how? — Aeris Körper

Each session within CTN phase2 presented a different artistic lead, guiding us through a structure for creation within that form. An exchange of learning occurred; diving into that person’s personal process and/or concepts within the form as a whole. Then participants have the ability to go. To go with the information. Through engaging with the materials, the space, each other, their sense of wonder or perhaps the questions they have to discover and create. Each session had its own unique feeling and format. One concept that was maintain throughout all sessions was the ability for each individual to pursue what they wanted/needed.

For me, the concept of shades of participation reinforced the idea that I could come to each session as I was that day and to contribute in ways I felt I had the capacity to. This is significantly divergent from other spaces when I know what will be asked of me/expected of me and therefore what I need to do/how I need to be in the context of that space. An understanding of expectation can, often, be helpful. To know what will likely occur when you arrive…somewhere. But the concept of shades of participation doesn’t negate the clarity. It adds another layer that opens up our ability to come to the space, understanding the goal of our time there, and to contribute to that goal in ways that are very real. In ways that are authentic to how we are in the moment and relate to ourselves and our lives beyond the walls of the greenhouse. Going beyond the idea that there is only one way in which something can be accomplished.

Beyond that, looping back to the additional tenant of doing what you want/need brings about so many intimate layers that I am so grateful to have experienced. First, this sentiment reinforces a sense of autonomy that is so necessary in being able to engage with my creativity and imagination. Being led through different sessions, or given different impulses, but always with the caveat of embracing what you want and need asks each participant to engage both externally, and internally. A process within in the individual emerges when we are taking inventory with everything that is happening around us, understanding the context of what is taking place and our ability to influence it, and bouncing all of this external stimulus off our internal state, our desires, or questions, or need to go to the bathroom.

Disposing of how something “has to be done” and engaging with what you want/need in the art making process, might seem…basic? It might seem like that is what art making “should” be? As an artist and producer, I so frequently find myself in creative spaces where there is a deadline and an expectation of a finished product at the end. The financial support of granting bodies can dictate that a public something is a required component of a grant. And perhaps more importantly, is our desire as artists to show and share our work with others can provide its own unique flavour of pressure. Although deadlines can provide motivation to many, it can be difficult to continue to create from a place of curiosity connected to you wants/needs when the pressure of a deadline approaches. Productivity makes machines of us all. Unless we work towards a way of being, of practising, of creating, of sharing, that alleviates some of the pressure. I inherently believe that there is no one way to do anything, and that both making art and managing the many forces that pull us away from our most inspired version of our creative selves is possible. I saw the CTN sessions propose a time and space with these tenets to question how we tend to make art, why, and perhaps push back or push beyond the ways of being and making that we know so well.

L A Y E R S

How do you typically engage in creation // how can you shift and explore the ways you create?

What do you want/need inside of each session based on primary art form being explore and the session format?
How does this work relate to the others in the space?
How does this work related ot the space you are in?
How do other people’s contributions affect you?

hhhooowww.

Being in space, with people, in my body, how seems appropriate. An adverb, in connecting to doing. Necessitating doing. Making discoveries of the what and the why through this. Through the how.

- mike

process count: 3
how count: 12…..shhhhh