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GET WITH IT in residence in PLOT, 2019
GET WITH IT is a three-month reading group program and discussion series which invites the public to join emerging art writers-in-residence Alison Bosley and Dana Qaddah, and Projects Coordinator Catherine de Montreuil in taking up horizontal forms of learning, and community-building around rigorous critical discussion. For the duration of their tenure, Bosley and Qaddah will occupy the PLOT space to carry out critical research, embark on new written projects, engage in community learning, and launch a new publication through Access.
The program seeks to excavate the material and socio-political implications of land use as it relates to cultural production and its sites of dissemination; and further, to explore how land and resource usage define artistic practice. As Access seeks to better understand its own positioning as a centre of cultural production and dissemination, this reading series initiates a one-year thematic arc of programming in the PLOT space exploring the enmeshed worlds of culture, economic exploits, and nature.
The space will be arranged to accommodate a newly constructed 8-point papag by Dana Qaddah and collaborator Christian Vistan. As a result of Qaddah and Vistan’s engagement with the two social surfaces, the octagonal fountain of the Arab home and the bamboo papag of a Filipino home, 8-point papag aims to transform PLOT into a comfortable and socially oriented space; complete with a library, writing and reading surface surrounded by floor seating.
The space will be open to the public during Access’ regular hours, and during events. A few chairs will be available for those in need of more support.
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GET WITH THE READING GROUP:
For PDF copies of each reading, and inclusion in the GET WITH IT mailing list, please contact Projects Coordinator Catherine de Montreuil via email at c.demontreuil@accessgallery.ca with subject line GET WITH IT: READINGS PLEASE. The first set of texts will be circulated at the beginning of January, with the first reading group meeting taking place Tuesday 15 January 2019 at 7PM in PLOT at Access Gallery. Sessions will take place bi-weekly thereafter.
Subsequent readings will be selected collaboratively in response to each discussion session, allowing room for evolving sets of concerns and interests to be pursued by the group as they arise. The final reading list will be formed through suggestions of participants as well as former, current, and future Access collaborators—including artists, writers, organizers and curators. Tea will be provided.
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BIOS
ALISON BOSLEY is an artist originally from Eaglesham, Alberta currently studying and practicing in Vancouver, BC. Her work focuses on the congruency between her writing and painting practice, using both mediums in tandem as a method of processing abstraction. Bosley's research and artistic practices consider the effects of rapid urban redevelopment on the body, both individually and collectively. How might the foundations of the body self mutate within the monolithic white condo? And how does commodity become internalized by passage through these structures?
Bosley will complete her BFA in Critical and Cultural Practices at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2019.
DANA QADDAH describes their practice as an amalgamation of physical and social observations presented through means of critical discussion. They make work in a variety of mediums including writing, installation, photo, sound and sculpture.
Their research has largely focused on the urban manifestations of contemporary sociopolitical conditions. The ideas they engage with are informed by her backgrounds in the Arab world—countries witnessing the direct and indirect effects of neoliberal influence. Working with such content they aim to stretch beyond identity politics by directing their research towards the economic and social dynamics of Arabs in expatriated or mandated conditions.
Qaddah recently completed her BFA in Visual Arts at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. In Summer 2018, they participated in the Summer Institute at Plug In ICA with Bush Gallery in Winnipeg, Manitoba and is working towards two exhibitions taking place in Vancouver during Spring 2019.