Call for Participants

Sep 14, 2023
Field:

Open Call

Western Front is currently looking for a working group of six participants to join a series of workshops on the intersection of craft-based artistic practices and writing led by our artist-in-residence, Rebecca La Marre, alongside invited guests KC Adams, Rob Froese, Sharon Kivland, Danny Kostyshin, and Anahita Jamali Rad.

The workshops will be conducted in person at Western Front and online between 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m PDT on:

Oct 28, 2023
Nov 18, 2023
Jan 20, 2024
Feb 17, 2024
Mar 23, 2024
Apr 20, 2024

The working group will attend each session to think, read, make, and play with the entanglement of text and material. Members of the working group will have the opportunity to present their own research during the workshops, and publish work in a digital publication produced at the conclusion of the project. For their published contributions, members of the working group will be given a $500 fee.

A black and white graphic of a stained glass window featuring the words "Craft Parlour" within its design. To the graphic, orange text has been added that reads "Call for Participants. October 2023 to April 2024. A series of workshops on the intersection of craft-based artistic practices and writing led by Rebecca La Marre and guests. At Western Front and online."

This project might appeal to you if you share any or all of these qualities:

  • Your practice could be described as genre-fluid
  • You work with clay
  • You work with words as a material
  • You want to question the edges of what is sometimes called “applied arts”
  • You want to develop the field of art-writing
  • You want to trouble inequitable hierarchies within the visual arts
  • You can participate in person or virtually for all 6 sessions

How to Apply

Email a one-page letter of interest (max 500 words) and 10 .jpg images, 1 .pdf with 10 images, or a link to an online portfolio to info@westernfront.ca with the subject “Craft Parlour Application” by Oct 6, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.

Successful applicants will be notified by Oct 13, 2023.

About the Artists

Rebecca La Marre is a queer artist based in Saskatoon or Treaty 6, the traditional home of the Blackfoot, Cree and Métis people. Her writing, making, and performance practice uses clay, text, and the human voice to give form to questions about what it means to be a person in the world. Her activity is driven by what she reads and a need to test how ideological structures, trauma, language, and ritual can shape bodies. The first person to teach her about clay was her grandmother Ellen La Marre, who displayed her work in domestic settings and craft markets. She holds an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London, and is the former editor and publications coordinator for Remai Modern, Saskatoon, and an emeritus editor for E.R.O.S. Journal, London.

KC Adams (Flying Overhead in Circles Eagle Woman) is an artist based in Winnipeg, Canada, registered with Fisher River Cree Nation. Her practice explores technology and its relationship to Indigenous identity and knowledge systems, while considering her role as an educator, activist, community member, and mentor. She works in adornment, clay, drawing, installation, painting, photography, printmaking, public art, video, and welding.

Rob Froese is a ceramic artist based in Saskatoon, Canada. In creating objects for both use and contemplation, his approach to clay considers the transformation of material through chance, temporal processes, and active intervention.

Sharon Kivland is an artist, writer, editor, and publisher based in London, England and France. Her work considers what is put at stake by art, politics, and psychoanalysis. She is a visiting professor at Kingston University London, and is the editor and publisher of MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE.

Danny Kostyshin is a potter based in Vancouver, Canada. He makes porcelain and stoneware tea bowls, cups, plates, and bowls and encourages the use and enjoyment of the handmade, functional ceramic object in daily domestic rituals. Often integrated into this practice is confrontational text and images which deal with themes of sexuality, the environment, and HIV/AIDS through ceramic bodies.

Anahita Jamali Rad is a text-forward artist born in Iran and currently based in Windsor, Canada, on the traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, which includes the Ojibwa, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi. Informed by anti-imperialist materialist theory, Jamali Rad has exhibited and performed across Canada and the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom and Turkey. They co-run House House Press with D.M. Bradford.

Acknowledgements

Presented with the support of Peripheral Review.

Western Front is a non-profit
artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.