Abstract
Inspired by 'action groups‘ in the 1970s and 80s that sought to achieve changes to a particular situation, 12-Hour Action Group foregrounds practices of resistance, collectivity and self-organisation. It was this seditiousness that enabled feminist thinking to become a volatile politics instigating urgent alternatives to the cultural, political and economic machinery of power.
Galvanised by keynote talks, collective readings, actions, performances, screenings and a round table discussion all determined by an ethos of dialogue and experimentation, 12-Hour Action Group draws upon a kaleidoscope of methods to construct a dynamic, open and collaborative arena that contests what is visible and invisible, thinkable and unthinkable.
Cullinan Richards sculptural works - 'A modular Infrastructure Acting in Concert With Cooper Gallery' were repurposed to support and frame the 12 hour action group symposium.
For this 12 Hour Action Group symposium event, Cullinan Richards devised a set of annotations that they performed throughout the 12 hour event. Working in parallel with their 'Modular Infrastructure' display structures to physically frame the entire event. The annotations framed the keynote speakers and other performances by providing a linguistic 'hypotextual' framework.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 3 Dec 2016 |
| Event | International Symposium : 12 Hour Action Group : Of Other Spaces : Where Does Gesture Become Event? - Dundee, U.K. Duration: 3 Dec 2016 → 3 Dec 2016 |
Other
| Other | International Symposium : 12 Hour Action Group : Of Other Spaces : Where Does Gesture Become Event? |
|---|---|
| Period | 3/12/16 → 3/12/16 |
Bibliographical note
Impact: Of Other Spaces: Where Does Gesture Become Event?International Symposium
12-Hour Action Group
Saturday 3 December, 11:00am - 11:00pm
Cooper Gallery, DJCAD
Keynote Speakers: Amelia Jones, Lynda Morris, Laura Mulvey, Adele Patrick and Marina Vishmidt.
Contributors: Anne Bean; James Bell; Tessa Berring; Anne Laure Coxam; Lynn Davidson; Cullinan Richards; Gordon Douglas; Rose English; Laura Edbrook and Sarah Forrest (Sick Sick Sick); Georgi Gill; Marjorie Lotfi Gill; Althea Greenan; Jane Goldman; Victoria Horne; Kirsty Logan, Linder; Katharine Meynell; Rachel McCrum; Jane McKie; Theresa Munoz; Annabel Nicolson; Su Richardson; Hannah O‘Shea; Sarah Smart; Catherine Spencer; Alice Tarbuck; Amy Tobin; Karen Veitch; JL Williams.
Ringmistresses: Beth Bate, Cullinan Richards, Sophia Hao and Catherine Spencer.
**
Always unforeseen, an event is a radical break from the dominant order. In its declaration that other worlds are possible, an event overturns prejudices, assumptions and habits of thought.
An event, if it is anything, is an opening, a revealing of possibility, and it is this potential that the 12-Hour Action Group, the culminating event of Cooper Gallery‘s major programme Of Other Spaces: Where Does Gesture Become Event? embraces through the inherently radical, dissonant and often luxuriantly subversive thought and action practised by the artists, writers and thinkers occupying Of Other Spaces.
The title of the programme is a homage to Hannah Arendtwho considered politics the 'space of appearance‘; a means of being seen and heard. Deprived of this, gestures whether artistic, social or political, cannot become events that usher in new alternatives. Summoning Arendt‘s transgressive and rupturing 'space of appearance‘, Of Other Spaces: Where Does Gesture Become Event? reignites feminist insights as a means to provoke gestures into events.
Organising Body: Cooper Gallery, Duncan of Johnstone College of Art and Design
Keywords
- Art and design