What do we know (anyway)?

Chan, JJ [Artist] (2021) What do we know (anyway)? , Blueprints for the Otherwise .

Official URL: https://www.blocprojects.co.uk/exhibitions-events/...

Abstract

Emerging at a mid-point of a 12-month residency at Bloc Projects, in Sheffield UK, focusing on ‘critical care’ in the practice of arts organisational processes, and more mutual art commissioning between artists and organisations, JJ Chan presents 'What do we know (anyway)?', a week-long series of events which includes a group exhibition, alongside online and offline events. What do we know (anyway)? was a series of eventful public gatherings that took place across a week in July 2021, pulling together aspects of JJ's practice, and situating them within the context of Bloc Projects and its neighbouring Bloc studios. An exhibition in the gallery names and foregrounds some of the figures who have differently made their mark on the artist’s practice. It presents works by students and teachers that JJ has encountered through formal educational relationships: those that have taught them, and those that they have taught, all of whom they have learnt from. The exhibition is an enquiry into what it means to know, and what it is, if anything, do artists know. It aims to visualise some of the collisions that make up systems of knowledge and to offer an opportunity for us all to walk through what knots knot knots, as Donna Haraway puts it. Over 70 — teachers, peers, colleagues, friends, and students — contributed something that they either own or have personally made. In mapping just some of Chan’s artistic kinships, we recognise that an art practice is a mutually implicating ecology: a set of relations reliant on friendship and care, and yet sometimes entwines troublesome and problematic frameworks, leaning on systemic, historic and emerging practices that produce inequalities. Diffracting the spotlight of a ‘solo exhibition’, What do we know (anyway)? coalesces some of the key themes in the Blueprints conversations: generosity, soft activism and redistribution of resources as methods of confronting and challenging our work as artists towards what otherwise could be the outcomes of our practice. On display, was be a broad collection of reading materials, recorded conversations, banners and artworks from an international inter-generational network of creative practitioners. The exhibition coincided with online events during the week, led by colleagues and students from various projects JJ works on. Including events by JJ's students, and events organised by the Material:Pedagogy:Future Research Network, and the collective, A Particular Reality. Exhibition included works by: Abi Braley, Affrica Berezicki-Stevens, Ahlam Ahmadi, Alaw Glesni-Griffiths, Alex Beeston, Amrit Sanghera, Andrei Damian, Annie Gooderham, Annouchka Bayley, Caitlin Jackson, Catherine McCaw-Aldworth, Charlie Gere, copsocker, Chantoya Leslie, David Johnson, David Moore, David Snooo Wilson, Davide Vanacore, Denise de Cordova, Ellen Ball, Eleanor McLean, Elizabeth Rennison, Eleni Sofokleous, Federico Clavarino, Flo McCarthy, Frances Drayson, Gerry Davies, Hannah Boaden ( + Daniel Redford), Harry Coday, Imogen Andrews, Jenna Fox, Jakob Buraczewski, Jordan Baseman, Jayne Simpson, Jaz Bartlett, Jen Southern, Jennie Murton, Judith Gao, Kara Marba, Kate Davis, Katherine Smith, Kirsty Dawson, Leigh Day, Leon Flint, Leon Watts, Omalola Mau, Marisa Ferreira, Martin Doyle, Martin Salmon, Michalina Marciniec, Mike Atherton, Mina Fairchild Ünal, Maggie Coffee, NanoHour, Noelle Genevier, Phoebe Mae Thompson, Pip Dickens, Partisan Social Club, Pragya Bhargava, Ratiba Ayadi, Rebecca Birch, Rhiannon Dunn, Rosie de Selincourt, Rups Cregeen, Sai Ashrafian, Sally Sole, Sally Stenton, Sarah Casey, Sarah Staton, Saul Wright, Todome the Fox, Tianya Liu, Tom Railton, WARD.