Collaboration as Exchange workshop Saturday 5 November

Detail of process wall

Join us for our workshop next Saturday 5 November!

Gifts of Exchange sewing workshop will be held at the Cross Art Projects, 8 Llankelly Pl, Kings Cross. Join contemporary artists Nicole Barakat and Paula do Prado for a hands-on workshop with fabric, paper, stitching and handcutting, inspired by works in the current exhibition Adiafa/Diyafa: The Gifts of Exchange and Arabic and Latin American cultural traditions. Participants will take home their unique handmade gift and gain valuable insights into methods used by contemporary artist for collaborative projects.

Materials and tools will be provided but you are encouraged to bring in the following: a basic sewing kit, any gorgeous fabric scraps you are happy to donate for use in the workshop, and an object – such as a souvenir from your travels – to be used as a reference/inspiration in the workshop.
The workshop is limited to a maximum of 10-15 participants, so get in early as bookings are essential. Workshop runs from 3-5pm. Fee: $20, $15 (concession). Enquiries/bookings: info@crossart.com.au or 9357 2058.

Process

“Art comes from not knowing, from allowing a deeper truth to come forth. Touching, sensing, playing with what arises as a relationship unfolds. Art is the witness, the testimony of this exchange” Cecilia Vicuña

As part of our exhibition we have installed a 'process wall' including collected objects, gifts, materials, photographs, samples and experiments. It is not often that as part of an an exhibition we are able to see some of the process behind the resolved or finished artwork.  Nicole and I approached the process wall as another collaborative aspect of our project. To install the wall, we first laid out a selection of the objects that had been informing our work and samples that had we had made along the way.  We installed in silence, each taking turns to add an item to the wall.  Our objects and samples hanging side by side, blurring the line between author and owner.  Not all the items we laid out made it onto the process wall.  We had decided to use tape and blu tack to attach the items to the wall before deciding on final positioning, but once we had concluded the install it seemed the masking tape should stay.  The temporary and spontaneous nature of the process wall was something we wanted to celebrate, that it was not fixed or overly conceptualised - it was representative of what we had been doing all along throughout making the work for the exhibition, sensing and playing.

Exhibition now open!

Installation view

Installation view

Installation view

Our exhibition officially opened at Cross Art Projects on October 15th. Thank you to all those who came to our artist talk and all those who have since visited the gallery.  The exhibition continues to 12 November and we are giving a workshop next Saturday 5th November (post on this soon).

Thanks to Fleur MacDonald for uploading a video of our exhibition opening.

For the love of language

Paula do Prado, Scan of Adiafa/Diyafa Journal, 2011

One of the initial ideas for this project came from an interest in the way language contains evidence of cultural shifts whether through colonisation or popular culture.  Because of my family heritage I was interested in the use of Castellano in Uruguay and was surprised to learn that many of the Spanish words used today are derived from Classic Arabic language.    Throughout the process of developing work for the exhibition I have been making various lists of words. At the beginning I had focussed on common words between Arabic and Spanish.  More recently I began to list words associated with the experience of borders and their crossing: trespass, force, occupy, frontier, protection, reunion, absence and gratitude.

Save the date: 15 October 2011

It's confirmed! Our exhibition Gifts of Exchange will open on Saturday the 15th of October 2011 at 3pm. The exhibition is at Cross Art Projects in Kings Cross.

Nicole and I had a mock install today. It's been just under 12 months of preparation for this exhibition and we are very excited by how the work has progressed.

Objects and works in progress 

Pattern and textile inspirations

Dialogues with place: memories of a rose garden and a walk through Kings Cross

The gift of welcome

A welcome feast on arrival in Montevideo, Uruguay

A day spent with family in Minas, Uruguay

Family gathering, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Family and friends gathering Minas, Uruguay

Only the best is laid out for breakfast, Montevideo

My cousin's 21st Birthday party, catered by one of my aunts

Regalos (Gifts): Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons

In the Studio #2

Paper and fabric sample by Nicole

Plastic tablecloth purchased in Lebanon

Collected thread and crochet sample by Paula

The finished sample with hair added by Paula

In the studio #1

The back of a stitched sample by Paula

Samples and materials in Nicole's studio

Nicole and I have been meeting regularly to work together in the studio.  Sometimes I go to her studio or she has come over to my home studio, or we have met somewhere in the middle.  The time spent working in the studio together always seems to pass too quickly.  We begin by catching up and showing each other samples we've been working on individually. More often than not we'll find common interests in techniques or ideas.  As we settle down to work on our individual pieces, we listen to music, talk and exchange stories and memories triggered by the ideas within the project.

I've been keeping a list of some of the words and ideas we've each discussed at our meetings. A selection is included here;

Nicole
Paper
Russian Textiles
Pattern
Plastic tablecloth purchased in Lebanon
Drawing of an earring from a museum collection
The power of place
Memory embedded and layered within place

Paula
Threads
Hair
Spanish words with roots in Arabic
Photographs of Kings Cross
Photographs of Abuela's house in Montevideo
Crocheted offerrings
Vessel/cups

A dialogue with place: King Cross

A beautiful Art Deco building with a newer, larger  block of flats reflected in the glass doors

Autumn branches 

The trunk of the tree above

I love how the branches of this ancient tree seem to stretch out to embrace as much of the land as possible.

Grids and shadows

The shadows of the branches make a lace like pattern on the paving

Without the context of the ground, these palms could be anywhere 

Offshoots on the trunk of a tree

The Roosevelt framed in ruby red

Starting points

'Word cloud' using initial artists statement for Diyafa project. Create your own world cloud here

Often when commencing work on a new project, I'll begin by making a list or collection of starting points. Starting points can be anything, from an object to a piece of text, a photograph, song, place, memory, newspaper clipping or a particular technique for making.  At the beginning, these starting points might shift and change, but I find its always useful to continuously edit, refine and come back to the initial starting points.  At some point in the process a particular starting point(s) might become key to the ideas or concept of the project.  


At this stage in the process of working on Diyafa, I am gathering, sorting and researching further into particular starting points.  Already some of the objects that I have documented in my grandmothers house including old letters and photographs together with items I've found at the Tristan Narvaja market held each Sunday, have provided various potential points of departure.  I often document starting points by taking photographs, drawing or making notes and lists. I enjoy engaging directly with the objects and responding to them through drawing or making small, quick samples with paper, thread or any other material that is handy. This is the part of the art making process that becomes invisible once the final artworks are resolved.  My aim with this exhibition will not only be to document the process but to somehow also incorporate it into the exhibition.