TiNNN Reader Launch

Following her residency at Gertrude Contemporary's Visiting Curators Program in March 2014, Berlin curator Fiona Geuss led a workshop, together with artists and Public School founders Caleb Waldorf and Sean Dockray, that resulted in creation of the TiNNN reader. The publication comprises readings proposed by participants following the workshop.

This reader states that there is no now now, or that - as Russian literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin put it - everyday anew we have to answer the questions addressed by art with our own lives.

Fiona states; we met on Saturday, March 15 for a spontaneous workshop at Gertrude Contemporary, which assessed our (artists, writers, curators, academics, etc.) ongoing relationships with cultural institutions of varying scales.

The focus was oriented towards how institutional frameworks impact and inform our practices in an ongoing manner, from the perspective of the day to day activities that comprise our work. The conversation departed from the opposition and the resistance mobilised against the Biennale of Sydney's funding by Transfield and the subsequent repercussions, both known and speculative. The desire was to connect the situation taking place in this context to a broader set of concerns facing many who work within, and rely on, contemporary cultural infrastructures.

As output of the workshop participants decided to create a reader related to topics around corporate funding, alternative institutions, and the social impact of art. Over the course of one week, we collected the group’s contributions for seven chapters that emerged during our discussion. Without having a precise goal this collection called TiNNN could be followed by an annotated publication, be a starting point of a series of public events in different places, or serve as compilation for further discussions - in Melbourne and elsewhere.

A pdf of the reader can be accessed on the aaaaarg website here.