The Foreshore: Session 2

JUSTIN LANGLOIS and HOLLY SCHMIDT

REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE BLUE CABIN COMMITTEE: GLEN ALTEEN, BARBARA COLE AND ESTHER RAUSENBERG

Langlois and Schmidt will share their research into the creation of The Floating School, a multi-year artist-led research, production, and programming initiative that will explore retreat as both a theoretical and methodological proposition. From its physical infrastructure to its curricular framework, The Floating School will examine retreat as necessary indulgence, retreat as long-term strategy, and retreat as active movement in an opposite direction.

Alteen, Cole and Rausenberg are part of the volunteer team that helped save senior artists Al Neil and Carole Itter’s Blue Cabin, the last squatters’ dwelling on the Burrard Inlet. They will present their research and findings relating to the cabin’s past and their vision for its future as a floating artist residency.

And, we welcome the contributions, questions, and comments of attendees, please join us!

JUSTIN LANGLOIS is an artist, educator, and organizer. He is the co-founder and research director of Broken City Lab, the founder of The School for Eventual Vacancy, and the curator of The Neighbourhood Time Exchange. His practice explores collaborative structures, critical pedagogy, and custodial frameworks as tools for gathering, learning, and making. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Social Practice in the Faculty of Culture + Community at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

HOLLY SCHMIDT is a Vancouver artist with a research-based practice that engages processes of collaborative research and informal pedagogy. Moving across disciplinary boundaries, she explores the relationships between practices of making, knowledge creation and the formation of temporary communities. Her recent exhibitions and residency projects include Pollen Index at the Charles H. Scott Gallery (2016), Till with the Santa Fe Art Institute Food Justice Residency (2014/15), Mess Hall as part of the residency Society is a Workshop at the Banff Centre (2013), Moveable Feast at the Burnaby Art Gallery (2012) Grow with Other Sights for Artists’ Projects (2011) She is adjunct faculty at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and the Assistant Curator, Learning at the Contemporary Art Gallery.

GLEN ALTEEN is a Vancouver-based curator and writer as well as co-founder and Director grunt. He has worked extensively with performance art and was co-founder of the LIVE Performance Biennale. His writing on performance has been published in books and catalogues. He was also the producer of Brunt magazine. Alteen has been a critical organizer in a number of significant conferences, he has also produced a series of websites focusing on current cultural production including, most recently, grunt’s Activating the Archive project.

BARBARA COLE is an artist, educator, curator, founder of Other Sights and the Principal of Cole Projects, a public art consulting firm that promotes experimental approaches to public art planning and commissioning. Barbara taught at Emily Carr University from 1984 to 1999 and worked as a consultant to the City of Vancouver’s Public Art Program from 1999 to 2004. Among her curatorial projects was Deadhead, a large-scale, immersive art installation by Cedric, Nathan and Jim Bomford that was mounted to a barge and towed by tug to different locations. She has led workshops, lectured widely, and published essays and articles on the subject of art in public space. In 2011, Cole received the Mayor’s Award for her contributions to the advancement of public art in Vancouver.

ESTHER RAUSENBERG is a photo-based artist who has exhibited locally, nationally and internationally in Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, and Croatia. She is Co-artistic Director of Creative Cultural Collaborations Society (C3) and the Executive Director of the Eastside Culture Crawl Society. Rausenberg holds an MA in Asian Policy Studies (UBC) and a BA CMNS (SFU). She has volunteered on many boards and recently formed part of the team that saved Al Neil and Carole Itters’ “Blue Cabin” from demolition. Esther has twice been appointed to the City of Vancouver’s Arts and Culture Policy Council and is currently the Co-vice Chair. For over 35 years, she has lived and worked in her studio/home in Strathcona, with her partner visual artist Richard Tetrault.