The Secret Ingredient

What possibilities for political transformation can be opened up through imagination, fantasy, and art? Can the left create instrumental change or is the game rigged? This week artist and writer Jacob Wren considers these questions, as well as ideas about the artist as political activist and the balance between egoism and conciliation in collaborative projects. “Sometimes I think that the secret ingredient in art is art. Another thing that has come to the forefront of my mind over the years is how little room for art there is in art; how much of the structural and institutional ways of thinking in and around art keep out what I think of as art. For me art has to be something where you don't know everything about it when you start. What I'm trying to do when I make work […] is discover something that I'm not entirely able to articulate.” – Jacob Wren Wren, Jacob, Polyamorous Love Song, Toronto: Book Thug, 2014.

Artist, writer, and educator Pablo Helguera discusses the integration of art and life and the dialogue that occurs between an artwork and the outside world. He considers the beginning point of artistic investigation and describes his latest project: a book about aphorisms for artists. Join us as we reflect on the human desire for continual learning and the possibilities of artistic collaboration. The secret ingredient in art: “I thought about my mom when you asked me that, mainly because my mom is a great cook. She learned cooking like a lot of people do – through experience. And it's almost impossible to get her to tell you how she cooks this or that. It's almost like a magician where you don't know how she managed to do it. I think this is the trick with asking for a formula for making an artwork or a project. There's no secret ingredient. […] What I would say is it's all about bits of intuition and a massive dose of experience. Knowing what to do with what you have.” – Pablo Helguera Helguera, Pablo, Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook, New York: Jorge Pinto Books, 2011.

This week we talk with Steph Yates, a Guelph-based screen-printer, videographer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist about the relationships between music and art. How has the dialogue between the two disciplines developed over time, in various places, and in her practice in particular? Yates discusses the aesthetic and conceptual choices in her music and art, grapples with issues of identity and gender, and talks about what it's like being a female lead in the music scene. “I think for me the secret ingredient is the thing that you can't know until it happens, the thing you can't catch, the mistake you didn't know you were waiting for until it arrives. It's just sort of the way things fall and then you see it. Maybe you think of it as fate or chance but you can't direct it.” Jarmusch, Jim, “My Golden Rules,” MovieMaker, January 22, 2004.

Art collective Fastwürms enacts witch positivity, working class aesthetics, and queer politics through their multidisciplinary practice that includes video, installation, and performance art. The duo, Kim Kozzi and Dai Skuse, discuss queerness, distopias, the biological world, and the act of imagining alternate models. What can be gained through negotiating collaboration, shared authorship, and ways of working that resist capitalist culture? The secret ingredient in art: “'Do what you will, harm unto none' is our motto. Love is the law. It comes from love, it comes from light, always.” Halberstam, Judith, The Queer Art of Failure, Duke University Press: 2011.

Preuzmimo Benčić was a video project by Canadian artist Althea Thauberger depicting a decommissioned factory in Rijeka, Croatia, occupied by 70 children ages playing the roles of its former workers who have re-skilled as artists. The Benčić Youth Council, a group of young people who learn about and create culture in the city, which takes its name and protagonists from the video, provides the context for this discussion of how children can gain agency in planning cities. We discuss models of education in relation to early learning experiences. Weaving in the voices of some of the Youth Council members, we talk about the theories of the Toronto-based collective Mammalian Diving Reflex, who works with their youth wing, the Young Mammals, as an organizational and art-scene succession plan. Consider how involving youth in shaping the places and processes of our shared life is not only part of a life-affirming model of education, but also a contribution to clearer and more meaningful decisions for all of us. O'Donnell, Darren. “Toronto the Teenager." In UTOpia: Towards a New Toronto, edited by Jason McBride and Alana Wilcox. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2005. (November 6, 2013)

Omnichordist, multi-instrumentalist, record label executive (Label Fantastic), mother, bus driver, instigator of Golden Throats Karaoke, and youth DIY music savior, Jenny Mitchell talks about living a life grounded in music. Having started The Barmitzvah Brothers at age 15 with co-conspirators Evan and Geordie Gordon, Jenny reflects on the specialness of youth musical creation prior to the self-censorship that an adult self-consciousness can instill. Her mobile recording studio The Golden Bus aims to bring DIY culture to young creators in the city and offers a platform and training for the many different ways to make music. “The secret ingredient is yourself. You're the filter, you're how it's all coming in, it's being filtered in through you; you're adding your piece to anything that has ever been done. That is the only constant in all artistic practice.” - Jenny Mitchell

In our studio this week, two members of SYN - atelier d'exploraine urbaine, Jean-Maxime Dufrensne and Jean-François Prost, talk with us about their project INFRACAMPUS and their work in re-organizing public space. Working with university students and staff, SYN explored misused, underused, or ambiguous spaces to answer the question: How can we engage the campus as a place for fostering new kinds of actions and social configurations? SYN has been working with the built environment to bring us together. How can we solve solitude?