Public Seminar - Performing Archives of Learning
Public Seminar – Performing Archives of Learning, 2020
Sabine Bitter & Helmut Weber
Consists of the video Public Seminar, 2020 and Public Seminar Prop, 2019, a Jacquard woven curtain, converted from an archival photography, Jacquard fabric: 73,2 × 90,6 inches / 186 × 230 cm.
Video:
“Public Seminar,” 2020
Sabine Bitter & Helmut Weber
12 min
Photographs from the 1970s, found in the archive of the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, suggest that public seminars as a form of experimental pedagogy took place in the University’s central hallway. In fall 2019, we invited students from the “Advanced Studio Class” at University of Lethbridge`s Art Department to discuss, recontextualize, and restage photographic material and architectural texts from Arthur Erickson.
Filmed in 2019 at the University of Lethbridge in partnership with Department of Art faculty members Victoria Baster, Mary Kavanagh, Don Gill, and David Miller and students from the “Advanced Studio Class”: Sydney Andres, William L. Baliko, Kylie Fineday, Katie Harmgardt, Rebecca Klein, Amy McAllister, Amber Morrison, Kyra Peake, Madison Steenhart, Michael Vanlaar as well as Samantha Newton, Kathleen Pilatzke, Christy Petty, Amber Saito, Jax Stienstra, Chrystal Toth, Gary Uchikura, Eg Varley, Austin Wohlgemuth.
Text adapted from Arthur Erickson: “The University – The New Visual Environment”, 1968
Archival material from the University of Lethbridge, provided by librarian Mike Perry
Project assistant: Kylie Fineday
Camera: Leslie Ohene-Adjei
Editing & Sound: Ralo Mayer
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
and the generous support of (former) Bundeskanzleramt, Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, Austria
The video was produced in the context of the exhibition Education Shock - Learning, Politics and Architecture in the 1960s and 1970s” curated by Tom Holert in 2021 at HKW, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.