On Site Specificity: Reflections

Sarah Bolivar of UVa AYAC attended this event, and here are her thoughts:

The Slought Foundation is a pretty cool venue – and by cool, I mean incredibly pertinent to discussing art in context of socio-political and cultural change.  Last Thursday, I attended a Slought event where Hans Haacke, a German-American artist, and Alexander Alberro, Virginia Bloedel Wright Professor of Art History at Columbia University, discussed the artist’s underlying logic to juxtapositions within his work.  Two interesting points that Haacke made about productivity: friction between seemingly disparate quotidian objects can be productive and anger is a very productive source of energy.  To combine objects is to create a new meaning.  To be angry is to engage with the human condition; otherwise, “we forget about democracy.”  Haacke, a product of the 1968 cultural revolutions and riots following Martin Luther King’s assassination, offered great insights on challenging socio-political frames.  It makes you wonder, what are we the products of and how does this influence us as designers?

Keep a look out for Slought’s 10^th anniversary celebration in January.  It promises to be engaging for designers with a social justice penchant.