Wednesday 23 September at 5:30pm for the next Blue Oyster Session. You are invited.
For our fourth discussion we are going to tackle the many questions and implications behind how artists are selected for inclusion in exhibitions and other programmes.
Specifically, we want to address issues around trying to provide access and representation versus an intention to stimulate discussion and innovation and to what extent these things are mutually exclusive. This paradox is not unique to the Blue Oyster, but it is one that has been grappled with constantly over the ten years of our existence, as Ali Bramwell articulates in the publication produced for the Blue Oyster's tenth anniversary:
"One of the most pressing philosophical arguments to occur in this institution over the years concerns how artists' works are selected or rejected for exhibition. This issue has a social dimension and repercussion; a cooperative model is not easily compatible with a system that also seeks conceptual rigor and strives to promote quality standard. Some kind of balance is required." - Ali Bramwell (full text available for download here)
Joining us to share their experiences and approaches to artist selection will be:
- Jodie Dalgleish - Independent curator
- Paul Smith - Director of the Dunedin Fringe Festival
- Ali Bramwell - Curator of Unstable Institutional Memory: 10 Years at the Blue Oyster and Lecturer at Otago Polytechnic School of Art