January 18th, 2017 – at Slide Space 123 on the campus of Mills College, Oakland, CA
I invited participants to challenge each other to a negotiation drawing. This involved mapping out representation of their personal subjectivities through visual patterns while crossing over into each other’s space.
Instructions: Two people sit down on opposite sides of the table and begin to draw a personally meaningful pattern of their choosing (checkers, dots, lines, zigzags, etc.) Each person starts from their own side of the paper and works towards the middle. When they reach the center, their goal is to complete their pattern on the opposite side of the paper while attempting to block their partner from doing the same.
How to block: Participants are allowed to use any part of their body to block, they may grab the other person’s wrist or attempt to take away their pen.
During the opening reception I demonstrated effective ways to continue drawing when someone is making it especially difficult to do so. For more training, people are invited to come to the Collaborative Combative Drawing workshop on Saturday, February 4, 1-3pm.
And here are the results…
Show description for Resistance Training curated by Glen Helfand
Exhibition and events offer a bolstering sense of community in the midst of a tumultuous political era.
On the eve of the inauguration, and into the first days of a new regime, Resistance Training, a presentation of recent a new artwork and activism, provides a needed opportunity to gather aesthetic and artist community forces and brace for what comes next. Organized by curator Glen Helfand, the exhibition focuses on aesthetic gestures that offer models of resistance to negative shifts and ideas for action, be they poetic, ideological, or forceful protest. The location on the Mills College campus offers the opportunity to create a space for gathering that draws upon intellectual resources and dialogs.
In the realm of fitness, the term resistance training refers to exercising muscles using an opposing force. The official transition of power to a game changing new U.S. president, which occurs on January 20, is a large, heavyweight force to oppose with the purpose of becoming stronger. Various communities, artists and activists, are banding together in dialogue and creative action to engage strategies for survival in what promises to be a challenging period.
The exhibition will include artworks, actions, and demos of strategies for survival. Artists include Luke Butler, Ana Teresa Fernandez, Sarah Hotchkiss, Omar Mismar, Melissa Wyman, Rachel Weidinger, Andrea Bowers, Alex Molinari, and others. Resistance Training also will include Post Fax, a faxing campaign targeting office workers, interns, and others with pertinent messages sent through a form more tactile, and perhaps urgent, than social media; and be an affiliated venue for 100 Days, an artist-organized calendar featuring one daily artistic response to Trump’s first 100 days in office.
Collaborative Combative Drawing 