'Outside' - Stellenbosch University

‘Outside’ A public Art Initiative by Stellenbosch University Fine Art Department (with thanks to Gradx) Aim: To enact the professional artist’s process of a public art project. To experience making art in public space, outside of the studio and gallery. through the process that takes place in professional public initiatives. To encourage collaboration. To develop a visual language around installation art and site specificity through presented proposals which included an oral presentation, drawings and maquettes to a board of judges. Collaboration: In making public art, it is rare that the artist works on his/her own, in most cases, it requires a team to fabricate the work. The students were thus given the opportunity to work collaboratively. Three prizes of two thousand rand, generously contributed by Grad x, will be presented to three of the groups. Learning: To take context into account (historical context, current use). To engage in a material challenge with strong consideration of concept related to context. Students to experience interfacing their work directly with the public Teach collaboration

Week 1 and 2 (Lecturers: Aliza Levi and Verna Jooste) Introduction of artist Aliza Levi to the course. Participants were presented with a lecture by Levi on art in public space covering a wide variety of international artists that place their art outside of the traditional gallery within the public arena. A guided tour of the perimeter of space that could be used for their sculptures - offering opportunity for them to find a space that might evoke a particular idea and form. Students presented their proposals to the class and a judging/curating panel (Aliza Levi and Verna Jooste). These were oral presentations combined with slideshows of the proposed site, inspiration and drawings of the proposed work. In order to facilitate a collaborative process, students were placed together in groups of two or three based on conceptual and material interests. In other words, collaborations were created based on likeness of the concepts and materials proposed. Twelve projects were established based on allowance of the time frame in which the projects could be fabricated as well as conceptual consideration to the context. Teams worked together on a maquette and proposal for their final projects. Maquettes were assessed and critiques were given. Week 3 and 4 (Lecturers: Aliza Levi and Ledelle Moe) Introduction of artist Ledelle Moe to the course. Lecture by Moe on installation based art. Review of timeline and discussion on the fabrication of the work. Readings given (see below). Actualisation of the works with process critiques both individual and as a class. Final critiques and installation of work in the public eye. Students were asked to consider how a three dimensional work can engage with the: Temporal Spatial Contextual Temporal: the temporal is engaged when we question why a sculpture must necessarily be static or exist in a single frozen moment. Kinetic works engage with this temporal expansion as does work that embraces some element of change. Sculptural works that feature film, video or sound present the viewer with an experience of looking that brings with it the marking of a definitive period of time. Sculptural elements that operate as body extensions or other ‘props’ in performances or actions are also sculpture activated in time. Spatial: the spatial is engaged through work that enters into a dialogue with its surroundings. The object is seen not as a thing placed in neutral space but as in active conversation with its place. This kind of practice would include strategies such as installation. Often the temporal is explored as well when the form is by necessity an impermanent temporary spatial intervention for a particular site or a work that engages both site and the concept of change. Contextual: the consideration of ‘work in the world’ addresses context. This is an investigation, a critical look at how the presentation or exhibition of one’s work operates in the ‘real’ world. The artist looks critically at how the institution can present a kind of ‘false shelter’ for one’s art making and addresses ways in which artistic practice can break through this wall. Art that engages in conversation with discourses outside the ‘art world’ and addresses context in a particular way. (Audience participation events, street performances, interventions etc.

Sculpture 2 Collaboration: Mia Louw, Isabella Kuijers, Melissa Da Costa Title: „Flood‟ Materials: discarded plastic containers, plastic tags Manufactured from polyethylene, plastic resists decomposition and remains in the environment for thousands of years. FLOOD aims to remind the public, particularly those entering the Neelsie, of its excessive use of this material and the environmental hazard that it represents. FLOOD represents the extreme accumulation of plastic in the environment as the unnatural disaster it has the potential to become.

Sculpture 3 Collaboration: Amber Moir and Emma Prinsloo Title : „Crypsis‟ Materials : Plastic bags, wire mesh There is a strong evolutionary pressure for plants and animals to blend into their environments or conceal their shapes. This adaptation is known as crypsis and comes in many forms, varying from mimicry and camouflage to pattern making and alteration of odour. Our version of Crypsis emerged through experimentations with plastics; attempts at undermining the material and making it look as biological as possible.

Sculpture 4 Collaboration: Marie-Adele de Villiers and Helen Wells Title: „Greenwashing‟ Materials: Supawood, industrial plastic, potting soil, branches, school desk, Macbook Pro, Solanum Jasminoides This piece intends to reassure any individual who becomes consumed by the shortsighted routine of everyday life, filled with stress and the obsessive dependence on technology. It reveals the effects of taking a valuable technological object from the protection of being indoors and placing it outside where its vulnerability is exposed and where it is subject to nature’s forces. It is an encouragement to look further, deeper, to be aware of something greater and to be uplifted by nature. There are two elements at play, and one is superior to the other. One deteriorates, and the other grows.

Sculpture 5 Stephanie Coles Title : „Impermanence‟ Materials : White chalk on red brick This morphing and multiplying artwork creates an ‘invasion’ of the buildings that make up Stellenbosch and its surroundings, upon Stellenbosch itself. The blocks that make up this work can be seen as buildings on a map, but also as this strange computer code. In this way the work speaks of colonization (in general terms) – as something new and foreign that slowly begins to take over the ‘natural’ environment and impose itself on the ‘native’ population. The ephemeral nature of the chalk, slowly scuffed down by the shoes of passers-by, contradicts the incursion upon this space; serving to demonstrate that the ground we walk on is made of the many different layers of history that have slowly been ‘built up’ and ‘sanded down’ by the people that have passed through them.

Sculpture 6 Katya Buratovich & Shona van der Merwe Title: [organ]ism Materials: pigmented polyurethane foam Organ’ noun; a part of the body that has a particular purpose, such as the heart or the brain; part of a plant with a particular purpose This work investigates the poetics of art as a vehicle, locating the Visual Arts building as a place of conceptual thinking/interpretation/production. It contemplates the artist as informed medium, making specialised knowledge accessible to the general public. These amorphic shapes exist to visually invoke a visceral fascination, a malignant beauty which engages the body. They emerge from the building as ethereal protagonists, reminding of Sylvia Plath’s Mushrooms – secretive and subliminal, it is only when you consciously observe them that the subtlety of their presence becomes quietly sinister. Adversely, they might be experienced simply as a playfully diverting change to the daily route of the passersby.

Sculpture 7: Collaboration: Christine Jacobs, Leandri Erlank and Lize Du Toit Title: „Untitled‟ Materials: Wood, Metal, Wool, Sound. "The unsettling sound of a trapped lamb addresses and exploit issues within society. One of these issues is our blindness to the reality of truth. According to Foucault truth is something that shifts through episteme throughout time and space. By isolating the lamb from its surroundings it reveals how we have become removed from truth of reality. Despite our blindness, whether it may be intentional or not, we are ever under the impression that we know truth. Like the isolated lamb we become trapped, unaware of the impendent catastrophe."

Sculpture 8: Collaboration: Marcelle du Preez, Elaine Lombard and Beatrice Glenister: Title: ‘Original‟ Medium: Metal, Foam, Thatch Usually an artwork would have a deeper meaning or be an abstract representation of something else. However this is a literal piece of art with the sole purpose of being a paintbrush. One does not have to even read this description in order to understand its self-explanatory meaning. As it leans against the art department it becomes an obvious symbol for art.

Sculpture 9: Isabella Kuijers, Melissa Da Costa and Mia Louw Title: “Flood” Materials: Discarded plastic containers, cable ties Manufactured from polyethylene, plastic resists decomposition and remains in the environment for thousands of years. FLOOD aims to remind the public, particularly those entering the Neelsie, of its excessive use of this material and the environmental hazard that it represents. FLOOD represents the extreme accumulation of plastic in the environment as the unnatural disaster it has the potential to become.

Sculpture 10: Collaboration: Pierre Carl van der Meulen, Rachelle Hugo and Nicola Kaden Title: „In the Beginning‟, Materials: Metal, paint and plastic. Performance daily, Monday to Friday, from the 19th to the 29th of August. Identities are constructed through gender. More specifically around what is decided by a masculine identity. The female identity is thus forged, eclipsed by the male identity. People perform gender, allowing a discourse of gender to shape them. Both carry with them the notions of identity based on ancient concepts of gender. Operating from without the contexts of their origins, gender is slowly becoming somewhat fluid and interchangeable. Yet it still remains immobile in many areas as we continue to propagate stagnant notions of gender.

Sculpture 11: Title: „Faggot‟ Collaboration: Ruan Coleman and Lindi Venter Materials: Port Jackson wood, rope The work’s title as well as its location bears significance. In both the title and material the work merely presents, a bundle of sticks. This project’s aim is to visually present how a word that once was assigned to something as simple as a bundle of sticks, now refers to and forms part of hate speech against homosexuality. The work’s location is of great significance, which is a reaction the response of Dylan Lewis’s sculpture, Male-Trans Figure II. A response focused on issues the sculpture suggests with little focus on the sculpture itself. In both instances this work faggot is a visual gesture to create awareness around the perception and misperception of the impact of words and images that hinders and detracts from the hidden subtleties of the everyday.

Sculpture 12 Collaboration: Marguerite Roux and Beate Jordaan Title: „Figure‟ Materials: plaster, cement, metal, wire

Week 3 and 4 (Lecturers: Aliza Levi and Ledelle Moe) Introduction of artist Ledelle Moe to the course. Lecture by Moe on installation based art. Review of timeline and discussion on the fabrication of the work. Readings given (see below). Actualisation of the works with process critiques both individual and as a class.