DIY: 2013 – Jordan McKenzie ‘Look At The E(s)tate We’re In’

London

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Jordan McKenzie
Look At The E(s)tate We’re In
A three day summit for artists held on a council estate in East London examining and interrogating socially engaged art practice.

Project summary:
Look At The E(s)tate We’re In (LATEWI) is a three day mini summit for five artists whose practices centre around socially engaged practice. The summit will be held in my flat, located on the Approach social housing estate in Bethnal Green. The summit’s focus is not on the production of art work but will instead act as a breathing/thinking space to explore urgent issues surrounding artistic practices that employ working with communities, the intersections of art, politics and economics in relation to social housing and re-thinking what is meant by socially engaged within this new era of social and economic collapse.

Through a series of micro-encounters with residents, cultural theorists and artists who work with social engagement we will address the following questions: Does working locally and employing notions of localism in artist processes provide an oppositional critique of globalisation or foster insular and conservative attitudes to artistic and social exchange? Is the notion of community important given the attacks on estates by the government or does it fail to represent the particular and autonomous nature of social relations? How do artists create ‘authentic’ relations in terms of social engagement without it seeming that an artist parachutes in to perform it and then leave again effectively reducing it to another artistic practice. What indeed do we mean by authentic in this context?

Dates, times and location(s): 
Wednesday 11 to Friday 13 September. 10am to 4pm daily for the summit followed by an informal evening meal.

Thomas Hollywood House, The Approach Estate, Approach Rd, Bethnal Green, London E2

Please inform me if you are vegetarian and also I have cats so if you have allergies then this may not be for you!

Application procedure: 
Please send a CV and write a couple of paragraphs about how and why social engagement is important for you and your practice. Please email these to [email protected] (cc’d to[email protected]) by Sunday 9 June.

The artist: 
Jordan McKenzie’s performances, installations and films are satirical and political explorations of class and power enacted through the adoption of alter-egos. Most recently, McKenzie has been investigating notions of localism through a series of performances and films made on the East London council estate where he lives. McKenzie has exhibited both nationally and internationally including Tate Britain, Courtauld Institute, Vitrine Gallery London, Arnolfini Bristol, Museu Serralves Portugal and Grace Space New York. He co-curates LUPA (Lock Up Performance Art) an artists' run performance space from an old lock up garage on the Approach Estate, London.

Contact information:
Jordan McKenzie on [email protected]