SESSION 9
ARIANNE GELARDIN on ADDRESSING AMERICA’S SOCIOPOLITCAL CLIMATE THROUGH ART AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
and
LISA PRENTICE on POLITICS, THERAPY AND ORGANIZING
Tuesday March 7, 2017, 7:00 PM
222 East Georgia, Vancouver BC
GELARDIN will present a selection of projects from StoreFrontLab’s (San Francisco) current season of installations, happenings, discussions and workshops that address America’s sociopolitical climate using the agency of art and public engagement. The series, entitled NOW!, invites an evaluation of progress and demands an end to regressive values through direct action and counteraction.
PRENTICE asks do therapeutic practices and theories help or hinder social change? Considering the longstanding frictional relationship between Marxism and Freudian theory to the endpoint of today’s tendency to look for an analysis of political events in psychological terms, it would seem that therapy and politics make uneasy bedfellows.
Arianne Gelardin is curator at StoreFrontLab, an experimental exhibition space located in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2011 by architect David Baker and Yosh Asato, StoreFrontLab prides itself as “a small space for big ideas,” supporting conceptual and city-oriented projects that rely heavily on public dialogue and participation. Arianne also consults on the design and fabrication of public artworks for the San Francisco Arts Commission, facilitating the production of such works from proposals to architectural details. Working at the intersection of art, phenomenology, and sociology, Arianne’s personal practice finds form through writing, happenings, and visual language.
Lisa Prentice is a manual therapist, artist, and an ongoing researcher who explores somatic approaches to meaning making and understanding, and the relationship of human body(s) and the body politic. She is currently in private practice and has also worked with diverse groups including youth, artists and persons with mental health labels. She draws influence from the work of Wilhelm Reich, Martha Eddy, R.D. Laing, and Shou-Yu Liang.
Image Credits:
StoreFrontLab: NOW
Image: Tattoos of Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, images found online
Audio recording of the event: