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Art Education Platormprohelvetia, Zrich/Basel, 28-29 February 2008

microsillons | Centre dArt Contemporain Genve

[email protected] Guarino-Huet | Olivier Desvoignes

1. Introduction by Katya Garcia-Anton, director o the Centre dArt Contemporain, Genve.

2. Presentation by Marianne Guarino-Huet and Olivier Desvoignes or microsillons.

Three years ago, we created microsillons, a multi-purpose structure, with variable size, working oncontemporary art practices. We defne ourselves as artists-educators, according to our training and ourintelectual commitment. We believe in an art education linked to social problematics. According to the

situations, microsillonsuses work tools inspired by the felds o curatoring, critical studies, design orperormance, in order to raise questions about art, institutions, public space, but also to unearth theimaginative and poetic aspects o everyday lie. We also use methodologies rom various felds, running rometnography to gastronomy, and we build collaborations with specialists rom these disciplines.

In our practice, art education is located in an interstice between creative action and potential participants. Weare not trying to explain artistic practices by directing the publics reading o an artwork. Artistic practices are

or us a way to open some space to think, critic, create, make research. Taking art as a starting point, we wantto raise questions, in a broad political sense, and to link artistic experience to everyday problematics.

We work as an independant group and we develop projects, initiating them or responding to invitations. Inthat second way, weve worked or the Fte de la Musique in Geneva, created guided walks or the MunicipalContemporary Art Fund. Weve also won a grant or Contemporary Art Educators in Geneva with a project calledMobile Ofce.


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Since 2005, weve been working with le Centre dArt Contemporain Genve(on a punctual mandate basis) onconceiving and realizing projects with diverse publics. Beore each project, we defne a small pre-existing group- which we call a micropublic or which we imagine a specifc activity. Through those projects, we set upcollaborations on dierents levels. We work on an horizontal way and we try to empower the public with regard

to contemporary art. We put a special emphasis on linking the questions raised in the exhibitions with theparticipants everyday lie. We work over on a long period o time with each group and we always show publicly

through exhibitions or small publications the result o the projects.

Each project is tailor made, without any pre-established model, creating a new situation every time. Ourwebsite is a means to archive every steps o our pratice and to broadcast our projects beyond the micropublic.Below are two projects realized or le Centre dArt Contemporain Genveand good examples o our pratice.

In 2005, we worked on a project called Le cabinet de curiosits extra-terrestre (Aliens curiosities cabinet).This project was a several months collaboration with a class o fve to seven

years old children. We worked in close partnership with their teacher on thequestion o collection. First, we visited a temporary show at le Centre, whichwas an exhibition o a private collection. Secondly - ater the Aliens gave them

the instructions through an animation - the kids made a collection withobjects that they brought together. The aim was to help the Aliens to presentwhat the Earth looks like to their ellows aliens. Finally, an exhibition wasmade at le Centre, with an opening at the same time that other exhibitionsopenings. The show presented the childrens collection and the dierentsteps o its constitution.


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Currently, le Centreis presenting the exhibition Lieux communs (Commonplaces / Stereotypes) at le Centre.This project was made in collaboration with disabled artists who work in multimedia studios with specifcanimators. We visited le Centreseveral times with them and we asked them to propose us works using their

eelings about the exhibition as a starting point. The resulting pieces use dierent techniques (rom drawing tovideo) but are all at the same time critical and poetic. The artists talk about their place in the institution butalso in the city, as disabled artists. As the artists work on institutional critique, they raise questions about theinstitution and ask or direct answers.

The overtaking o art in the everyday lie will take place in the construction

o situations, in the search or them, in their experimentation. () Something

that changes our way o seeing the streets is more important than something

that

changes our way o seeing paintings.

Guy Debord, Report on the Construction o Situations

IIt could also mean that men will shield themselves less behind certifcates

acquired in school and thus gain in courage to talk back and thereby controland instruct the institutions in which they participate. To ensure the latter

we must learn to estimate the social value o work and leisure by the

educational give-and. take or which they oer opportunity. Eective

participation in the politics o a street, a work place, the library, a news

program, or a hospital is thereore the best measuring stick to evaluate their

level as educational institutions.

Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society


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At le Centre, we use methods that are very close to those used in some artistic projects. We are currentlyresearching artists who put educational tools at the core o their pratices.

We believe that contemporary art represents a perect feld to experiment alternative and creativeeducationnal models. A feld where it is possible to break up some o the constraints o schools and classicinstitutions. We pay a special attention to artists using radical education methods o learning.

As rom mi 2008 microsillons will ormalize its relationship with le Centre dArt Contemporain Genve, to ullyorm part o the institution and develop a series o projects annually. In 2009 at le Centre dArt ContemporainGenve, an exhibition - curated by Katya Garcia-Anton and us - will gather and make visible those practices, inorder to open a debate about the contemporary art potentiality to develop an innovative education structure.

This exhibition will have an experimental orm and content. It will be organised in chapters articulated by artistsin situ projects in collaboration with local micropublics(classes, group o immigrant people)

Those collaborations will be shown at le Centrein an exhibition which will link those pratices to art history andeducation history. The mise-en-scnewill be an important part o the project. Scenery elements will be putat diposal to the artists and the participating publics to stage their exhibitions. The dierent chapters o theproject will thereore use the same set o elements which will be confgured dierently each time.

A book will be published ater the exhibition. It will not be a classic exhibition catalogue but a book expandingthe questions raised by the exhibition through dierent texts, either collected or especially written. This book willbe thought as a tool or anybody interested in the questions o art education, or art learning processes.

Finally, we would like to end this presentation with our exemples o the type o projects that we will present atle Centre.

1. A ew years ago, the artist Nils Norman was invited tocollaborate on a publication with a group o students rom theGeneva Art University. Setting some discussion topics - especiallyaround gentrifcation and the use o the public space - he helped

the group o students to organise and ollow the research during

several months. Finally, texts ragments, images, etc weregathered in a ree publication, illustrated with the artists drawings.


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LINKS :

Centre dArt Contemporain Genvewww.centre.chmicrosillonswww.microsillons.org

Nils Norman www.dismalgarden.orgThe Center or Urban Pedagogywww.anothercupdevelopment.orgRainer Ganahls Marx reading project www.ganahlmarx.comLearning Siteonline www.learningsite.ino

2. The central part o Rainer Ganahls art practice is to organisereadings and talks, like the Marx reading project. Books and placeschange, but the method stays the same : collective readings and

talks. He produces documentation about these seminars and

shows these elements in classic displays. A website documents andarchives each project and allows participants to ollow the projectbeyond their own participation. The Karl Marxs Kapital seminarswere published in a book.

3. The Center or Urban Pedagogyin New York organizeseducational projects around city-planning, ecology or consumption,always on a critical mode. The Center or Urban Pedagogybrings

together artists, designers, architects, city-planners, lawyers,politicians, academics and teachers. Its projects oten implystudents in a transdisciplinary and democratic context. They alsosometimes take the orm o education exhibitions. For example,Green Inormation Center is an inormation kiosk realized withBronx students. Its goal is to inorm people in the neighbourhoodabout recycling, or to give away bike maps It was also the place

to distribute anzines published by the students.

4. Another example is Learning site. Learning siteis a collectivebringing together members rom N55and Temporary services.The collectives projects placed a special emphasis on the localmeans o production. They are raising economic and environmentalquestions. Learning sitealso have a special interest in the questionso work and o intellectual property. The collective is thinking about

the way knowledge is produced and distributed, in producing, orexample, education posters or do-it-yoursel guides.

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