As the artist in residence for the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Youth Program in 2013-2014 I collaborated with 30 members of the AGO Youth Council on a project that we titled U.G.L.Y: Unified Geniuses Living Young. Our exhibit in the AGO Community Gallery ran from September-January 2013, the project was an ongoing site-specific performative installation.
Each week we left evidence in the Community Gallery after our performance sessions, remnants of brain storming, participatory art making, public lectures and more. Through the process, the Youth Council learned to sew uniforms, make buttons and patches, silkscreen directly onto gallery walls, DJ, and more. In the second phase of this project (that we are lovingly calling UGLY 2.0) we have spent 2014 creating a digital 3D world based on the live site exhibition and have been able to teach youth 3d and gaming design skills.
We represented Canada (Kanada) at “Eksperimenta!” (http://www.eksperimenta.net/ ) in Tallinn, Estonia, the largest youth art triennial focused on the intersections of art and technology in education. This triennial “offers a cooperation platform for young people, art educators, artists, curators, and scientists, being a kind of creative laboratory where new innovative knowledge is born.”
While at the event in Estonia:
- We presented our participatory site-specific performance and digital immersive-enivroment work in Tallinn, Estonia in October 2013.
- Mentored 2 youth and engage them in performance process and presentation through a live engagement at the triennial in Estonia.
- Offered an on-site performance in the virtual world of U.G.L.Y 2.0
- Offered 2 screen printing workshops per day from October 20-24 as a way to recreate the collaborative creative environment that we provided during the AGO residency.
- Connected with youth and educators from around the world attending the event and engaged them in the performative-installation
The following are screen shots from the video game that we used to introduce the audience to our work at the AGO: