ALMOST THERE
Almost There at Kamloops Art Gallery
Kamloops, Victoria, Canada
Curated by Makiko Hara
https://kag.bc.ca/pub/whose-stories
“Almost There" creates an intimate and safe space to exchange personal stories and collectively recognize individual locations and situations under the current conditions that restrain traveling and physical gatherings. Regardless of where we are, the pandemic has made us think of “home” as a site, experience, and idea. At the same time, it has become a real and urgent issue for all of us. How can we transform our perception of the current condition, often described as limitations and restrictions, to gain new insights?
We studied the concept of Patchwork Ethnography that our friend Jad de Guzman introduced to understand the new realities molding our practice and everyday life. And thus it became our reference and inspiration to develop the workshop Almost There.
Patchwork Ethnography is a methodological and theoretical approach to critique traditional anthropological fieldwork constructed on the separations between "field" and "home." Traditionally fieldwork is understood as a process that entails a certain amount of time, most often a long-term, in a faraway place. This notion of fieldwork entails “the gendered (masculinist) assumptions of the always available and up-for-anything fieldworker, and anthropology’s proclivities toward suffering subjects.” Patchwork Ethnography considers the researchers' own lives and commitments at "home" not a hindrance to fieldwork but as the fundamental agent shaping ethnographic knowledge and methodologies. (1)
Inspired by the methodology of Patchwork Ethnography, "Almost There" tries to playfully confuse the predetermined dichotomy of a researcher and an informant, work and home, art and non-art, description and theory by bringing everyone on the same blank page to post their feelings and observations of the everyday. Using virtual communication tools, the workshop facilitates a shared process of mind mapping that enables us to understand one’s location within the entanglement of relationships and find meaning together. For the exhibition, Whose Stories, at the Kamloops Art Gallery, we have set up two blank walls with the word Home as a prompt. We are thrilled to see how the graffiti wall in the gallery space continues to grow, weaving a beautiful tapestry of words and drawings. It is creating different stages of associations and conversations at different points in time. Today, we look forward to having the workshop by using a virtual wall. The workshop will use Zoom and Google Jamboard as the communication tools and invite everyone to join a shared process of mapping personal experiences, feelings, observations, and local knowledge, prompted by the word “home.” Please start with any words, any images that pop up in your mind in response to the word “home.” We will start exchanging our stories from there.
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Almost There at Silpakorn Art Center, Bangkok, Thailand
de-CONSCIENTIZATION
Facilitated by Load na Dito (Philippines) with TRA-TRAVEL (Japan), Mahasarakham Mid-field Artspace (Thailand), Penwadee Nophaket Manont (Curator) and Silpakorn Art Center personel and staff.
The outbreak of the Covid-19 since 2020 has interrupted various connections that sustained everyday life. “Almost There" is one of such projects that Load na Dito initiated under the prolonged pandemic condition. It creates an intimate and safe space to exchange personal stories and collectively recognize individual locations and situations under the current conditions that restrain traveling and physical gatherings, by bringing everyone on the same blank page to post their feelings and observations of every day. Using virtual communication tools, the workshop facilitates a shared process of collective mind mapping, and knowledge production, prompted by a word.
You are invited to join us at the virtual workshop Are We “Almost There”? with art collectives Load na Dito (Philippines), together with TRA-TRAVEL (Japan) and Mahasarakham Mid-field Artspace (Thailand). The workshop aims for everyone to a shared process of mapping personal experiences, feelings, observations, and local knowledge, prompted by the word “TRAVEL”. Anyone interested in telling their own stories and listening to those of others is encouraged to join. Participants are also invited to use drawings, photographs, audio clips, or anything else as a way to express the stories.
“The more the oppressed —the poor people— grasp the dominant syntax, the more they can articulate their voices and their speech in the struggle against injustice.” ~ Paulo Freire, 1996As we lament for social-injustice again and again, only persistence and unyielding to tyrannical power will allow us to unleash self-consciousness, dig into issues logically, accept and dare to face our own desires truthfully, to bring about the ripple effect of changes in our society.
It’s been two long years since the end of 2019, when people around the world have had to face the new coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic which firstly took place at the largest wildlife market or Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. On January 12, 2020, the Ministry of Public Health, Thailand, announced the first case found outside China —a tourist from Wuhan. It became the beginning of the outbreak to spread across the country, affecting a wide range of people, particularly vulnerable populations with less social capital than others, such as the poor, informal laborers, migrant workers, homeless and disabled people. Limited access to treatment for the groups has reiterated social hiatus, public health inequality, and socio-political instability, under the Thai state’s ministration and visionless leader, with unjustified knowledge and notion.
“Conscientization” or the process of creating critical consciousness/awareness of an individual's social reality through reflection and action, in changing the reality we are pressed against from the government, bourgeoisie, patronage system, feudalism, and authoritarian dictatorship. The attempt to critically reflect and act upon social issues as Paulo Freire —a former Professor of History and Philosophy of Education in the University of Recife, in Brazil— referred to and called it “Praxis” is the cornerstone of empowering the oppressed, generating the process of reform. According to Paulo Freire, “We all acquire social myths which have a dominant tendency, and so learning is a critical process which depends upon uncovering real problems and actual needs.”
de-CONSCIENTIZATION deliberately probes and challenges through enquiring the conscious and unconscious mind of people in society. When it's time to battle with despair, even life and death, and the world’s one of humanity's biggest crises, how does our ‘mind’ supposedly different from other creatures critically function, query, inspect, reflect upon the root of problems, to generate structural change? How can collective awareness create a rebellion wave among the oppressed?
The Art Centre, Silpakorn University cordially invites you to the opening exhibition of de-CONSCIENTIZATION :: ถอดจิต ::The opening is on Thursday 16 December 2021 at 6.30 pm at the Main Hall of the Art Centre, Silpakorn University (Wangthapra)Exhibition will be on view from 16 December 2021 to 5 February 2022Mon - Sat 9 am to 6 pm (closed on Sundays and public holidays)Guest Curator: Penwadee Nophaket ManontOrganizer: The Art Centre, Silpakorn UniversityIn collaboration with: Mahasarakham Mid-field Artspace (Thailand)TRA-TRAVEL (Japan)Load na Dito (The Philippines)Chishima Foundation for Creative Osaka (Japan)Kyoto Art Centre (Japan)Participating Collective/Artist:Mahasarakham Mid-field Artspace- Adisak Phupa- Sittikorn Khawsa-ad- Chaiyapat YachayTRA-TRAVEL- Yukawa Nakayasu- Qenji YoshidaLoad na Dito- Mark Salvatus- Mayumi Hirano- Marian Barro- Jad De Guzman