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Last update: October 26, 2011, at 01:09 PM
K(no)w Picnic
Host Institute: Open Space
Concept Art Clay
Place: Open Space
Dates: October 24 October to 2 November
Clinic: What's your blood type?
14:00 - 17:00
Tues, Oct 25, 2011
Free and open to the public.
Conducted by Canadian Blood Services, Victoria, BC.
http://www.blood.ca/
Drop by Open Space on Tues, Oct 25 between 2-5pm and learn your blood type. Canadian Blood Services will record your blood type in their database for future reference.
The OFF LABEL Festival will also take your picture and your participation will help to grow the K(no)wtable. Read below for more details.
About the K(no)w-Picnic Project
The term picnic is a celebrated and universal one. It refers in general to a pleasure excursion at which conversation and food is shared outdoors and normally in a beautiful landscape such as a park, beside a lake or any place where an interesting view can be found. Other more salient characteristics of a picnic are that it is a nomadic undertaking and that in order to work it requires all participants to cooperate at the given task of sharing things that originate from diverse sources.
The theme of the picnic has been celebrated not only in painting but also in music, film and literature. "Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe" was one the earliest works of Manet; "Malcolm's X-Ray Picnic" was a hit for the indie-pop group Number One Cup, and "Roadside Picnic" by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky was the source for the film Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky. The picnic theme is therefore an appropriate artistic sujet. By placing a picnic table in a museum setting, an appropriate reference to its standing in the arts is made and at the same time the sought out “beautiful view” that accompanies each and every picnic is provided for in a unique manner.
The act of partaking can be extended to the areas of debate and knowledge sharing in general. The title of the project “Know-Picnic”, although a homonym, is rooted in a common critical use of the term “no-picnic”. The phrase "no picnic" is used to describe a difficult or trying situation or activity. For example, "Driving in rush hour traffic is no picnic". In Information Technology, a "picnic" is an acronym meaning "Problem In Chair, Not In Computer", which refers to a situation where the user is to blame for the problem and not the computer.
Although traditionally a peaceful social activity, the picnic can also be utilized for purposes of political protest, because it signifies a temporary occupation of significant public territory. It is in this sense that the "Know-Picnic" project is conceived. On the one hand, the table occupies a space in a museum and functions because of this as a ready-made, or re-contextulized object and on the other hand it is set up as a platform for "excursion" for all those who bring things to it for open discussion, knowledge transfer, artistic action, or just as an exercise in partaking.
Open Call: Artist’s Blood Wanted:
A long picnic styled table of circa twelve meters in length fills the space of a gallery that provides the appropriate “idyllic” picnic scenery by the artwork that has been hung to view. The table, originally of raw wood, will be painted gradually as a blood donation campaign set up in the same space motivates artists to visit and donate blood for the local blood bank. The blood donated by the artists will be matched with red paint in equal parts. The gradual painting of the picnic table acts as a blood donation indicator. All blood must be given in person in the museum prior to the opening of the exhibition. A medical staff will be made available for blood donations to insure safety both to the donor and in order to detoxify the blood for further use. A photo-documentation will be carried out and along with the displaying of the blood station itself will become part of the exhibition on display during the Off Label Festival. This action is part of a series of “Know-Picnic Art Events” that signify both participation and sharing, which are both considered to be the key elements in building a sense of community amongst a diverse group of people and to generate trust among each other, foster leadership, and have faith in all traditions of all peoples in order to improve the quality of life for all on Victoria Island.
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