The Let Down Reflex is a day-long multi-part event that deepens the question of hospitality raised by the exhibition The hold: studies in the contemporary collection. The Let Down Reflex project curators Amber Berson and Juliana Driever ask participants to draw a blueprint for a cultural scene that includes parents. They invite us to consider how arts and culture can engage disconnected or disinclined groups, and create spaces that are hospitable, spaces that invite broad participation and provide true access.

Berson and Driever propose that, although art galleries and other cultural venues provide creative programs for families to explore art together, they could do more. Re-considering opening reception and event hours, considering logistics for on-site care, providing space for (or simply welcoming) breastfeeding are issues for cultural spaces to consider. Could Saturday afternoon gallery visits become more enticing?

SESSIONS

A controlled spill
Workshop for Families (offered by Leisure)
11 am–12 pm, André Biéler Studio

Panel Discussion: The Let Down Reflex
Amber Berson, Juliana Driever, Leah Sandals and Leisure
1–2:40 pm, Atrium
Free Child Care in the André Biéler Studio
12:45–3 pm

Kids at a Noise Show
Performance by LoVid (all ages)
3–4 pm, Atrium

SESSION DETAILS

 A controlled spill
Workshop for Families (offered by Leisure)
11 am­–12pm, André Biéler Studio

It seems we cannot control it all. Even when we try, ideas and substances seem to spill out in all directions at once. The good news is that the more we let the edges blur the more interesting things seem to get. We invite you to participate in a project of spilling. Wear comfortable clothes that can get messy. Plant based dyes and stains, buckets, spray and squeeze bottles provided. For children 6+ with a parent.

Leisure (Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley) is a conceptual collaborative art practice based in Montreal. Working together under the name Leisure since 2004, Carruthers and Wesley engage with socio-historical narratives through research, conversation, published texts, curatorial projects and art production. Their current work explores ideas around women and creative production – specifically spatialized movement and gesture. Recent work in this series include Dualité/Dualité (Artexte, 2015–2016), Arranging Time/Chorégraphie temporelle (ESP, 2015), and Shared Armature (Battat Contemporary, 2013). Leisure will be exhibiting Panning for Gold/Walking You Through It exploring Cornelia Hahn-Oberlander’s “Environment for Creative Play and Learning” as part of the upcoming exhibition Expo’67 at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.

Panel Discussion: The Let Down Reflex
Amber Berson, Juliana Driever, Leah Sandals and Leisure
1–2:40 pm, Atrium

How can the arts and culture engage disconnected or disinclined communities and create spaces that are hospitable, spaces that invite broad participation and provide true access?

Free Child Care
12:45– 3 pm, André Biéler Studio

Educators will run child-friendly art projects in the Studio so parents can attend the Panel Discussion or enjoy the galleries.

About the panellists

Amber Berson is a writer, curator, and PhD student who is conducting doctoral research at Queen’s University on the subject of artist-run culture and feminist, utopian thinking. She most recently curated The Let Down Reflex (2016, with Juliana Driever); TrailMix (2014, with Eliane Ellbogen); *~._.:*JENNIFER X JENNIFER*:.~ (2013, with Eliane Ellbogen); The Annual Art Administrator’s Relay Race (2013, with Nicole Burisch); The Wild Bush Residency (2012–2014); and was the 2016 curator-in- residence as part of the France-Quebec Cross-Residencies at Astérides in Marseille, France. She is a member of the Montréal-based Critical Administrative Practices Reading Group; and is the Canadian ambassador for the Art+Feminism Wikipedia project. Her writing has been published in Breach Magazine, Canadian Art, C Magazine, Revue .dpi, Esse, Fuse Magazine and the St Andrews Journal of Art History and Museum Studies.

Juliana Driever is a curator and writer focused on collaborative practices, public space, and site-specificity. Recent curatorial work includes The Let Down Reflex (2016, with Amber Berson, EFA Project Space, New York, NY), Socially Acceptable (2015, Residency Unlimited/InCube Arts), Art in Odd Places 2014: FREE (with Dylan Gauthier, New York, NY), and About, With & For (2013, Boston Center for the Arts). Her writing has been featured online with A Blade of Grass Foundation and Bad at Sports, in the print volume “Service Media: Is it ‘Public Art’ or Art in Public Space?” and in a number of exhibition catalogues.

Leah Sandals is Managing Editor, Online, at Canadian Art, Canada’s most widely read art magazine. She has worked on the publication’s website in varying capacities since 2008, also at times freelancing for the National Post, the Toronto Star and other outlets. Sandals is also a writer with her own creative practice, and she has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council, as well as a Penguin Random House Canada Student Award for Fiction. Sandals holds a BFA from NSCAD University and a B.Sc. from McGill University. She lives in Toronto with her partner and their two-year-old daughter.

Leisure (Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley) is a conceptual collaborative art practice based in Montreal. Working together under the name ‘Leisure’ since 2004, Carruthers and Wesley engage with socio-historical narratives through research, conversation, published texts, curatorial projects and art production. Their current work explores ideas around women and creative production – specifically spatialized movement and gesture. Recent work in this series include Dualité/Dualité (Artexte, 2015-16), Arranging Time/Chorégraphie temporelle (ESP, 2015), and Shared Armature (Battat Contemporary, 2013). Leisure will be exhibiting Panning for Gold/Walking You Through It exploring Cornelia Hahn-Oberlander’s ‘Environment for Creative Play and Learning’ as part of the upcoming exhibition Expo’67 at the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal.

Kids at a Noise Show
Performance by LoVid (for all ages)
3–4pm, Atrium

LoVid and the LoVid children will perform together in a new collaboration for this occasion. Each child, Rama, Dlisah and Lo’am will contribute to the performance with dance, jewelry making and computer programming while the parents will play live music with their handmade synthesizer. This loosely structured performance will highlight the fluidity between family and art.

LoVid is the NY based artist duo comprised of Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus. LoVid’s work includes immersive installations, sculptural synthesizers, single channel videos, textile, participatory projects, mobile media cinema, works on paper, and A/V performance. Collaborating since 2001, LoVid’s projects have been presented at SPRING/BREAK Art Show (NY), Daejeon Museum (Korea), Everson Museum (NY), Smack Mellon (NY), Mixed Greens Gallery (NY), CAM Raleigh (NC), Netherland Media Art Institute (Netherlands), The Science Gallery (Ireland), Real Art Ways (CT), Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem (Israel), Urbis, (UK), The Jewish Museum (NY), The Neuberger Museum (NY), The New Museum (NY), and ICA (London), among many others. LoVid has performed and presented works at: Museum of Moving Image (NY), Lampo (Chicago), International Film Festival Rotterdam (Netherlands), MoMA (NY), PS1 (NY), The Kitchen (NY), CCA (Israel), and FACT (Liverpool). LoVid’s projects have received support from organizations including: The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Signal Culture, Cue Art Foundation, Eyebeam, Harvestworks, Wave Farm, Rhizome, Franklin Furnace, Turbulence.org, New York Foundation for the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Center, Experimental TV Center, NY State Council of the Arts, and Greenwall Foundation.