.  The end result of this two hour intensive was for the students to create a blog entry for the Satellite blog reviewing the exhibition.  The intense timeline made it necessary for the students to organize quickly and collaborate effectively in order to meet the deadline.  Their solution (which was fabulous to watch develop) was an "exquisite corpse" format for composing the review: passing around computers (each screen with a different theme written at the top) with half composed thoughts, to be finished or left behind by the next contributor, unedited, spelling mistakes, grammar errors, stream of consciousness.  The results can be seen here: http://satellitegallery.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/collective-consciousneawkward-sweaty-dance-party/

Stay tuned for part two in which our heroes get to make some art!

Flowers by Art 9

A painting project by my art 9's.  I am always trying to get them introduced to new ideas for drawing, painting and image development  and this one really progressed naturally from having them create a new drawing tool (4 pencil crayons tied to a flat piece of cardboard).  The inherent limitations of the tool forced them to think about their drawings in more abstract terms and notice composition rather than torturing themselves trying to draw the flowers "just right".  From there I  just told them that they needed to demonstrate their understanding of the painting techniques that we had learned (gradation/blending, glazing, and edging) and of colour theory.  Really loose, they're a class that needs some freedom.  I'm very pleased with the results.

 Rachel Au

Maren Heyman

Kelia Chen