As stated in my initial outline regarding the foreseen content of my work at the CAG, my main work included blogging and creating education materials, both related to the work of resident artist Keg de Souza and her projects in Vancouver with the CAG’s Burrard Marina Field House residency program. These two projects were indeed the focus of my work during my time with the CAG, but I was able to assist in other ways as well:

-I attended Keg de Souza’s artist talk on September 28th

-I visited Keg’s open studio hours on October 15^th

-I attended Keg’s final presentation of her project Appetite for Construction on November 4^th

-I helped create sample collages, and plaster casts, for two Family Days

-I volunteered at Family Day on October 29^th

-I volunteered at the CAG’s Annual Auction on November 5th, and walked art during the live bidding

-I was present during a High School tour of the gallery space on November 28^th

-I took photos at various events, some of which were incorporated into my blogs and education materials, and some of which I gave to Holly for the CAG’s use if needed

**Volunteering at the Auction was such a new experience. It gave me an opportunity to learn more about the commercial art scene. It was very informative.

Overall, the majority of my work was completed onsite at the CAG over many Tuesday afternoons from 12-5 pm. I also completed some work at home. It was so helpful to be able to check in and meet with Holly Schmidt week by week during these Tuesday afternoons to be able to chat about our progress and consult about the direction of our projects.

About my blogs:

I completed an initial blog entry, as requested by the CAG, to introduce myself and speak to the content of what I would be blogging about. You can read this blog entry here:

http://www.contemporaryartgallery.ca/blog/hello-from-michele/

I completed three blogs for the Burrard Marina Field House Blog page:

1. “Objects of Displacement: Keg de Souza’s Installation in Vancouver’s Chinatown”

This blog was created in conversation with Keg’s open studio hours that were open to the public. I was able to be present during one of these open studios and assisted Keg in placing objects into Vaccuum-sealed bags. I was able to become familiar with some of the objects that were being collected in the earlier stages of the project and found that creating a blogs that reflected on some of the objects would be a nice representation of the work in progress.

2. “Engaging Communities in Conversations: Keg de Souza’s Installation in Vancouver’s China Town”

Also in response to Keg’s open studio hours, I was struck by the theme of conversation that was infused within the process and took a central role to the meaning behind Keg’s work. I witnessed visitors come into the space and engage in conversation with eachother and Keg about the project and about China Town. A central activity during these open studios was for people to contribute stories and information to a large map that was spread out on in the middle of the room on the floor. This map was meant to gather and chart people’s knowledge of the area as represented through stories, memories or facts about food, and food localities. I wanted to create a blog post that communicated some of the conversation that was being generated by this project, as well as to reflect about the concept of conversation and community engagement in art practice.

3. “‘Appetite for Construction’ Keg de Souza’s Final Presentation”

I wrote my final blog in response to Keg’s final presentation of her work, which took place on Firday November 4^th in the evening. I was able to witness the final structure, and array of objects, as well as engage in conversation with people who were present at the event. In this blog I did my best to contextualize the experience, convey the themes and atmosphere of the final presentation, and reflect on some of the themes explored in Keg’s work as exhibited in this piece.

I was able to complete a substantial amount of work on the education materials about Keg de Souza’s work, that will be made available on the CAG’s website and are meant to be used as a resource by High School teachers. The happy news is that I will be able to continue working on these materials and finish them up in this upcoming term. I talked to Holly, and she has agreed to let me stay on as an intern with the CAG. I am very excited to be continuing this work as I have already spent so much time on the project, and it will nice to see it through till the end.

In editing and creating this teacher’s guide, I edited all of the writing that was present in the rough draft that Holly gave me to work from, that had been begun by another intern before me. I did a lot of work with formatting and structure, adding in pictures that I took during my internship. I really wanted to create a layout that elegantly moves through Keg’s bio and projects, while highlighting key concepts, terms, web links, and that intersperses content links and curriculum links into the body of the guide. Here are some sample pages of my draft:

cageducationmaterials_samplepages_micheledavey

I met with Holly on November 28^th and walked her through all of the work that I had done on the guide. We agreed on areas that can still develop, and consulted about further curriculum links and activities that can be added. I am looking forward to the final product, as I think that it will be such a rich resource for teachers to draw from and learn more about Keg as an artist. There are so many wonderful links to Vancouver’s history, geographical reality, and so many opportunities to link Keg’s artistic content and practice to other elements of BC curriculum.

While I have had some experience blogging in the past, and I have also had some experience teaching and creating lesson plans, creating content specifically about the work of an artist was new to me. My experience with the CAG helped me put into practice these pre-existing skills in new ways. I feel as though creating education materials in conversation with Keg’s work has strengthened my capacity to examine artistic practice, and contextualize it for others to interact with. I am sure that this skill will serve me in the future, and I am excited to continue growing in this capacity in the upcoming term as I finish the materials. I will also be able to continue to volunteer at events such as Family Days and the Auction in the future, which I am looking forward to.

This experience definitely strengthened my ability and confidence in communicating with a “boss” figure in a responsible, authentic and supportive way. I learned so much about the communication that exists in creating materials and working on projects for an institution like the CAG. I learned that I enjoyed the small work environment (the CAG’s staff size is pretty small) because it became familiar and personal. I was always so happy to head downtown to spend time at the CAG, which is good for me to know; I enjoyed the environment. I also learned that I really enjoyed working on the education materials. This is good for me to consider in moving forward in my career as an artist, as perhaps this means I will want to teach in the future.

The Contemporary Art Gallery of Vancouver

During my internship at the CAG from September – December of 2016 I was able to use my writing skills to complete various blogs for the CAG’s Burrard Marina Field House Blog page. I also worked on creating education materials about Keg’s work to be used by High School teachers. During my time with the CAG I communicated professionally and frequently, practiced punctuality, worked positively, and took advantage of being able to volunteer at other events when possible.

As I closely followed and learned about the work of artist Keg de Souza during my time with the CAG, blogging about her process and project, and creating educational materials about her work to be used by high school teachers, there were a handful of terms and concepts that became central to my writing and reflection. For my creative response I created two textual collages inside of vacuum-sealed bags. In creating my collage, I focused on typing out the following phrases and words repeatedly in different size fonts: displacement, conversation, community, origin, politics of space, and objects. These words refer directly to the themes and practice of Keg’s work, as well as the mandate of the CAG that I learned about during my time there, which largely focuses on engaging with the community and facilitating conversation and learning with youth and children. In wanting my creative response to embody the kind of work that I completed during my internship, which was largely writing, I felt as though typing and printing these phrases was an appropriate medium to use to convey the conceptual aspects of my experience with the CAG.

I displayed these collages on the windows of the third floor Audain lounge space for our presentation. I wanted to reference Keg’s project in China Town, Appetite for Construction, in which she placed various objects in vacuum-sealed bags, creating a transparent cube-like structure, in which the bags became a sort of frozen form of evidence, suspended the objects. In my repetition of the words, I wanted to examine the language, and the layers of meaning that these concepts carry. As I have been repeating these words and concepts within my work and reflection during my internship, their meanings have grown and become more nuanced. I attempted to capture this reality inside these collages. This response was also related to Keg’s work in mapping concepts and conversations that she facilitates within communities. I wanted these collages to act as a sort of jumbled and complicated word map of concepts that I have collected and learned about through this internship.

Lola and I wanted our creative responses to engage with one another, creating a dialogue of our experiences that reference the work of Keg de Souza’s art practice. As Lola prepared Holly Schmidt’s favorite food, we felt as though hanging my vacuum-sealed collages above the food would reference Keg’s use of food in her projects. Keg places food in dialogue concepts, giving a space for people to visually consider objects and themes while enjoying various foods. I also felt that hanging these collages on the window was successful in that it created a transparent effect of the paper layered over the open backdrop of Vancouver, which framed the words “place” and “origin” within a geographical context of the outside world.

Throughout my time at the CAG I focused on public programs with Holly Schmidt and other members- Shaun Dacey, Jas Lally, Jill Henderson, and Maddy Tranter. My roles consisted of:

1) Helped facilitate the programming events concerning the artist in resident Keg de Souza:

-This included attending the workshop held for students of King George Secondary School, photo documenting the workshop and helping with the exercise Keg provided.

-Attended two of Keg’s weekend open houses, where I greeted visitors/informed them about Keg’s project and the details of the final events, as well as help her put the structures together.

-Pursued research for Keg’s final event, tracking down the best options for dim sum and bamboo mats needed for the event. Lastly I attended the event. Her project came together so well!

2) Haroon Mirza, exhibiting artist in mid-January

-Research Haroon Mirza, gather valuable information/videos/ other relevant information, start to structure information towards writing a teacher’s guide.

-Research Teacher’s Guides and Gardner’s five-point entry system to understand how the CAG’s teacher’s guides function. This research provided a template to how I structured my research on Mirza i.e. coming up with relevant key words, key themes, and questions that facilitated a variety of ways to think/question the artwork.

-Write an introduction about Haroon Mirza that would give incite to the head members of John Oliver Secondary School as to what kind of work they and their students will be engaging with. Giving a brief description of Haroon, his practice, what it might be like to experience his installations, and video links/images that further inform his work.

-researching possible LED circuit experiments to conduct for family day during the month/in light of Mirza’s exhibition

In an conclusive meeting with Holly, we agreed to continue working together throughout the New Year, specifically with programs concerning Mirza. We have planned that I will oversee/aid in completing the teacher’s guide with her, help to conduct further family day’s, and, if possible, document Mirza’s installation and interview the artist when he visits. As Holly and I had previously discussed my participation with the programs planned for John Oliver, I would assume to help facilitate those workshops as they occur in the New Year as well.

3) Extras

-volunteer at the CAG’s annual auction

-write transcripts for the educational videos by artist Skawennati (part of the learning-videos workshops)

-create materials (plasters/moulding) for Guillaume Leblon’s family day

-oversee and help facilitate New West Minster High School tour of Guillaume Leblon tour

-write an introductory blog post about myself and my position with the CAG

My initial project plan was structured in terms of specific projects and dates, however Holly provided several extra opportunities that engaged my position in different and spontaneous areas as well. Although my project did not consist of completing a full teacher’s guide for Haroon (rather conducting research/researching teacher’s guides, writing an introduction for J.O), my partnership will continue in to the New Year, helping Holly to fully complete Haroon’s teacher’s guide, and help facilitate other programs planned for him. Skills that I previously had before the partnership was the ability to perform in-depth research, strong interpersonal and communication skills, rich exposure/experience with contemporary and historical art, and although this might be somewhat off, but as a teacher of yoga I felt an initial interest or experience with education/teaching (although art and yoga are two different fields completely).

A quality that I found very compelling inherent in the mandate/programs of the CAG was to provide a large scope of accessibility for the community to engage with contemporary art. As a large part of my project was to write an introduction on Haroon and gather research for a teacher’s guide, I became interested in how linguistics are an integral part of accessibility. I’m most familiar with writing papers based on Art History or Art Theory, two genres very different from writing an educative guide. I actually had struggled when I wrote the introduction on Haroon for J.O in a strait forward, non “art history” type of way.  In my own pursuit, I conducted and completed a research paper concerning the use of linguistic expressions of metadiscourse (a linguistic function specifically to simplify, organize, and engage the readers) and its functions in relation to a teacher’s guide compared to an “art jargon” riddled webzine platform. This research in combination of working with Holly very much intrigued my interest in learning more about writing teacher’s guides, or art education in general. With this research and feedback from Holly, I developed a new perspectives concerning writing about art in very strait forward ways. In addition to the closing meeting I conducted with Holly, I had discussed this research/pursuit with her, and we discussed what options may look like for me in the future either with her or in further education. Whether in writing or with programs/workshops, something that I really would like to continue to work with are methods of engaging the community/readers. This partnership really opened my eyes to the variety of roles/activity surrounding education in the arts.

Contemporary Art Gallery, Public Program Intern, September 2016-present

This position focused on several areas of the Contemporary Art Galleries public programs. Strong interpersonal communication skills, strength in conducting in-depth research and writing, proficient organizational skills, and knowledge of the contemporary art realm were employed. Using these skills, my position facilitated preliminary research for writing teacher’s guides on artist Haroon Mirza, attending workshops with High School students, working with the artist in resident Keg de Souza, and contributing towards various community based workshops and programs such as family day, learning guides, and the annual auction. 

Much of my partnership with Holly focused on researching the CAG’s featured artists to write a Teachers Guide. Teachers guides are written to support high-school teachers to educate their students about the CAG’s artists, providing questions and workshops that enable accessible knowledge platforms for students to learn from. As Holly Schmidt’s position has taken over public programming for youth, much of her energy at the CAG goes in to writing teachers guides and other forms of youth programs. As as homage to Holly and the work that I have personally carried out researching the January exhibiting artist, Haroon Mirza, for the to-be written Teacher’s Guide, I’ve decided to write a mini teacher’s guide about Holly as an artist herself. I felt it would be an appropriate culmination of the work I pursued at my time at the CAG, and to gift Holly a break from writing the plethora of teacher’s guides about other artists with one about herself.

I started by researching Holly’s practice. What I found interesting about her work were parallel to the artist in resident at the CAG throughout my partnership, Keg De Souza. Similar to what I found incredibly interesting about Keg’s work, Holly’s practice very much focuses on creating participatory informal pedagogy, engaging discussions concerning sociopolitical contexts of elements in the changing urban landscape. In addition, likewise to Keg, Holly’s work often deals with food culture in these respects. The qualities of discussion, history, pedagogy, sociopolitical contexts, culture, and community I found were incredibly compelling, and influenced how I wanted to frame the teacher’s guide.

I framed the teacher’s guides in the same respects that the CAG organizes their teachers guides, giving a short description of the artist in relation to the contemporary art community and the CAG, and then pulling out key themes, key words that help contextualize the artists practice. As discussions surrounding food seemed to be predominate in Holly’s practice, I decided to make an homage to her practice, most specifically her project “Grow”, by creating a teacher’s guide/mini education about Holly’s personal favourite food- popcorn. The guide incorporates a brief introduction of Holly’s practice, the significance of her project “Grow”, and the socio-political history of popcorn to reflect Holly’s use of informal pedagogy. Throughout researching the history of popcorn, I’ve created key themes and words that contextualize popcorn’s history in similar ways the Teacher’s Guides function. “Grow”, a project whereby Holly and Othersites worked together functioned to prompt discussions about agriculture in the changing urban landscape of Vancouver. By engaging the community living in the Olympic village with building agricultural plots, discussions around the sociopolitical importance of community gardens in the changing urban space manifested out of this project. To reflect this project, I incorporated a knowledge guide to how to grow your own corn so that one could themselves “grow” their own popcorn. The elements I chose to bring together spoke to the implications of food culture, discussions, and sociopolitical contexts inherent in Holly’s work, and the pedagogy that relates to both Holly’s practice and the nature of the Teacher’s Guides. The components are of elements that deeply influenced my time at the CAG, and  frame the homage to this mini teacher’s guide/discussion about her own favourite food. It functions as a gift of “giving back to Holly” what she has so passionately provided for the community and contemporary art world throughout her own practice and position at the CAG.

To wrap this project up, Michele and I both agreed that our projects were in dialogue with each other. To sum up our time at the CAG, I think we can both agree that the strong factors we took away from our experience at the CAG was the importance of education, research, discussion, and most importantly- community, throughout the multifaceted engagements of Contemporary Art.

Link to PDF handout:

contemporary-art-gallery-of-vancouver

Michele and I met with Holly at the CAG last Tuesday, the 26th, where she gave us an overview of all of the CAG’s projects for the next three months. She went over Keg de Souza’s residency and the events related to her project, the artists in upcoming exhibitions in to January, the partnerships with local high schools, and the events that take place at the CAG such as family day and tours. We were not given specific tasks that we’ll be working on throughout partnership but rather she opened up the possibility for us to work with any area within these projects that we are interested in. This is great for Michele and I because it gives us the freedom to do some projects together but also personalize what projects we want to work on. For example Michele is interested in communications/social media and working with children, where I am keen on working on writing the education public programs for the exhibitions and working with the education projects with the high schools. The projects that the CAG carries out are dominantly rooted in education which function in an integrative way with the community. I see that these programs acts as a platform for the community to learn about the art projects as an engaged participant of the projects rather than as outside viewers in the gallery space, a fantastic way for people of all ages to have access to learning about contemporary art.

After my meeting Holly sent me an email giving details of the dates of the events associated with projects. Emailing is a platform we have been communicating on however we have planned to have Tuesday afternoons for 5 hours be the time that I do work with her at the CAG. Outside of my weekly work period at the gallery I’ll attend extracurricular events on dates that I choose, for example two days at Keg De Souza’s weekend workshops, and one family day. I will be attending Keg’s workshop on October 22nd and 23rd, and family day on November 27. Other than those dates the project offers a variety of possible focuses we can choose to work with, and seems that as the partnership progresses my roles in the projects will be evolving with them. Holly’s plans (dates, events) with high schools John Oliver and King George have yet to be solidified, so depending on how those plans evolve the schedule is subject to shift. Given the nature of the project consisting of many different areas to work in, I believe my role working at the CAG is to help facilitate Holly and Shaun with the projects that are taking place over the course of the partnership, however throughout the course of the partnership I want to engage in my own research in education programs offered at the CAG and other galleries in Vancouver.