'crafting protest' panel discussion

Panel Discussion & Craft Reception

Crafting Protest

Saturday, January 26, 2008, 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.

The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center

55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor

New York City

Suggested Admission: $8, free for all students as well as New School
faculty, staff and alumni with valid ID

Many contemporary artists are using craft as a largely unregulated
place of protest where diverse and timely political statements are
being made. This panel is presented as part of a series of talks on
"Agency" and proposes that crafting, because it is so often social and
communal, plays a vital role in the public sphere. The speakers
examine the role of craft in forming national identities, especially
in times of political turmoil or war; notions of patriotism; feminism
and the domestic sphere; and economic models that circumvent
conventional market models. The four artists will present projects and
discuss their work under the broad rubric of "Crafting Protest." By
linking the actual act of production and handmaking in the public
realm to political expression, participants will ask: how can art
foster political agency?

This program is presented concurrently with the release of the
February issue of Modern Painters magazine, within which a roundtable
discussion by the panelists is featured. Participants of this program
have also collaborated on a large-scale knit banner to be unveiled at
the event. Following the panel discussion, audience members are
invited to an informal craft reception in which panelists will present
tactile examples of the materials, machinery, and processes they use
in their work.

Moderator:

Julia Bryan-Wilson, art historian and critic, University of California at Irvine

Panelists:

Liz Collins, artist/designer

Sabrina Gschwandtner, artist

Cat Mazza, artist/activist

Allison Smith, artist