neil cummings

the enthusiast has the same relationship to capital as the gift to the commodity

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Education: Not Knowing

2–6pm Tuesday 13 November 2012

Raven Row
56 Artillery Lane
London E1 7LS

This public discussion based on Artist Placement Group’s discursive format The Sculpture explores Education: Not Knowing. Inspired by APG’s working practices, I co-organised a Think Tank, we met several times at Chelsea College of Art and Design and decided to convene a Sculpture. Given the drive to instrumentalise all aspects of creative education, the possibility of ‘not knowing’ - inherent in APG’s formulation of the Open Brief- seems increasingly radical, subversive and productive. Education: Not Knowing was a vibrant afternoon of discussion and exchange unfolding through five key APG themes: Placement, Education, Not Knowing, The Contract and The Gallery.

Our intention, was not to dwell on the history of APG, but to reinstall its mutating DNA into the present.

Insatiable

Chelsea College of Art & Design, London Friday 19 October 2012

As part of Critical Practice I helped facilitate Insatiable a symposium to critically examine the conflicted idea of sustainable growth and to envision alternatives.

Insatiable is an exchange between Art, Economics and Ecology. Each of the fields is contested and constantly changing, and the relationships between them are ambiguous and paradoxical. While the symposium offers a critical focus on ‘sustainable growth’, we aim to move beyond critique towards guidelines for creative action.

As a global centre for contemporary art and finance, London is a unique context in which to consider the conflicted idea of ‘sustainable growth’. Decades of constant economic expansion have overwritten considerations of ecological sustainability, even human survival.

V&A bicentenary

I made a presentation as part of: Artists Work in Museums: Histories, Interventions and Subjectivities

Friday 12th and Saturday 13th October 2012
at the V&A Museum, London

This two-day conference brings together artists, curators, historians and museum professionals to explore the history and impact of artists working in/with or against museums. The conference will explore the diverse, often hidden ways museums function as environments of cultural and identity production.

God, Law & Property

As part of Critical Practice.......

Where: London, EC2

 Why: This event initiates a series of walking tours and events that constitute Critical Practice's ongoing Research on Value

prospectus

Time lapse document of prospectus, thanks to Blanca Regina

from: Monday 21st May- Wednesday 30th May 2012

Gallery Closed

prospectus

We began, students, staff, experts and others as Exhibition Experiments. The initial idea was, through collaboration and practice based research, to trace a history of radical exhibitions, and make an exhibition. Through weekly seminars, workshops and events our project morphed into prospectus, as our interests incorporated art education, and our own experiences of trying to perform it.

pre prospectus

Stuff that matters

The Stuff That Matters Textiles collected by Seth Siegelaub
1 March to 6 May 2012

On Saturday 3rd March I visited Raven Row to see the exhibition of historic textiles collected by Seth Siegelaub over the past thirty years, for the Center for Social Research on Old Textiles (CSROT).

It was a thrilling to see, and read about the history of woven, printed textiles and embroideries from fifth-century Coptic to Pre-Columbian Peruvian, late medieval Asian and Islamic textiles, and Renaissance to eighteenth-century European silks and velvets, even Barkcloth (tapa) from the Pacific region (image left: tapa from Papua New Guinea) and Africa.

Its thrilling because, many of the fabrics are not behind glass. You could, although discrete signage encourages you not too, reach-out and touch them. This proximity to stuff, and the trust implicit in its exhibition, is thrilling

The headdresses are amazing!

ValueCamp

I participated in Critical Practice's intense and provocative #ValueCamp

We are machines of evaluation, constantly attributing relative significance to things.............Values and evaluations, how are they made, and how are they made present?