Art Metropole

#15213

Semiprecious: a syllabus for relating / a lodging for our relations

Artists

Justine A. Chambers and Natalie Purschwitz

Date

2021

Publisher

Artspeak Gallery

Format

Monographs

ISBN

9781927630167

Size

15 × 23 cm

Length

24 pp

Genre

Social Practice, Creative Writing , Conversations

Description

‘BEACON – a pamphlet series in ten issues’ focuses on how the commitment of artists’ to wider social movements informs contemporary artistic practice. The series will feature texts by artists whose practices engage with language and visual arts.

Semi-precious: The Faceting of a Gemstone Only Appears Complete and Critical is an ongoing project conceived of by Justine A. Chambers. The latest iteration of Semi-precious will take the form of a working studio residency, where Artspeak will be utilized as a dance studio. During this time Chambers with several long-time collaborators will together develop and write a movement and dance score. Further building on previous scores written by Chambers, Semi-precious considers the possibilities of the multiple, and the potential to build upon collective aspirations through reiterated actions.

Grounded in a consideration of rest and healing, central to Semi-precious is the idea that the craft of faceting gemstones requires patience. Semi-precious is a study of movement, writing, speaking, feeling and forming relationships. It is through a somatic and embodied approach that the relationality between the members of Semi-precious determine the form and the shape of the work. Approaching Chambers’ scores as propositions, the studio will take the time to sit with what resonates, working towards shaping a lexicon that deepens methodologies of gesture and movement, and embodied and non-verbal forms of knowledge.

JUSTINE A. CHAMBERS

A dance artist living and working on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Chambers’ interests lie in collaborative creation and re-imagining dance performance. In her work she focuses on what is felt over what is seen, and the dances that are already there – the social choreographies present in the everyday. She has been creating performance projects throughout Canada since 2000. Chambers is Max Tyler-Hite’s mother.

NATALIE PURSCHWITZ

Natalie Purschwitz is an artist living and working on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw, and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ First Nations, also known as Vancouver. Her research draws on modes of making that include collecting, accumulating, arranging, editing, and writing. She is curious about the ways that landscapes are shaped by humans and nonhumans, through systems of organization, networks of support, and ruptures within these systems. By reconfiguring everyday objects and elemental substances, Purschwitz creates conditions for material events.

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