Never The Same

Summer Symposium on Grassroots Archiving

Tucker — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:19:30 +0000

Never The Same
and the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry are hosting a

SUMMER SYMPOSIUM ON
GRASSROOTS ARCHIVING

Friday June 7th, 2013
1pm-6:30pm

Location:
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago
915 E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637

1-3pm Panel with:

Karen Stanworth (Toronto) Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives
Chaitra Powell (Los Angeles) Mayme A. Clayton Museum & Library
Josh MacPhee (Brooklyn) Interference Archive

3:15-5:15pm Show-N-Tell
Unfurling of Never The Same Archives

5:30-6:30pm Local archiving roundtable with representatives from:

http://never-the-same.org/ | neverthesamechicago@gmail.com
http://graycenter.uchicago.edu/

This event is free but please RSVP to Mike Schuh, Gray Center Program Assistant at mikes1@uchicago.edu

See the invite on Facebook

Summer Seminar – Call for Participation

Tucker — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 16:20:21 +0000

Nicole Garneau’s Heat 05 project featured on never-the-same.org

The Gray Center Invites Applicants for:

Never The Same: Summer Seminar On Chicago Socially and Politically Engaged Art Histories

To be held in three parts throughout July 2013 in Hyde Park (Chicago, USA)

Instructors: Daniel Tucker and Rebecca Zorach

Apply by: March 20, 2013 Tuition: Free

SEMINAR DESCRIPTION: This class explores Chicago’s rich socially and politically engaged art histories through reading and discussion of primary and secondary texts, deep engagement with archival materials and interviews that are part of the Never The Same archive and oral history project, and independent research conducted by the students. Students will gain a basic understanding of the history of these art forms in Chicago, discuss the theoretical and political questions that have been interwoven with art practices here over the past 50 years, collaborate with one another on new tools for analyzing, interpreting, and presenting this history, and develop independent or small group projects in art practice, curatorial work, and/or research. The class includes site visits and guest presentations, including artists who will be part of Never The Same’s October 2013 exhibition. Students will have opportunities to contribute to the exhibition, including the availability of a small budget.

The class is scheduled with two intensive seminar/ laboratory phases and one long independent research and production phase (during which we meet weekly as a group). We invite applications from practitioners and students of art, art history, activism, archival science, and related fields. Anyone may apply regardless of enrollment in an institution of higher learning. Willingness and ability to work independently is required.

To apply please send an email to neverthesamechicago@ gmail.com with a statement (no more than 400 words) on your interest in researching socially and politically engaged art in Chicago, mentioning whether you would be coming from outside Chicago and/or hope to receive college credit (which may be arranged on a case-by-case basis).

Never The Same is organized by Daniel Tucker and Rebecca Zorach. Funding has been provided by the Propeller Fund, Mellon Fellowship for Arts Practice and Scholarship, and the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago.

Download the flier for spreading the word!

Fall 2012 Update: 10 New Interviews and “5 Questions about Art” Project

Tucker — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:09:53 +0000

Last year we launched Never The Same: Conversations About Art Transforming Politics & Community in Chicago & Beyond with 10 interviews and this year we are giving you 10 more and a bunch more news and developments!

10 New Interviews!
Barbara Jones Hogu (Coming Soon)
Estelle Carol
Joanna Brown and Mark Freitas (Homocore Chicago)
Laura Shaeffer
Nicole Garneau
Pemon Rami
Penelope Rosemont
Salome Chasnoff
Terri Kapsalis
Turtel Onli

++PLUS++
5 Questions About Socially Engaged Art in Chicago has been relaunched on NTS: http://never-the-same.org/5-questions/
5 Questions was a project initiated in 2008 with Creative Time and AREA Chicago, organized by Daniel Tucker and Nato Thompson with editing support from Abigail Satinsky and Mairead Case. As AREA shifts to a new web design it made more sense to bring this content over to NTS because it is the direct precursor to what we are doing today. Go online and check out interviews with: Mike Bancroft, Wafaa Bilal, Sara Black, Brett Bloom, Aquil Charlton, Salome Chasnoff, Marianne Fairbanks, Edra Soto Fernandez, Nicole Garneau, Theaster Gates, Amanda Gutierrez, Craig Harshaw, David Isaacson, Jennifer Karmin, Nance Klehm, Demetrio Maguigad, Edmar and Rachel Marszewski, Mark Messing, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Sonjanita Moore, Laurie Palmer, Amy Partridge, Mary Patten, Coya Paz, Dan Peterman, Jon Pounds, Aay Preston-Myint, Toufic El Rassi, Laurie Jo Reynolds, Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa, Deborah Stratman, Shannon Stratton, Brad Thomson, travis, Dan S. Wang, and Rebecca Zorach.

In Memory
Our friend and one of the first people interviewed for NTS back in the spring of 2011, Dara Greenwald, passed away in February. We are better for having known her and feel honored to have gotten to record some of her brilliant words and insights.

Reproductions
+ Because NTS is currently an online project, we are excited to reprint and repurpose some of the interviews Excerpts of NTS interviews with Wadsworth and Jae Jarrell, Jorge Felix, Nicole Garneau, Dara Greenwald, Ladyfest Midwest, and Aaron Hughes were included in AREA Chicago #12 in a two page spread called “Coming Together” that dealt with various histories of using art projects to bring disparate communities in Chicago together.

+ The entire Homocore Chicago interview from NTS with Joanna Brown and Mark Freitas was reprinted in Landline Quarterly #3.

Press
NTS has received some great press in the last year including a write-up in Chicago Art Magazine and an extensive interview on Bad At Sports podcast episode #356.

The NTS Archive
Check out the materials we are currently housing in our Logan Square offices at http://never-the-same.org/chicago-ephemera-archive/ and look forward to a dramatic expansion of this collection next spring and summer as we focus more attention on the archive.

Online Reference Section
For your reading pleasure we have begun compiling articles and books related to art in Chicago here http://never-the-same.org/further-reading/. If you have any articles or books you think should be adding to these reading lists, please send them our way.

Future
We are currently planning for 2013 to be a year of more interviews, a formalization of our archive, AND a seminar, symposium, exhibition and a series of show-n-tell events with the archival materials. More on that soon!

Contact Us
Daniel Tucker and Rebecca Zorach neverthesamechicago@gmail.com
+ Like us on Facebook
+ Visit us online at never-the-same.org

First Round of Interviews Are Up!

Tucker — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:30:37 +0000

Announcing:
Never the Same: Conversations About Art Transforming Politics & Community in Chicago & BeyondNow online at never-the-same.org

Never the Same’s web project has launched with an initial publication of ten interviews (with Kelan Phil Cohran, Jorge Felix, Emily Forman and Josh MacPhee, Dara Greenwald, Aaron Hughes, Jae and Wadsworth Jarrell, Mary Jane Jacob, Ladyfest Midwest, Patric McCoy, and Christina Obregón and Jose David).

The ten conversations, transcribed and edited and presented with short video clips and related images, span generations of Chicago artists and organizers representing many different communities and neighborhoods and a range of media.

“We were pretty focused. Maybe not politically, but in terms of what we were trying to—we were going to do dance routines.” (Dara Greenwald)

“So we weren’t that far apart, except that they came about through violence and I came about through enlightenment. But we were on the same path with the same purpose.” (Cohran)
“As diverse a city as Chicago is, there are a lot of divisions in it, and I think we have an acute awareness of that, maybe some of us more than others, at the time, because there were some of us who were very new to the city, but I think our political mindset was to make sure that it was inclusive, culturally and medium-wise, and on all fronts.” (Ladyfest)
“The school of thought that is common in the United States is capitalist and individualistic, ‘what am I going to get out of it?’ Our school of thought is different. We don’t think about those things. We do things because they’re things that are necessary. We feel like this is what I want to do.” (Christina Obregón and Jose David)
“It needs space for things to be abstract and for things to not fit” (Aaron Hughes)

“When you saw our black families together it was a community within a room, just like that, and it had a very powerful impact.” (Jarrells)

Never the Same documents how art can create political, personal, and and social change. This collection of materials, both digital and material, provides tools for reflection, discussion, and research on this topic, specifically in the context of Chicago’s rich history of socially and politically engaged art practices. Along with interviews, the project includes a physical archive of related books, graphics, and ephemera that will be viewable by appointment. Donations of archival materials that fall within the topic area will be accepted.Contact Organizers Daniel Tucker & Rebecca Zorach: neverthesamechicago@gmail.com

Welcome

Tucker — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:53:08 +0000

Never The Same will be an online and print publication featuring interviews with artists and art audiences about projects in Chicago that combined art, politics and community in a potent mix that truly changed their lives. The goal of this project is to develop a language for discussing the impact of socially and politically engaged art practices in a way that integrated external effect with internal effect. The project will be launched in the Summer of 2011. See the About section for more information.