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The Subversive Stitch Revisited @ the V&A

November 28, 2013
Talking

subversive-stitch

The Subversive Stitch Revisited: The Politics of Cloth will explore the legacy of Rozsika Parker’s groundbreaking book, The Subversive Stitch: embroidery and the making of the feminine (1984) and two landmark exhibitions from 1988 that developed Parker’s ideas. It will consist of a two day event held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and an online resource that will include documentation of the event.

Anthea and I presented our paper “From Craftivism to Craftwashing: consuming and co-opting the politics of craft” on Saturday November 30th at 2pm as part of the session The Activists’ Stitch: from Craftivism to ‘Craftwashing’.

Full event info here, and on Twitter. Podcast version of our talk available here.

Hay in a Haystack

November 17, 2013
Curating, Publications, Writing
1 Comment

Hay in a Haystack :: Du foin dans une meule de foin
crafty excerpts from Artexte’s collection :: extraits artisanaux de la collection d’Artexte
A limited-edition bookwork based on my 2012-2013 research residency at Artexte, available for consultation on-site at Artexte.
A small print-on-demand publication that includes a sampling of the excerpts in the bookwork is also available for purchase.

(La version française suit)

strata; transparencies; bonding; bound and buried cores; nervous energy, work energy, calm; body containing, body projecting; logical secrets; fragments meeting on a grid; progressive processes; repetition of gesture, of form, of line, of activity, of action; repetition in time and as time; serial rhythms flexed and measured; motion, muscle, touch; fetishes dissected and respected; abstract ritual; taut/loose, tension/freedom, part/whole, microcosm, macrocosm, distance/intimacy, interior/exterior; structure stretched, geometry thwarted into growth, memory compacted into layers, indoors outdoors, outdoors indoors; empty centers, open spaces; animal, vegetable, mineral, flesh.

Lucy Lippard, catalogue for Strata, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1977

Central to my research over the past few years has been the issue of how craft is perceived or represented. Rather than being a question of definition (what is craft?), this is a question about how craft or a crafted aesthetic is used to represent certain values or affiliations (more like why craft?). In particular, this line of inquiry has focused on the ways that craft, from its position on the margins of traditional art historical discourse, has often been used as a means to signal an affiliation with alternative lifestyles or politicized art practices.

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Skillshare @ Artexte

November 9, 2013
Talking
1 Comment

SKILLSHARE
A day of craft research and discussion at Artexte
Une journée de réflexion sur l’artisanat à Artexte

nburisch_skillshare_promo3

November 16, 2013, 2:30-7PM // Le 16 novembre 2013, de 14 h 30 à 19 h

2:30-3:30pm: Tour of the Artexte collection and presentation of selected materials and items
A guided tour of the Artexte collection and facilities, followed by a presentation on Nicole Burisch’s research at Artexte.

As 2012-2013 researcher in residence, Nicole Burisch has been investigating the presence and position of craft within Artexte’s collection. Recent developments in craft theory have been marked by a shift away from traditional definitions of craft as necessarily linked to specific materials (such as ceramics, textiles, or glass). Burisch’s research at Artexte builds upon this stance to look at how craft’s qualities appear throughout the collection – resulting in an intuitive and highly personal search for representations of materiality, handwork, labour, skill, process, texture, tactility, pattern, function, rural and “folk” cultures. Using this broader view on where craft might be located, Burisch has gathered a selection of items and excerpts from the collection that together raise and respond to the following questions: How are aspects of craft positioned or deployed within other fields? Which of craft’s qualities or knowledges are useful in communicating certain values or ideas? How has this shifted in relation to other art historical moments or movements?

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Launch for the latest issue of Mille-feuille

August 21, 2013
Publications, Writing

mille_feuilles_2
Lancement
Lieu : atelier b. (5758 boul. Saint-Laurent, Montréal)
Date : le vendredi 23 août, dès 17 h.
événement facebook

Les textes de Nicole Burisch et d’Andréanne Godin se rencontrent autour de souvenirs de la maison et du territoire originels, d’où s’étaient tissés des liens solides en apparence qui, avec le temps, se sont fragilisés, dénoués, puis reformés.

Cette publication est la deuxième parution de Mille-feuille, projet de micro-édition de courts textes littéraires et poétiques faisant écho à des œuvres d’arts visuels. Pour cette édition, Nicole Burisch a été invitée à écrire un texte en réponse à l’œuvre de l’artiste Andréanne Godin.

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Launch
Place : atelier b. (5758 boul. Saint-Laurent, Montréal)
Date : Friday August 23, at 5pm.
Facebook event

Texts by Nicole Burisch and Andréanne Godin converge around recollections of home and landscape, places with which seemingly solid ties were woven—ties which over time became fragile, came undone, and then re-formed.

This publication is the second issue of Mille-feuille, a micro-publishing project that presents short literary and poetic texts that respond to works of visual art. For this issue, Nicole Burisch was invited to write a text in response to a work by the artist Andréanne Godin.

renseignements / information
mille-feuilles.ca
info@mille-feuilles.ca

A Handmade Assembly

October 21, 2012
Talking

header_aHandmade

I’m headed to Sackville, NB from the 24th to the 27th of October to participate in A Handmade Assembly. I’ll be moderating the opening round table at 7:30pm on the 24th (with Ryan Statz, Allyson Mitchell, and Paula Jean Cowan) and giving an artist talk at 11am on the 25th.

Organized by Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre with the Owens Art Gallery and Thunder & Lightning Ltd, A Handmade Assembly invites artists, curators and others from the region and away to lead discussions, facilitate workshops, initiate projects, open exhibitions, and share in a common thread, the handmade.

More information and a complete schedule at handmadeassembly.com, Preview in the Sackville Tribune Post.

Performing Austerity @ TSA Symposium

October 12, 2012
Talking

The Tory Burch FEED bag, one of the examples we address in our text.

Anthea and I have been busy working on a new body of research into the use of craft and crafted aesthetics as a form of political expression and identity construction. We recently presented a paper entitled, “Performing Austerity: Political Identities and the Co-option of the Crafted Aesthetic” at the Textile Society of America Symposium in Washington, DC. The theme of the Symposium was “Textiles and Politics” and we got to present as part of the fantastic Material Matters panel organized by Lisa Vinebaum, Ruth Scheuing, and Ingrid Bachmann.

The abstract of the paper is posted below, and there are more links, examples, and excerpts on the Performed Austerity website.

Craft has been positioned as both a fix and foil for the ills of capitalism and alienating conditions of industrialization, and the current moment, dubbed by some as a “craft revolution,” often romanticizes craft as simple, fulfilling, authentic, and politically significant work. This paper explores the use of crafted aesthetics in both consumption and anti-consumption models of social/political engagement to conspicuously perform values of personal agency, and social responsibility, as expressions of (life)style in an economic climate obsessed with austerity. We introduce the term “craftwashing” to refer to instances where craft is used to market fashionable goods whose desirability often obscures the sticky ethical, environmental, and economic questions around their production.

The Brick Factory @ NCECA Seattle 2012

April 6, 2012
Performance

The Brick Factory @ NCECA 2012I just got back from a whirlwind trip to the annual NCECA (National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts) conference, held in Seattle this year. I was there with the other members of The Brick Factory (a performance collective we formed during a residency at Watershed last summer). We presented a series of live performances over the course of 4 days as part of the Project Space exhibitions. Performances ranged from ceramic-themed reworkings of well-known historical performance art works, new original works created specifically for NCECA, and a few off-site interventions. For more information and documentation, check out The Brick Factory website, where we will be adding more posts soon.