anna's ISPC visit writeup

Our visit to ISPC in Brooklyn gave us ideas about different ways to work as an artist and alternative methods for generating income. All of the artists we saw dealt with various themes of awareness and collaboration.

Chaw Ei thein was from Burma, left behind an oppressive government, but didn't forget it, instead used it to inform her work. One of her pieces was a collaborative effort of making a replica of a temple from sugar. As the exhibition went on, the temple began to disintegrate. It reflects on the fragility and destruction of the oppressed. her father is a painter and she learned from him. It was inspiriing to listen to her talk. She didn't have a fromal art education, yet manages to be an artist in New York, despite coming from an oppressive situation and having an initial language barrier. For additional income, she teaches art to children.

Lilibeth Cuenca was born in the Philippines and raised in Denmark. Originally, she used video, writing her own words set to music and dressing in costume. Her pieces raise questions about gender roles and stereotypes. Collaboration is an important part to her process, both for the music and video editing. Now she is also doing direct performances. In one video, the musicians doubled as backup dancers, to comic effect.

Michael Hopfner's photographs are of and inspired by his travels to places such as Tibet. He see himself as a tourist. What was interesting was that he doesn't try to direct his experiences, but rather lets his natural curiosity just take him. He keeps journals and later prints and sells small books containing his photography and writings. Also he arranges for group excursions to different areas.

Lotte Linder and Till Steinbrenner are from Germany. They are a married couple who have also joined forces as art collaborators. The husband, Till, was there for us and was really engaging (and tall!). He showed us their proposal video for coming to ISPC. The first work was a set of bleachers they had built facing a pristine bench in a park. It was meant to bring attention to the absurdity of these perfect little viewing areas. They invited people to sit on these bleachers and essentially watch the bench. The added treat was an elderly couple already sitting on the bench, unaware of what was taking place. At one point someone told them to do something, so the man began reading his newspaper aloud for the crowd of onlookers. Since their work is performance based and they don't sell videos of the performance, they are able to generate income from selling furniture they build.

We tend to think of what type of job or training we need to have, forgetting there are alternatives to how we can think of a profession.