What possibilities for political transformation can be opened up through imagination, fantasy, and art? Can the left create instrumental change or is the game rigged? This week artist and writer Jacob Wren considers these questions, as well as ideas about the artist as political activist and the balance between egoism and conciliation in collaborative projects.
“Sometimes I think that the secret ingredient in art is art. Another thing that has come to the forefront of my mind over the years is how little room for art there is in art; how much of the structural and institutional ways of thinking in and around art keep out what I think of as art. For me art has to be something where you don’t know everything about it when you start. What I’m trying to do when I make work […] is discover something that I’m not entirely able to articulate.” – Jacob Wren
Wren, Jacob, Polyamorous Love Song, Toronto: Book Thug, 2014.
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What possibilities for political transformation can be opened up through imagination, fantasy, and art? Can the left create instrumental change or is the game rigged? This week artist and writer Jacob Wren considers these questions, as well as ideas about the artist as political activist and the balance between egoism and conciliation in collaborative projects.
“Sometimes I think that the secret ingredient in art is art. Another thing that has come to the forefront of my mind over the years is how little room for art there is in art; how much of the structural and institutional ways of thinking in and around art keep out what I think of as art. For me art has to be something where you don’t know everything about it when you start. What I’m trying to do when I make work […] is discover something that I’m not entirely able to articulate.” – Jacob Wren
Wren, Jacob, Polyamorous Love Song, Toronto: Book Thug, 2014.
The Benčić Youth Council: Work and Play in Rijeka, Croatia (The Secret Ingredient – 24/09/14)
The Secret Ingredient
54 minutes 26 seconds
10 years ago
The Benčić Youth Council: Work and Play in Rijeka, Croatia (The Secret Ingredient – 24/09/14)
Preuzmimo Benčić was a video project by Canadian artist Althea Thauberger depicting a decommissioned factory in Rijeka, Croatia, occupied by 70 children ages playing the roles of its former workers who have re-skilled as artists. The Benčić Youth Council, a group of young people who learn about and create culture in the city, which takes its name and protagonists from the video, provides the context for this discussion of how children can gain agency in planning cities. We discuss models of education in relation to early learning experiences. Weaving in the voices of some of the Youth Council members, we talk about the theories of the Toronto-based collective Mammalian Diving Reflex, who works with their youth wing, the Young Mammals, as an organizational and art-scene succession plan. Consider how involving youth in shaping the places and processes of our shared life is not only part of a life-affirming model of education, but also a contribution to clearer and more meaningful decisions for all of us.
O’Donnell, Darren. “Toronto the Teenager." In UTOpia: Towards a New Toronto, edited by Jason McBride and Alana Wilcox. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2005. (November 6, 2013)
The Secret Ingredient
What possibilities for political transformation can be opened up through imagination, fantasy, and art? Can the left create instrumental change or is the game rigged? This week artist and writer Jacob Wren considers these questions, as well as ideas about the artist as political activist and the balance between egoism and conciliation in collaborative projects.
“Sometimes I think that the secret ingredient in art is art. Another thing that has come to the forefront of my mind over the years is how little room for art there is in art; how much of the structural and institutional ways of thinking in and around art keep out what I think of as art. For me art has to be something where you don’t know everything about it when you start. What I’m trying to do when I make work […] is discover something that I’m not entirely able to articulate.” – Jacob Wren
Wren, Jacob, Polyamorous Love Song, Toronto: Book Thug, 2014.
