Site School (is cool)
Site School (is cool) was an experimental pedagogical project for site-responsive learning that sought to redefine understandings of art, its use-value, and its role in a community. Initiated and curated by Lana Nguyen and Sebastian Henry-Jones, the project was developed in collaboration with local farmers and artists in the Albury-Wodonga region.
Site School (is rule) asked: can the museum have a more sustainable and reciprocal relationship with the cultures from which it collects and is enmeshed within? Where and when does the museum see its limits if we expand its responsibility of care beyond art objects? Can its preservation practices be extended to and repurposed for living processes?
Seeking to be responsive to the socio-political context of the Albury-Wodonga region, including its designation as a humanitarian settlement site, Site School (is plentiful) facilitated a series of skill-sharing activities at the Community Farm in Wodonga, which supported over 1200 migrants from the global south, predominately from Bhutan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Over five days, local artists and farmers hosted workshops spanning meditation, cooking, composting, breadmaking and printmaking, developing relationships across practices and disciplines to foster an embodied, situated, reflective connection with place. Site School (is tool) located itself parallel to the museum, across the interstate border and into the heat of the day. Here, the politics of place pushed against standardised timelines, and neat structures were dissolved by the need for flexible, participatory and perceptive approaches to collaboration.
Photos by James Farley
Artists and farmers:
Glennys Briggs
Sonam Yangdon
Ashe
Ganga McNamara
Padma Ayyagari
James Farley
Courtney Young
Janet Nyirasafari
Fabrice Rucubya
Mwendambali Chirimwami
Dinesh Rai
Tilak Chhettri
Harka Bista
Phurba Sherpa
Sadz Eclarin
Site School (is cool) is commissioned as part of the curatorial program Parallel Structures (2023-2024), led by Verónica Tello (UNSW Art & Design) and Salote Tawale (Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney) in collaboration with the Murray Art Museum Albury as the exhibition outcome of an Australian Research Council project.
For more, go here:
https://parallelstructures.art
https://sertorilau.net/projects/exhibitiondesign-siteschool
https://www.jamestfarley.com/community-education/site-school-is-cool