CT-International Print Biennale 2012-2013 - Santiago de Cuba
Taller Cultural “Luis Diaz Oduardo”
Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
December 18, 2012 - January 5, 2013
Galeria Luz y oficios
Havana, Cuba
February 15 - March 15, 2013
CRAM International
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
April 2013
Taller Cultural "Luis Diaz Oduardo" and CRAM Press are co-presenting the first CT-International Print Biennale 2012-13 that invites print artists to exchange experiences, techniques, and ideas to blend perspectives and explore cultural distinctions. In partnership with Centre3 - the Print Studio in Hamilton, Ontario, an exhibition of international print artists will be presented at CRAM and other Canadian venues beginning in March, 2013. CRAM International offers information and assistance to individuals interested in traveling to Cuba for this event and/or art residencies as part of our on-going exchange program. For more information contact CRAM and visitcraminternational.ca.
CRAM International is presently organizing a shipping container with donations of art supplies, building materials, and other essential goods that will help to assist the artists in Cuba recover from recent extensive hurricane devastation. Please contact craminternational@gmail.com to discuss your interest in helping the artistas of Santiago de Cuba.
Background to Project Idea
This International Print Media Event is a natural development stemming from a 3-year series of self-financed events, residencies, exhibitions, and related exchanges between CRAM International and Taller Cultural "Luis Diaz Oduardo".
During this three-year period of collaborations it became extremely obvious that the economic realities of post-revolutionary Cuba made it virtually impossible for one of its major cultural institutions to maintain and operate its various studios and art programs. It was during this time that CRAM Press Co-Founders Alan Flint and Tobey C. Anderson were asked and encouraged to assist Taller Cultural Director Israel Tamayo Zamora in revitalizing the Taller Cultural print workshop that had been virtually unused for over 20 years.
We realized that revitalizing this studio offered many opportunities to stimulate hope, new initiatives, and the production of new art, not only for Cuban artists but artists in Canada and other countries. To begin the process to create and implement new developments for the arts community in Cuba, the key was to export a "collective curatorial" model and a form of institutional art support used in Canada to stimulate dialogue and blend with the collective model in Cuba.
Project Description
The CT-International Print Biennale 2012-13 is a pilot project designed to establish a bi-annual international print media event, co-organized and developed by Taller Cultural and CRAM International in partnership with Centre3 – the Print Studio in Hamilton, Ontario. The first formal developmental meeting for the CT-Print Biennale was held in December 2011 in Cuba at Taller Cultural.
Although the project is regionally based in Canada and Cuba, it is envisioned as a global exchange. The two country’s regional artists worked in collaboration to combine their collective models and put these plans in motion. This international artist-run collaboration has the potential to expand incrementally over the span of the next few decades.
The project draws on the experience of a specific art community. This includes those concerned with contemporary print media art practice, such as artists, administrators and critics. The project plan proposes an event that provides context to facilitate the development of a national program from a multi-national perspective.
Between the three instigators of this international project is over 100 years of experience on a "grass roots" level as: independent artists, creative directors, program managers, educators, event coordinators, collaborators, curators, consultants, advocates, and organizational project developers. The biennale draws on a much larger group, however, when the combined experience of the two artist collectives are considered.
Project Outline
The main activities of the event include artist travel, international dialogue, exhibition exchange, networking, residencies, creation, collaboration, and documentation.
Year One Target: 12 international participants from print collectives in Canada, Germany, Mexico, United States, EU, and other countries gather in Cuba for the events; publication of a catalogue and video documentation; touring an exhibition of works to venues in Cuba, Canada, and internationally in 2013; preliminary planning of 2015 biennale in Canada.
An internationally recognized print curator/artist will present the exhibition and curatorial thesis about the prints in the exhibition. The participating print studio collectives make the print selections using the “collective curatorial” model.
International print media curators and artists will introduce the events: exhibition, panel discussions, open studio sessions, workshops, demonstrations, and artist talks. The main activities of the event include artist travel and exchange.
A stand-alone project to ship donations of a printing press, equipment, materials, and art supplies to Santiago de Cuba augments and is interwoven into the CTC International Print Media Biennale 2013.
Selection and Criteria
The selection process begins with the curatorial collective model established by Cram and Taller Cultural Selection Committees and is used in guiding the decisions made to invite specific print collectives and artists to participate in the CTC International Print Biennale.
The model will be used as a template by participating collectives to assist in choosing specific artist’s works that best represent their regional membership. The “curatorial collective” model’s criteria supports a process that best reflects the interests of all participants. In this way a mandate of inclusiveness is established that ensures representation by emerging, mid-career, and established artists who are selected regardless of gender, cultural place, ethnicity, religion, intellectual methodologies, or political concerns.
This form of selection process also serves to reflect the broader goals collectively defined by all those who engage in the pursuit of expanding contemporary print media practice.
Benefits to Artists
The CTC International Print Biennale provides artists with an international forum for enriching their own professional practice. Through their involvement and partnerships, the opportunities for each artist are many and include international networking, exchange of technical knowledge through workshops, demos, and panel discussions, the value of travel and residencies between collectives and artists, and a chance to challenge and discuss the conceptual aspects of contemporary practice in print media.
The bi-annual print event is not just a technical exchange of ideas, but a new semiotic review for print media from a cross-cultural perspective.
Audience
The intended audience will be artists and collectives, the cultural community, members of art centers, students from various learning institutions, and the general public.
Bulletins will be distributed to the memberships and associated groups of various regional art centers, with press releases targeting the general public and distributed to regional and international broadcasters and print media producers the project will reach a broad audience. The event plan also includes the use of docents when providing guided tours for school groups and the public to provide educational benefits for each community.
Education and Audience
The International Print Event will publish a full color catalogue representing the participating artists with critical essays translated in French, English, and Spanish. Also included in the publication will be related activities including details about the touring print exhibition, demonstrations, and discussions.
Project documentation will also include current website information on the project's development, participating artist’s work in the exhibition, bios, video footage of events, critical essays, artist interviews, and links to other relevant sites.
Educational programming will consist of two keynote speakers to introduce the project at the opening events, school tours, local media coverage to broadcast the importance of the print event to the general public about the workshops, demonstrations, Q&A sessions, and panel discussions - all open to the general public to inform and teach them about the significance of contemporary print media and cross-cultural programming.
Education resources will include archival material in the form of video, print publications, and web access readily available to the public and various institutions such as libraries, schools, and art centers internationally.
Benefits to Audience
Visual Communication has always been an effective way for engaging an audience. Most audiences today are well-versed and stimulated through mass communication and digital culture. Each member in society finds their own way to navigate and articulate through the plethora of visual information while choosing what is meaningful to them.
This International Print Media Event is an opportunity to challenge the public’s current expectations and sense of relevant meanings between themselves, our mass culture, and fine art production. The individual print works in the exhibition are unique cross-cultural items that propose new perspectives about the ideas and experiences of contemporary life.
The benefits to the audience experiencing the exhibition and events are the challenges posed against the viewer’s own general life experiences and the prior knowledge that has constructed their sense of self identity.
Contact CRAM International
Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
December 18, 2012 - January 5, 2013
Galeria Luz y oficios
Havana, Cuba
February 15 - March 15, 2013
CRAM International
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
April 2013
Taller Cultural "Luis Diaz Oduardo" and CRAM Press are co-presenting the first CT-International Print Biennale 2012-13 that invites print artists to exchange experiences, techniques, and ideas to blend perspectives and explore cultural distinctions. In partnership with Centre3 - the Print Studio in Hamilton, Ontario, an exhibition of international print artists will be presented at CRAM and other Canadian venues beginning in March, 2013. CRAM International offers information and assistance to individuals interested in traveling to Cuba for this event and/or art residencies as part of our on-going exchange program. For more information contact CRAM and visitcraminternational.ca.
CRAM International is presently organizing a shipping container with donations of art supplies, building materials, and other essential goods that will help to assist the artists in Cuba recover from recent extensive hurricane devastation. Please contact craminternational@gmail.com to discuss your interest in helping the artistas of Santiago de Cuba.
Background to Project Idea
This International Print Media Event is a natural development stemming from a 3-year series of self-financed events, residencies, exhibitions, and related exchanges between CRAM International and Taller Cultural "Luis Diaz Oduardo".
During this three-year period of collaborations it became extremely obvious that the economic realities of post-revolutionary Cuba made it virtually impossible for one of its major cultural institutions to maintain and operate its various studios and art programs. It was during this time that CRAM Press Co-Founders Alan Flint and Tobey C. Anderson were asked and encouraged to assist Taller Cultural Director Israel Tamayo Zamora in revitalizing the Taller Cultural print workshop that had been virtually unused for over 20 years.
We realized that revitalizing this studio offered many opportunities to stimulate hope, new initiatives, and the production of new art, not only for Cuban artists but artists in Canada and other countries. To begin the process to create and implement new developments for the arts community in Cuba, the key was to export a "collective curatorial" model and a form of institutional art support used in Canada to stimulate dialogue and blend with the collective model in Cuba.
Project Description
The CT-International Print Biennale 2012-13 is a pilot project designed to establish a bi-annual international print media event, co-organized and developed by Taller Cultural and CRAM International in partnership with Centre3 – the Print Studio in Hamilton, Ontario. The first formal developmental meeting for the CT-Print Biennale was held in December 2011 in Cuba at Taller Cultural.
Although the project is regionally based in Canada and Cuba, it is envisioned as a global exchange. The two country’s regional artists worked in collaboration to combine their collective models and put these plans in motion. This international artist-run collaboration has the potential to expand incrementally over the span of the next few decades.
The project draws on the experience of a specific art community. This includes those concerned with contemporary print media art practice, such as artists, administrators and critics. The project plan proposes an event that provides context to facilitate the development of a national program from a multi-national perspective.
Between the three instigators of this international project is over 100 years of experience on a "grass roots" level as: independent artists, creative directors, program managers, educators, event coordinators, collaborators, curators, consultants, advocates, and organizational project developers. The biennale draws on a much larger group, however, when the combined experience of the two artist collectives are considered.
Project Outline
The main activities of the event include artist travel, international dialogue, exhibition exchange, networking, residencies, creation, collaboration, and documentation.
Year One Target: 12 international participants from print collectives in Canada, Germany, Mexico, United States, EU, and other countries gather in Cuba for the events; publication of a catalogue and video documentation; touring an exhibition of works to venues in Cuba, Canada, and internationally in 2013; preliminary planning of 2015 biennale in Canada.
An internationally recognized print curator/artist will present the exhibition and curatorial thesis about the prints in the exhibition. The participating print studio collectives make the print selections using the “collective curatorial” model.
International print media curators and artists will introduce the events: exhibition, panel discussions, open studio sessions, workshops, demonstrations, and artist talks. The main activities of the event include artist travel and exchange.
A stand-alone project to ship donations of a printing press, equipment, materials, and art supplies to Santiago de Cuba augments and is interwoven into the CTC International Print Media Biennale 2013.
Selection and Criteria
The selection process begins with the curatorial collective model established by Cram and Taller Cultural Selection Committees and is used in guiding the decisions made to invite specific print collectives and artists to participate in the CTC International Print Biennale.
The model will be used as a template by participating collectives to assist in choosing specific artist’s works that best represent their regional membership. The “curatorial collective” model’s criteria supports a process that best reflects the interests of all participants. In this way a mandate of inclusiveness is established that ensures representation by emerging, mid-career, and established artists who are selected regardless of gender, cultural place, ethnicity, religion, intellectual methodologies, or political concerns.
This form of selection process also serves to reflect the broader goals collectively defined by all those who engage in the pursuit of expanding contemporary print media practice.
Benefits to Artists
The CTC International Print Biennale provides artists with an international forum for enriching their own professional practice. Through their involvement and partnerships, the opportunities for each artist are many and include international networking, exchange of technical knowledge through workshops, demos, and panel discussions, the value of travel and residencies between collectives and artists, and a chance to challenge and discuss the conceptual aspects of contemporary practice in print media.
The bi-annual print event is not just a technical exchange of ideas, but a new semiotic review for print media from a cross-cultural perspective.
Audience
The intended audience will be artists and collectives, the cultural community, members of art centers, students from various learning institutions, and the general public.
Bulletins will be distributed to the memberships and associated groups of various regional art centers, with press releases targeting the general public and distributed to regional and international broadcasters and print media producers the project will reach a broad audience. The event plan also includes the use of docents when providing guided tours for school groups and the public to provide educational benefits for each community.
Education and Audience
The International Print Event will publish a full color catalogue representing the participating artists with critical essays translated in French, English, and Spanish. Also included in the publication will be related activities including details about the touring print exhibition, demonstrations, and discussions.
Project documentation will also include current website information on the project's development, participating artist’s work in the exhibition, bios, video footage of events, critical essays, artist interviews, and links to other relevant sites.
Educational programming will consist of two keynote speakers to introduce the project at the opening events, school tours, local media coverage to broadcast the importance of the print event to the general public about the workshops, demonstrations, Q&A sessions, and panel discussions - all open to the general public to inform and teach them about the significance of contemporary print media and cross-cultural programming.
Education resources will include archival material in the form of video, print publications, and web access readily available to the public and various institutions such as libraries, schools, and art centers internationally.
Benefits to Audience
Visual Communication has always been an effective way for engaging an audience. Most audiences today are well-versed and stimulated through mass communication and digital culture. Each member in society finds their own way to navigate and articulate through the plethora of visual information while choosing what is meaningful to them.
This International Print Media Event is an opportunity to challenge the public’s current expectations and sense of relevant meanings between themselves, our mass culture, and fine art production. The individual print works in the exhibition are unique cross-cultural items that propose new perspectives about the ideas and experiences of contemporary life.
The benefits to the audience experiencing the exhibition and events are the challenges posed against the viewer’s own general life experiences and the prior knowledge that has constructed their sense of self identity.
Contact CRAM International
