Recto/Verso: Call for Participation

RECTO/VERSO II: a summer spatial intensive
Program dates: July 23 to August 3, 2012

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
~~+++ Applications due in person by July 9th, 12 pm, 2012 +++~~

UPDATE +++ Applications due in person or email by July 16, 5pm, 2012+++

For July and August Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts (FOFA) Gallery returns for the second year with Recto/Verso, a two-week summer intensive studio that inverts the gallery’s display space into a site of production and exchange. The vitrine spaces of the FOFA gallery are a thin membrane between distinct public spaces. Recto / Verso invites an active investigation of these publics and spaces, one that has changed drastically in light of the ongoing student movement and its responses.

This summer’s recto-verso programming will consider this swelling activism in Quebec as a backdrop and starting point from which to further investigate it and other ideas of manifestation and of demonstration. The cultural producers’ role has been traditionally to manifest, as in, to bring into public view or physical presence that which we have been thinking feeling or desiring. The cultural producer demonstrates through modeled behaviours and productions, performances, and engagements. The slippage between these words and actions allow for a ripe site of production.

Adhering these two approaches to the “recto/verso” format, “manifestation/demonstration” * considers the role of the artist’s agency and puts into question the convergence between art and activism.

During Recto / Verso, FOFA acts as a platform for dialogue and consideration for the plurality of voices that occupy these conversations, both central and peripheral to the current climate of
movement.

Concordia University’s Graduate students affiliated with Fine Arts are invited to submit applications to participate in a working group that will experiment with ways of using the spaces of the gallery as sites for gathering, place-making, production and exchange.

BACKGROUND:
Recto and Verso are printing terms to describe two sides of a sheet of paper within a codex. Here we are applying the terms to two methods of cultural production: Manifestation and Demonstration.

RECTO/VERSO : MANIFESTATION/DEMONSTRATION

To activate this summer intensive, selected participants will meet for two weeks to work in collaboration, allowing for the gestation of ideas that often occurs in a shared space. Participants are invited to use the Main Gallery as a work site and collectively determine the programming of a weekly screening series, generate actions and activities, critique work and consider potential dissemination.

The selected participants will work together to develop site-specific projects designed to explore the physical particularities and programming possibilities of the York Corridor, the Ste. Catherine Street Vitrine and the adjoining Sculpture Garden Courtyard. In a collaborative effort to articulate their intentions and populate the sites, participants will connect to each other and to publics through a series of artistic gestures.

Recto/Verso will be hosted by the FOFA Gallery’s Summer Programming Collective, Tina Carlisi, Joshua Fourney and Katerina Lagassé, and Gallery director jake moore.

Programming will/can include:
- A four part screening series [July 19 & 26, August 2 & 9]
- An historical poster exhibition in the York Corridor Vitrines
- Round table discussions
- Various demo workshops (of which a small material fee may apply)
- Invited artist speakers and more ...

We are seeking a maximum of six individuals, who are invested in investigating social circumstance through any of the following: deeply creative, theoretical, visual, oral, and/or performative gestures. We are interested in hearing about what projects you may like to initiate within this year’s theme. Selections will be based on our ability to support your proposed ideas and the potential for engagement with others.

Recognizing the passion with which people have responded to the current cultural environment, it is important to note, FOFA Gallery and Concordia University will not tolerate any violence (suggestive, verbal, emotional, physical) of any kind. As part of Concordia University, FOFA Gallery takes its role and mandate seriously in sharing our programming and making public the Fine Arts faculty’s research/creation practices in a respectful and welcoming environment.

HOW TO APPLY
Please submit in person the following in both printed documents and one or email DVD:
-a letter of interest or project proposal considering the ideas suggested above and any potential projects you might
like to imagine collectively [500 words max, printed and pdf]
- a short bio of yourself [250 words max, printed and pdf]
- an indication of methodologies of research/creation that you are actively engaged in [250 words max, printed and pdf]

Optional: supporting visual documents (portfolio) ON DVD ONLY:
-maximum of 10 images and or audio / visual documentation - JPEG images only, MAC formatted
-image list [printed and pdf]

Please submit your application in person during regular business hours by 12pm on July 9th, 2012.

For more information: please contact the Summer Programming Collective at fofa@concordia.ca

* The FOFA Gallery would like to acknowledge the input of several people in the development of these ideas, but specifically Mia Mounia Abousaïd.