Trade Secrets - Day One

Hi Josephine (and blog,)

I am here in Banff, Canada attending the Symposium Trade Secrets: Education/Collection/History put on by the Banff International Curatorial Institute.

Despite some airport troubles that threatened to derail the entire trip, I arrived safely in Banff yesterday evening in time to attend the keynote speech given by Richard Flood, Chief Curator at the New Museum. Floods speech/lecture was quite good, albeit dense, and I'll talk about some of the points he made in a moment, but for now I'd like to jump back to the shuttle ride to the center where I tried to lay out for myself the goals I had on this trip.

GOALS:

1) Attend all panel discussions, take good notes, don't be afraid to ask questions  during the question and answer period.

2) Think about Pro Arts' connection to these contemporary curatorial models; answer this question: "How can a community based gallery best provide programming that is relevant to our time and is adding to the critical discourse while still being accessible to its diverse audience? With little to no money?"

3) Identify organizations that may want to partner with. Who is doing interesting things? How can we be a part of that? Is there any opportunity to guest curate at other institutions?

4) Network before and after each panel. Exchange business cards. Identify key people and become friends.

KEYNOTE SPEECH:

Title: When the Electricity Blows, Light a Candle

Key points: The economy is tanked, arts in all sectors are taking a hit, we must learn how to adapt and survive. The key to this is to look at your mission statement and make sure everything you are doing is in service to that mission.

NETWORKING:

So far so good! In the ride to Banff I was in a shuttle with Rosemary Donegan, who just started a new curatorial practice program in Toronto. We spoke briefly about the scene in Toronto right now, which seems very interesting. Also in the shuttle, and also from Toronto was Leah, a reporter for Canadian Art, the big quarterly art publication up here. She is covering the conference for the magazine.

After the Keynote speech, I met up with Leah again and went to the on-site pub. There I met up with Leigh Markopoulos, chair of the Curatorial Practice Program at CCA, and Marcia Tanner, the Berkeley based independent curator behind the exhibition We Interrupt Your Program at Mills, which I remember liking a lot.

After the curators and journalists headed off to their rooms, I stayed at the pub for one more pint and fell in with a group of artists participating in a one month residency called "Reverse Pedagogy." They all seemed to be having a good time and making good work, reinforcing the idea that artist residencies can be more than a little like summer camp. And I think that's a good thing. One of the artists was Mitzi Pederson, a San Francisco artist represented over at Ratio 3. We talked a bit and I encouraged her to submit a proposal to Southern Exposure.

So so far I've done pretty well meeting people, but most of them seem to be from the Bay Area.

We will see what today brings.

I'll send an update tonight, and will try and type up some more of my notes from the Keynote Speech. Also, I didn't get a chance to take any pictures yesterday (because it was dark) but will take some today.

- Mr. H