Finished Exchange Project

I had a lot of feedback of how wonderful this project was. It helped many people with material collection, inspiration, and facilitated community communication. Here are some picture throughout the exchange as the pile grew and shrunk. One was really able to see through the documentation what disappeared first and was seen as the most valuable and what remains. Also, there were those who abused the exchange choosing the most precious of items and leaving behind clearly unfair replacements. Perhaps this is taking advantage of the communities generosity in a way.















The end of the Project





This is the document of exchanges that occured

As I gear up to display the collections that have been graciously donated to me from my artist community, I realize that I do not really enjoy doing the artwork that relies so heavily on the support of others. It is difficult to motivate, meet scheduling needs, contact, make drop off points, etc for each individual. I value my own independence and like working on my own time table. The questions of how to go about the display of these objects is on my mind. I have been thinking about laying out the objects in some kind of order or patterning. I am also curious what kind of information I will obtain during the duration of the work. I am also curious to know how the public will engage with the work itself. I set up on Monday.

Generosity

As artist our production space is often one of the most important assets we have as an artist and the second is the material we use to produce our work. Both are always in short supply. We often work jobs that never quite fulfill us to earn the capital necessary to purchase materials necessary to continue our creative investigation. Being strapped for cash, space, and material we must turn to our community for support.
Here at SUNY New Paltz, in the Fine Arts Building we are a teaming organism of creative production. Despite us all breathing the same air behind close doors, our community lacks communication. It lacks the flexibility to pass between the doors freely, engage with each other for the dissemination of ideas, skills, and helping hands.
For my project I will be facilitating an artist community material swap. This material swap will be held in a common community space no longer held behind close doors. It will provide a place to gather engaging with others. The materials will be coming from the artist themselves, donating material that is cluttering up their space, unwanted, unused, or scraps. This will then free up the valuable production space for each individual. Those who donate material are then able to select the from the accumulation of objects, materials, and supplies brought to the community space thusly reducing the financial cost of their own practice.
The accumulated objects will be arranged into a dense collection that will become a landscape of potential creativity. The project will be ongoing for 10 days. Each day the space and the collection will be documented noting what has been left behind and what has been removed. These photos will be the map of artist interaction with the materials, the community, and the transaction of goods outside of the capitalist system.