Sweet Nothings: A Celebration of Non-Productivity
Carlan Savage-Hughes
An evening of crafting and trading discarded art/materials!
Bring your own discarded prints, drawings, paintings (etc!) to trade with peers and pick up a new piece for your collection!Swap out some of the art supplies you no longer use for new treasures. All mediums are welcome and the excess will be donated to a local organization.
Or just bring yourself and come be a kid again! Let’s do some crafts!
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
To address the art world in the present moment, we must acknowledge that it reflects our capitalistic economy in its structure. One of capitalism’s greatest downfalls, its disproportionate distribution of wealth, is echoed within the global art world. Non-commoditized artistic production, that is art for the sake of enjoyment as opposed to art for the sake of capital production, is an action that resists the current art world’s focus on the capital based value of art. Independent arts communities create spaces where marginalized members of the art world are able to collect, connect, and create. The space they hold, though fiscally minute in comparison to the more commercial sector of the art world, is incredibly valuable. How does the strengthening of arts communities allow for more representation? It develops a means for artists to have their needs met and their existence seen, independent from any institutional power.
This evening is an attempt to connect at the margins of current powerful systems through community, accessibility, and fun. We invite you to come, create, and to experience the joy of sharing creations, while considering alternative systems of trade that are less capital driven and bring emphasis to the gift of cooperation and sharing.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
From the Treaty 7 land of Calgary, Alberta, Carlan Savage-Hughes is currently a visitor in BC where she is studying visual arts and community engagement at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Through interdisciplinary methods of making, she is a painter, writer and sculptor. Her artistic practice is accompanied by an on-going effort to strengthen independent arts communities as an act of resisting the capital-driven values of the art world. Curation has had a key role in this process of creating opportunities. In her artistic practice, Carlan explores the emotional realm as a place of legitimate embodied knowledge.
