Advance interview

kate 3/15
Last studio, Becky, Todd and i were interviewed by a journalist from the Advance magazine (a supplement in a local newspaper). he asked us questions relating to what we are doing in the space, how we see ourselves in relation to the community and what we are gaining both personally and as a group by participating in the class. he was also very interested in any up and coming projects we may be working on as well as past civic studio work.
we explained that we are looking to challenge the perception of the institution by creating links with the community, and that we hoped to learn from the surrounding community and environment as we explored the role of the public artist. hopefully we also got across that we are going through an exploration process which is not necessarily centred on production.

i found the experience extremely beneficial as it was the first time i have had to explain what we are doing to someone completely outside of the project. it also forced me to organise my thoughts about what we are doing and what i am gaining from the experience (so far). i realised that the impact this class is having on my thought processes is not always obvious but that it is making me question everything i do in regards to art production. we have had to be so careful about critiquing ideas and possible perceptions of those ideas in the community, that i have been trying to take more of a curatorial role when looking at my own work. i also realised how rare it is to have a relatively large group of people all working together and bringing completely different viewpoints to the project in a way that is both interesting and productive. one thing that we all unanimously agreed on during the interview was that we will still be trying to figure out what we have gained from this experience for a long time to come.
hopefully the article will help clarify to the neighbourhood whats going on at the Rock Shop and hopefully we did an ok job at attempting to explain.