the kaca projects
Karike Ashworth and Caroline Austin are the artistic collaboration, The KACA Projects.
The KACA Projects are inspired by Michel Serres’s foundational work that explores how human relations are identical to that of the parasite to the host body. Serres’s arguments are that by being pests, minor groups can become major players in public dialogue. Within this frame, The KACA Projects tries to intervene in public dialogue—creating diversity and complexity vital to human life and thought. Selected works by The KACA Projects appear below.
The KACA Projects are inspired by Michel Serres’s foundational work that explores how human relations are identical to that of the parasite to the host body. Serres’s arguments are that by being pests, minor groups can become major players in public dialogue. Within this frame, The KACA Projects tries to intervene in public dialogue—creating diversity and complexity vital to human life and thought. Selected works by The KACA Projects appear below.
Benny
The positioning of Australian artist Ben Quilty as relatable, suffering savour/genius who labours tirelessly for our redemption, is the subject of this artwork—Benny. Stealth-exhibited on the imposing, patriarchal facade of the Art Gallery of NSW, Benny is a visual art performance/video work that critically engages with the Quilty-genius-myth. The work attempts to elucidate how, why and in what context representations of, and by, Quilty are connected, implied and complicit in the making of genius-fetish.
Watch Benny here.
Watch Benny here.
sideways (after 43 minutes)
Sideways (After 43 Minutes) came about after the exhibition 43 Minutes as a result of COVID-19 social distancing measures in Queensland. Being in lock-down, we were unable to de-install 43 Minutes and we were essentially “stuck with the wall” inside Side Gallery, who were forced to postpone/cancel their exhibition program. In spite of the difficult circumstances of the pandemic, this gave us all time to slow down, think, explore and to innovate.
Watch Sideways (After 43 Minutes) here.
Watch Sideways (After 43 Minutes) here.
sideways (after 43 minutes (continued)
By way of background…
For 43 Minutes we wanted to see if it was possible to explore and potentially oppose the major characteristics and effects of neoliberal capitalism through participatory art practice, such as:
43 Minutes sort to ask:
We were interested in whether the act of ceding authorial power might see a way through neoliberalism’s emphasis on the individual (collaborative projects already do this to a degree we realise…). 43 Minutes developed (in part) in response to the John Baldessari instructional art piece at UQ titled Wall Painting. Wall Painting was the second staging of a conceptual project designed (but not implemented) by the conceptual artist John Baldessari. For Wall Painting, approximately 60 participants were invited to sign-up (in pairs), choose a paint colour and paint two layers of paint onto a gallery wall using paint rollers.
For 43 Minutes we wanted to see if it was possible to explore and potentially oppose the major characteristics and effects of neoliberal capitalism through participatory art practice, such as:
- the metaphorical acceleration of time – under neoliberal capitalism, people are all so busy, busy getting things done/moving forward—i.e. neoliberal capitalism sees people (apparently willingly and instinctively) pursuing individual progress narratives. The pandemic has really showed us how trapped we are by ‘busyness’. [there are obviously exceptions to this].
- the overproduction of objects – under this system, needless commodities are produced, marketed, continuously desired for economic gain and status.
- the economic rationalisation of social life – for example, under neoliberal capitalism, our work lives largely determine our social relationships; nuclear families are economic units of production; people don’t (as a rule) connect with their neighbours or the environment, but rely on the instruments of capitalism (consumerism) to survive, etc. [there are obviously exceptions to this].
- the emphasis on the individual and the promotion of personal responsibility – neoliberal capitalism encourages individuals to ‘willingly’ think entrepreneurially and feel solely responsible for their decisions and actions. What this means is that the state, and other institutional power structures, get away with not having to be responsible. This devalues, and actively works to erode, collective action/activities—Marx’s ‘alienation of labour’.
43 Minutes sort to ask:
- Can we re-evaluate the meaning and purpose of social and economic exchanges and produce a new kind of attention to the world and the people around us through (and in) art?
- Is it possible to cede power to participants in instructional art practice (for example, artistic authorial power)? And, what happens when we do?
We were interested in whether the act of ceding authorial power might see a way through neoliberalism’s emphasis on the individual (collaborative projects already do this to a degree we realise…). 43 Minutes developed (in part) in response to the John Baldessari instructional art piece at UQ titled Wall Painting. Wall Painting was the second staging of a conceptual project designed (but not implemented) by the conceptual artist John Baldessari. For Wall Painting, approximately 60 participants were invited to sign-up (in pairs), choose a paint colour and paint two layers of paint onto a gallery wall using paint rollers.
Participating Artists: Kate Barry, Carolina Navarrete, West End Art Gang member, Kirralee Robinson, Tamara Scheiwe.
Other participating artists (not pictured) Olivia Adlard, Paula Austin, Jordan Azcune, Jarrad Eve, Tallara Gray, Louise Isackson, Alia Josephine, Kagede, Carissa Karamarko, Sam Kariotis, Pia Larsen, Julie Paterson, Rossanne Pellegrino, Aaron Perkins, Jack Randell, Xinxin Wen, Adrienne Williams.
Catologues of works
Outcomes of Sideways
Sideways revealed an understanding of the group’s complicity in neoliberal capitalism and the futility of the project’s (perhaps) naïve intentions. As much as we might like to, it is impossible to stand completely outside of capitalism—this is the model to which we are all bound. For example, The LeLa Projects acknowledged their conflict over inviting artists to respond to the wall-shape cut-outs, and then feeling compelled (as the commercial enterprise, Side Gallery) to promote and sell these objects for their artists on the art market. This excellently demonstrates the impossibility of/problems with experimental art projects that attempt to resist capitalism whilst embedded in a capitalist framework. “It is capitalism achievement that it creates so many new needs not that it creates artificial needs” (Choat 2016).
It is at this point too, of course, that ownership becomes an ‘issue’. As Marx reminds us, because our system is driven by Capital, “the social connection between persons is transformed into a social relation between things”. And in collaborative projects such as Sideways—one where, in some cases at least, it has become literally impossible to discern who owns what—the ‘issue’ of ownership becomes nothing short of awkward. This awkwardness exists because capitalism demands an “alienated form of mutual interdependence” whereby we are slaves to an “estranged power materialized as money” (Choat 2016).
Within this frame, the irony of initiating a project—which was (in part at least) attempting to critique the overproduction of objects and the commodification of experience under capitalism—that then resulted in a literal explosion of all of these beautiful responses/objects to be promoted and sold—was super interesting but, on reflection, perhaps unsurprising. Particularly when we consider production and consumption under capitalism, as Marx does, as interrelated, “each creates the other in completing itself, and creates itself as the other.”
In spite of neoliberal capitalism’s relentless presence (and, we suppose, our collective impotency in refusing to not comply with it), what we have most valued about this project are the connections that have been made with one another through our profound attachment to, and nurturing of, the wall. We are all bound by this experience (and the record of this is forever memorialised in the wall, its fragments, and associated objects). Our collective attachment was further amplified when the project came to a close just as Queensland was beginning to emerge out of lock-down and return to ‘business as usual’—to the problematic ‘new normal’. Saying goodbye to the wall—our portal—at this time, felt horrendously difficult for us all. We reflected on this. Why did it feel so difficult?
We think it is because the collaborative response that unfolded in this project has felt extraordinary and intuitively subversive. Although The KACA Projects were initially disappointed that the residency approach the Caretakers decided on had such a strong individual/entrepreneurial flavour—which recalled neoliberalism so clearly—what the Caretaker group actually did (through successive creative responses that responded to one another) was participate in this beautiful, nurturing conversation through the wall. A conversation which (without overstating it) felt radical because it embodied a collective potency, and reminded us all of the sustaining value of care-work.[4]
In nurturing the wall, it has been all of our portal—our space to lament. It was built strong, with a robust body; it is the holder of many meanings; and has an agency beyond us and any system. As it continues to exist now in fragments, although we feel a sense of grief in it being dismantled (just as ‘the new normal’ is upon us), we are grateful for having had it with us for this time, and in this moment.
But, where to from here?
A special thank you to Side Gallery, the Caretaker Committee and all the participating artists for contributing to this unique experience. Photos: Leesa Hickey, Delong Lin.
Other participating artists (not pictured) Olivia Adlard, Paula Austin, Jordan Azcune, Jarrad Eve, Tallara Gray, Louise Isackson, Alia Josephine, Kagede, Carissa Karamarko, Sam Kariotis, Pia Larsen, Julie Paterson, Rossanne Pellegrino, Aaron Perkins, Jack Randell, Xinxin Wen, Adrienne Williams.
Catologues of works
Outcomes of Sideways
Sideways revealed an understanding of the group’s complicity in neoliberal capitalism and the futility of the project’s (perhaps) naïve intentions. As much as we might like to, it is impossible to stand completely outside of capitalism—this is the model to which we are all bound. For example, The LeLa Projects acknowledged their conflict over inviting artists to respond to the wall-shape cut-outs, and then feeling compelled (as the commercial enterprise, Side Gallery) to promote and sell these objects for their artists on the art market. This excellently demonstrates the impossibility of/problems with experimental art projects that attempt to resist capitalism whilst embedded in a capitalist framework. “It is capitalism achievement that it creates so many new needs not that it creates artificial needs” (Choat 2016).
It is at this point too, of course, that ownership becomes an ‘issue’. As Marx reminds us, because our system is driven by Capital, “the social connection between persons is transformed into a social relation between things”. And in collaborative projects such as Sideways—one where, in some cases at least, it has become literally impossible to discern who owns what—the ‘issue’ of ownership becomes nothing short of awkward. This awkwardness exists because capitalism demands an “alienated form of mutual interdependence” whereby we are slaves to an “estranged power materialized as money” (Choat 2016).
Within this frame, the irony of initiating a project—which was (in part at least) attempting to critique the overproduction of objects and the commodification of experience under capitalism—that then resulted in a literal explosion of all of these beautiful responses/objects to be promoted and sold—was super interesting but, on reflection, perhaps unsurprising. Particularly when we consider production and consumption under capitalism, as Marx does, as interrelated, “each creates the other in completing itself, and creates itself as the other.”
In spite of neoliberal capitalism’s relentless presence (and, we suppose, our collective impotency in refusing to not comply with it), what we have most valued about this project are the connections that have been made with one another through our profound attachment to, and nurturing of, the wall. We are all bound by this experience (and the record of this is forever memorialised in the wall, its fragments, and associated objects). Our collective attachment was further amplified when the project came to a close just as Queensland was beginning to emerge out of lock-down and return to ‘business as usual’—to the problematic ‘new normal’. Saying goodbye to the wall—our portal—at this time, felt horrendously difficult for us all. We reflected on this. Why did it feel so difficult?
We think it is because the collaborative response that unfolded in this project has felt extraordinary and intuitively subversive. Although The KACA Projects were initially disappointed that the residency approach the Caretakers decided on had such a strong individual/entrepreneurial flavour—which recalled neoliberalism so clearly—what the Caretaker group actually did (through successive creative responses that responded to one another) was participate in this beautiful, nurturing conversation through the wall. A conversation which (without overstating it) felt radical because it embodied a collective potency, and reminded us all of the sustaining value of care-work.[4]
In nurturing the wall, it has been all of our portal—our space to lament. It was built strong, with a robust body; it is the holder of many meanings; and has an agency beyond us and any system. As it continues to exist now in fragments, although we feel a sense of grief in it being dismantled (just as ‘the new normal’ is upon us), we are grateful for having had it with us for this time, and in this moment.
But, where to from here?
A special thank you to Side Gallery, the Caretaker Committee and all the participating artists for contributing to this unique experience. Photos: Leesa Hickey, Delong Lin.
43 minutes
Employing signifiers of Capitalism, such as white paint and mass-produced building materials like plasterboard, ply, particleboard, MDF and timber stud[1], The KACA Projects constructed a solid, densely layered wall (the 5th wall) in a Brisbane-based experimental commercial gallery, Side Gallery. We then invited members of the public to participate in painting the wall “1000 times” for an arbitrary 43 minutes. Watch The KACA Projects discuss 43 Mintues here.
43 minutes (continued)
The project was experimental in that it intended to explore and potentially oppose the major characteristics and effects of Neoliberal Capitalism, such as the metaphorical acceleration of time[2], the overproduction of objects[3], the economic rationalisation of social life[4], the emphasis on the individual and the promotion of personal responsibility[5]. The project asked:
1. Can we re-evaluate the meaning and purpose of social relationships?
2. What happens when we collectively subvert productivity to thicken time?
3. Is it possible to cede power to participants in instructional art practice (for example, artistic authorial power)? And, what happens when we do?
4. Is it possible to produce a new kind of attention to the world and the people around us?
Although 43 Minutes was conceptualised and programmed long before the global COVID-19 crisis, the timing of 43 Minutes—unfolding as it did when the reality of COVID-19 was beginning to take hold—was critical to the way it has made meaning for The KACA Projects. The pandemic has brought the world’s focus and dependence on money into sharp focus. We have watched as people have panic-hoarded toilet paper, and others have profited. The driving focus of Capitalism—and its malevolent successor, Neoliberal Capitalism—is money and profit. Under this regime, social connections that exist outside economic gain are often undervalued, even irrelevant. COVID-19 served to powerfully illustrate this—laying bare the precarity of social connections. For us, our supporters and participants, 43 Minutes revealed itself to be a powerful demonstration of possible small modes of being that are so valuable and necessary in times of adversity. Connections for which we should all uncompromisingly fight, for their existence, relevance and value.
During the opening night performance, The KACA projects formed into a production line and brutally cut, and then reverently shaped and polished the wall fragments into objects to be sold for economic gain. The brutality of the cutting became symbolic of the way social connections are being eroded by Neoliberal Capitalism (made palpable at the time of COVID-19). For this performance, we divided our activities into distinct parts to mimic a production line—which of course also signals Marx’s concept of alienation under Capitalism—a disconnection from the whole.
The KACA Projects also present as a cohesive artistic collaboration, who come together at the end of the performance to lovingly stroke the outputs of their labour. Yes, we commodified the ‘painting experience’ (and ourselves) for ‘economic gain’—an act which acknowledges and questions the group’s complicity in Neoliberal Capitalism, and also (sadly), the impossibility (even futility) of our intentions. But our sense of community—our coming together to lovingly stroke the objects—plus the community created in the ‘painting experience’ (symbolised by the way the objects are hung in association to their counterpart – the void)—suggests a hope (and a longing) that these connections will endure after the project is finished.
Sideways (After 43 Minutes) followed this project.
—————————————————————————————————
[1] These materials were chosen because they signal what are generally considered to be instinctive human behaviours in contemporary life: the propensity to be productive; progress; increase status and wealth; to sell/buy/consume art and/or cultural experiences.
[2] i.e. people are all so busy, busy getting things done/moving forward—i.e. Neoliberal Capitalism sees people (apparently willingly and instinctively) pursuing individual progress narratives. The pandemic has really shown us how trapped we are by ‘busyness’. [there are obviously exceptions].
[3] Under this system, needless commodities are produced, marketed, continuously desired for economic gain and status.
[4] For example, our work lives largely determine our social relationships; nuclear families are economic units of production; people don’t (as a rule) connect with their neighbours or the environment, but rely on the instruments of Capitalism (consumerism) to survive, etc. [there are obviously exceptions].
[5] Neoliberal Capitalism encourages individuals to ‘willingly’ think entrepreneurially and feel solely responsible for their decisions and actions. What this means is that the state, and other institutional power structures, get away with not having to be responsible. This devalues collective action/activities.
Photos: Leesa Hickey, Andrea Higgins
1. Can we re-evaluate the meaning and purpose of social relationships?
2. What happens when we collectively subvert productivity to thicken time?
3. Is it possible to cede power to participants in instructional art practice (for example, artistic authorial power)? And, what happens when we do?
4. Is it possible to produce a new kind of attention to the world and the people around us?
Although 43 Minutes was conceptualised and programmed long before the global COVID-19 crisis, the timing of 43 Minutes—unfolding as it did when the reality of COVID-19 was beginning to take hold—was critical to the way it has made meaning for The KACA Projects. The pandemic has brought the world’s focus and dependence on money into sharp focus. We have watched as people have panic-hoarded toilet paper, and others have profited. The driving focus of Capitalism—and its malevolent successor, Neoliberal Capitalism—is money and profit. Under this regime, social connections that exist outside economic gain are often undervalued, even irrelevant. COVID-19 served to powerfully illustrate this—laying bare the precarity of social connections. For us, our supporters and participants, 43 Minutes revealed itself to be a powerful demonstration of possible small modes of being that are so valuable and necessary in times of adversity. Connections for which we should all uncompromisingly fight, for their existence, relevance and value.
During the opening night performance, The KACA projects formed into a production line and brutally cut, and then reverently shaped and polished the wall fragments into objects to be sold for economic gain. The brutality of the cutting became symbolic of the way social connections are being eroded by Neoliberal Capitalism (made palpable at the time of COVID-19). For this performance, we divided our activities into distinct parts to mimic a production line—which of course also signals Marx’s concept of alienation under Capitalism—a disconnection from the whole.
The KACA Projects also present as a cohesive artistic collaboration, who come together at the end of the performance to lovingly stroke the outputs of their labour. Yes, we commodified the ‘painting experience’ (and ourselves) for ‘economic gain’—an act which acknowledges and questions the group’s complicity in Neoliberal Capitalism, and also (sadly), the impossibility (even futility) of our intentions. But our sense of community—our coming together to lovingly stroke the objects—plus the community created in the ‘painting experience’ (symbolised by the way the objects are hung in association to their counterpart – the void)—suggests a hope (and a longing) that these connections will endure after the project is finished.
Sideways (After 43 Minutes) followed this project.
—————————————————————————————————
[1] These materials were chosen because they signal what are generally considered to be instinctive human behaviours in contemporary life: the propensity to be productive; progress; increase status and wealth; to sell/buy/consume art and/or cultural experiences.
[2] i.e. people are all so busy, busy getting things done/moving forward—i.e. Neoliberal Capitalism sees people (apparently willingly and instinctively) pursuing individual progress narratives. The pandemic has really shown us how trapped we are by ‘busyness’. [there are obviously exceptions].
[3] Under this system, needless commodities are produced, marketed, continuously desired for economic gain and status.
[4] For example, our work lives largely determine our social relationships; nuclear families are economic units of production; people don’t (as a rule) connect with their neighbours or the environment, but rely on the instruments of Capitalism (consumerism) to survive, etc. [there are obviously exceptions].
[5] Neoliberal Capitalism encourages individuals to ‘willingly’ think entrepreneurially and feel solely responsible for their decisions and actions. What this means is that the state, and other institutional power structures, get away with not having to be responsible. This devalues collective action/activities.
Photos: Leesa Hickey, Andrea Higgins
