2022
April 9, 2022
"Venetian Islands" - Boat & Trolly Tours with Considered to be Allies
Including Public Input
2-6pm (tours every 30 minutes)
Maurice Gibb Park, Miami Beach
For the Department of Reflection's first Fieldwork: Tour we've invited expert outsiders Considered to be Allies to Miami, specifically Miami Beach's Venetian Islands, and asked them to help us investigate the famed millionaire mounds and surrounding waters, including Isola di Lolando, the Venetian Island that never was. Via mirrored tours happening simultaneously, one on a trolley bus and another on a small boat, the woman and her colleague will guide participating residents in a hands-on presentation of their findings, including public input collected by DoR.
Their Mission:
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To help us distinguish the past from the present, the present from the future, and the future from the past.
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To further our understanding of the Venetian Islands as wholly man-made land masses in relation to other man-made things.
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To remind us of the strengths (and weaknesses) inherent in our hyper-local perspectives.
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To find the truth, the lies, the truth in lies, and the lies in truths.
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To facilitate reflection.
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How You Can Help:
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Answer the open call for public input (We sincerely thank all those who submitted entries!)
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Take the tour(s)
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Turn in your amended script before leaving
Considered to be Allies, Preparatory sketches and references, 2021-2022.
Begun in 2020, Fieldwork is a nomadic series of site-responsive programming at unique locations. Sparking dialogue between self and site, each Fieldwork provides insight into a location’s histories and its place in our contemporary community. And staying true to its name, at each Fieldwork visitors are invited to conduct their own fieldwork, facilitated through various means, contributing to our communal understanding. Fieldwork has subsequently expanded, going virtual with Fieldwork: Dispatches and expanded again with Fieldwork: Tours.
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This program is made possible with support from the City of Miami Beach and the Danish Arts Foundation.
December, 2022
Arts Education Administrators Survey
for "Time 2 Imagine Some Alternatives" (TISA)
a zine by artist-curator Ciar O'Mahony
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Open Letter to Ciar O'Mahony et al
DoR's Arts Education Administrators Survey
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TISA is an "exhibition in the form of a zine" featuring work from eight artists, curators, and arts educators exploring the impact of student debt on artistic production in Canada and the US. It has been displayed with a video piece featuring zine contributors speaking about their
work.
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Contributors include Cat Bluemke, Jamillah Hinson, Joshua Roginsky, Margaux Smith, Matthew Varey, Miles Thomas, The Department of Reflection, and Vanessa Dion Fletcher.
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This project was made possible with funds from the Ontario Arts Council
November 29-December 3, 2022
Two Sheets (3) to the Wind
at NADA Miami 2022, Outdoor Sculpture Garden
Curated with P.A.D. (Project Art Distribution)
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A.G., Alina Yakirevitch, Andy Ralph, Arsimmer McCoy, Chang Sujung, Jenna Balfe, Kevin Dudley, misael soto, Arkadiy Ryabin + Peter Hoffmeister, Hsini Des, Jaqueline Cedar, and Susan Klein
The Department of Reflection (DoR) was invited by past collaborator and associate P.A.D. to curate the exhibition and performance series “Two Sheets (3) to the Wind” for NADA Miami art fair. Located in the outdoor sculpture garden, each day featured a different collaborative performance on a custom, artist-made moving pad.
Excerpt from Press Release:
Three sheets to the wind is never ok, two sheets now and again. Three sheets to the wind as the saying goes, confused, two out of three ain’t bad.
A pad
is a pad (home) is a pad (launching off point)
for visual artists and performers alike
in cultivating a community and network between outta-towners and locals
in Miami.
Typically situated on a furniture pad (also known as a moving blanket), P.A.D. (Project Art Distribution) is a collaboration between its participating artists, the street and passersby, and its resident art dealer. Nevertheless, the foundation is the pad—the object the artwork is transported in, swaddled in, and safeguarded by. The pad offers movement. For the exhibition at NADA Miami, artists were prompted to respond to both P.A.D. and the pad it takes place on. On display are eight pads, four of which will be integrated into performances by Miamian artists.
Responding to the system of fairs holding Miami hostage for the week, the Department of Reflection (DoR) has curated specific interactions to challenge the status quo: performance instead of painting, the protective object instead of the art object. DoR investigates the strange dynamic between these temporary ‘guests’ and the city–specifically, the impact they have on Miami and its culture. More than a backdrop for commodities and debauchery, DoR and the Miamian performers offer a glimpse of what it looks like to be stewards of “the Magic City.”
In sailing, ‘sheets’ are the ropes attached to the corners of a ship's sail, used for controlling the extent and direction of the sail; if they are hanging loose in the wind, the vessel is likely to be out of control or taking an erratic course. Hence 'three sheets to the wind' has been used to describe a highly inebriated person who is no longer in control, and is in danger of upending and falling over—perhaps commonplace among the art fair afterparties. Furniture pads are constructed with woven-fabric (sheets) and filled with compressed recycled cotton fibers. For the exhibition, these sheets are metaphors for both the temporary nature of the fairs, the precarity of Miami, and the bacchanal. The Miami-based performers and organizations are our captains, safely guiding P.A.D. through the storm of its first Miami art fair.
Schedule of performances:
Wednesday November 30, 4:30pm: misael soto will be performs a new piece for NADA Miami adapting to the landscape of the moving blanket (pad) as designated by Alina Yakirevitch
Thursday December 1, 1:00pm: Jenna Balfe performs with a "security pad" by Chang Sujung
Friday December 2, 1:00pm: A.G. reads from their recent publication, INTERMISSION: a pause & reflection on the theatricality of existence, Vol. 1, on top of a pad featuring a ‘kinkade-chimera’ by Kevin Dudley
Saturday December 3, 1:00pm: Arsimmer McCoy performs spoken work in response to a series of sculptures by Andy Ralph
Images:
1. Alina Yakirevitch, Mishka (detail), 2022, Found leather and an issue of Time Magazine on a shipping pad. 80” × 72"
2. Dandy Bear, found image
3. Chang Sujung, Security Blanket, 2022, Custom pigment print on pima cotton lawn, cotton, cotton batting, 65” x 60”.
4. Jenna Balfe, Performance still.
5. Kevin Dudley, All Domestic, 2022, Print on Heavy Vinyl, Non-Woven Moving Blanket, and Poly-fil, 36” × 20” × 4”
6. A.G., INTERMISSION: a pause & reflection on the theatricality of existence, Vol. 1, 2022 Staplebound, Digital Print, 36 Pages, 8.5” x 11” x ¼”
7. Andy Ralph, Fable Logic (Bronze Mirror), 2022, Polished Bronze, Sanded Grout, Tar, Wood, & Die-Cut Packing Blankets 25” x 18” x 4”
8. Arsimmer McCoy, Performance stills
