Contributions
Another Way, the first collection of contributions to Landscapes, centers artists in their own voices to spotlight the wisdom of our creative community. Anchored by a set of twelve questions created by artist Chloë Bass to gain insight into practitioners’ work and person, Another Way gathers responses, reflections, and expertise from a range of contributors. Exploring the knowledge passed through creative lineages and the ways socially engaged practice proliferates inside and outside of institutions, Another Way provides a window into ongoing conversations between friends and mentors.
Kathie deNobriga
What new sights or insights might a detour provide?
What mysteries are there to explore?
Lee Heinemann + Risa Puleo
In our social and professional worlds, we are all navigating tricky terrain while advocating for ourselves and our work. We hoped that aBoG could play the role of crowdsourcing and collecting different kinds of approaches to questions that we all navigate in this field.
Chloë Bass, 12 Questions for A Blade of Grass
A Blade of Grass commissioned 12 questions from artist Chloë Bass for this issue of Landscapes.
Ari Wolff + Chloë Bass
I get asked a lot, “is teaching your art practice, or is the larger project of engaging with the social practice community your art practice?” And the answer is no. Those are important things in my life and they are not my art practice. Not everything that's important to me needs to be my art practice.
Ashley Hunt + Mary Patten
I’m sure there are people who have historicized this moment, but that's an interesting paradox when these practices get historicized and codified. It's a tricky balance between the need to write and be part of creating critical discourse around these practices, and yet there's also that danger of things becoming domesticated—made safer somehow.
Avram Finkelstein + LJ Roberts
I would be a person who up until recently was unencumbered by the question of institutional interaction. Because everything I've done is in the public domain. I don't own any of it, it belongs to the world. It was meant to be the world’s.
Gaye Chan
TAKE = act without shame
LEAVE = share without condition
WHATEVAS = trust without apology.
Cassils on Etched in Light
I'm looking for an inventive strategy that pushes back on the scrutinizing and surveying gaze of the trans body. This work is a contestation of that gaze while still bringing forward visibility for each other.
Denise Shanté Brown
If we truly desire and believe in the values, practices, and principles we’ve set for ourselves, we need to rehearse them now, and not wait for these visions to magically take shape in some distant, unknown timescape.
Elisa Harkins
One of my obsessions is the preservation and revitalization of Indigenous languages and cultures. The questions I can't let go of revolve around how to effectively restore and celebrate these traditions in contemporary society.
ENTRE
One question that consistently comes up for us as a collective is, “What would life look like without borders?” We believe a post-border world is possible, and we are always striving to reimagine what that reality could look and feel like.
Mona Gazala
The questions I ask in my practice often alienate me from people and institutions that would have been helpful to my career as an artist. And I’m OK with that.
A Blade of Grass + The Center for Artistic Activism
In partnership with researchers from the Center for Artistic Activism, the practitioner-led board of A Blade of Grass embarked on fieldwide research centered on what socially engaged artists need and what organizational models can most sustainably meet those needs.