Exploring Adjacencies—Spring 2022
Lex Braes, Chelsea Limbird, Judit Török
The Goals of the project were set to be:
· Lean into interpersonal connections.
· Create a game that is interactive, embodied, and fun.
· Perhaps discover something new about your Faculty Learning Community project that you didn’t “see” before.
Exploring Adjacencies was a project generated by the members of the Seeding and Growing Your Radical Pedagogies Faculty Learning Community (2021-2022). Inspired by postcard art and relational art practices and motivated by a need to physically connect beyond the bounds of our virtual conversations, participants mapped out what was on the periphery of their projects and how it connected with personal interests and other aspects of work and life at large.
Participants in Exploring Adjacencies committed to receiving one physical thing via snail-mail, adding something to it, and sending it along to another person in the group. This process was facilitated (and participated in!) by the CTL.
Reflection:
I took a large earth-brown brush drawing, my hand evident in the brush mark. Five lines revealed three interior spaces and a surrounding exterior space. How to include such a large drawing into a relatively smaller mailing envelope and engage my colleagues in an interactive game play?
First, I cut the drawing out, freeing it from initial context and from the physical plane of paper.
Cutting along both sides of the brush mark, leaving the line alone, defusing its former abstract qualities and obfuscating illusionistic intentions. The shape of the continuous line now has three interior void spaces, two comparably long sit side by side and divided by a brown center line and the third is smaller and nestled against the top left of the larger left-hand space.
Next, I folded to fit the envelope, twice horizontally and twice again on the vertical. In the folding process the white paper on the reverse side was revealed in stark contrast when juxtaposed against the painted side.
The chance outcome made a handsome and compact design. Lastly I wrote “unfold me” as an invitational prompt for the next recipient to play with unfolding and folding for its own sake, potentially finding alternative design outcomes.
By Lex Braes
Figure 1
Unfold me
Reflection:
I am intrigued by the idea of exploring adjacencies. We can rarely show up in professional work settings in ways that reflect our ‘personal’ lives in authentic ways. That is why I was very excited to take part in this project, to see and touch and interact with others’ adjacencies. This project was a safe, playful way to add a personal touch and a flavor of what I’m surrounded with when I’m not leading CTL workshops. My addition to the project was the hand-sewn piece that was interactive, and the unfolded cloth revealed a different facial expression. My daughter loves to play this game and was creating various drawings inspired by “exquisite corpses” all summer long. I took inspiration from her when I received the package. Even the shape of the face I ended up patch-working together was basically her design. I used leftover fabric, which I often do for my quilts and very crude sewing technique to suggest the temporality of it all. I don’t know how many people actually interacted with my piece, but if you get a chance, I encourage you to unfold the material and be surprised by what you may find there!
I am intrigued by the idea of exploring adjacencies. We can rarely show up in professional work settings in ways that reflect our ‘personal’ lives in authentic ways. That is why I was very excited to take part in this project, to see and touch and interact with others’ adjacencies. This project was a safe, playful way to add a personal touch and a flavor of what I’m surrounded with when I’m not leading CTL workshops. My addition to the project was the hand-sewn piece that was interactive, and the unfolded cloth revealed a different facial expression. My daughter loves to play this game and was creating various drawings inspired by “exquisite corpses” all summer long. I took inspiration from her when I received the package. Even the shape of the face I ended up patch-working together was basically her design. I used leftover fabric, which I often do for my quilts and very crude sewing technique to suggest the temporality of it all. I don’t know how many people actually interacted with my piece, but if you get a chance, I encourage you to unfold the material and be surprised by what you may find there!
By Judit Török
Reflection:
I received the envelope with an interior folder filled with a collection of fragments. Some seemed to belong to one another. Others seemed lost or unique in their quality, character, or content. I opened and closed the folder and leafed through the pieces only once when I knew there was a puzzle to be composed, bound, and fitted together. I found adjacencies, brought pieces—like moments—together, as a narrative. I provided spine and adhesive to individuals previously migrating in flux, unstructured. I sent the work forward, scaffolded in story.
I received the envelope with an interior folder filled with a collection of fragments. Some seemed to belong to one another. Others seemed lost or unique in their quality, character, or content. I opened and closed the folder and leafed through the pieces only once when I knew there was a puzzle to be composed, bound, and fitted together. I found adjacencies, brought pieces—like moments—together, as a narrative. I provided spine and adhesive to individuals previously migrating in flux, unstructured. I sent the work forward, scaffolded in story.
By Chelsea Limbird
Figure 2
Mail book Film
Reflection:
Exploring Adjacencies gave us the opportunity to break the form of our virtual meetings and indulge in physical art collaboration within the FLC. Radical Pedagogies community. Creating something physical together, after connecting primarily through virtual platforms, was rewarding and fulfilling, and brought a new level of connection to the group.
Our virtual conversations fed the creation of this physical art object in a sweet and generative way, and seeing how each participant contributed their skills into this work was lovely. Varied styles came together to form a coherent object, which can be expanded and unfolded as a participatory sculptural object. We look forward to continuing collaborative artworks with our communities and to see where this line of investigation takes our work!
Exploring Adjacencies gave us the opportunity to break the form of our virtual meetings and indulge in physical art collaboration within the FLC. Radical Pedagogies community. Creating something physical together, after connecting primarily through virtual platforms, was rewarding and fulfilling, and brought a new level of connection to the group.
Our virtual conversations fed the creation of this physical art object in a sweet and generative way, and seeing how each participant contributed their skills into this work was lovely. Varied styles came together to form a coherent object, which can be expanded and unfolded as a participatory sculptural object. We look forward to continuing collaborative artworks with our communities and to see where this line of investigation takes our work!
By CTL Team
(Holly Adams, Maura Conley, and Judit Török)
(Holly Adams, Maura Conley, and Judit Török)
