Founder and Director of One-sided Story
HISTORY
The “One-sided Story” was a unique residency project, located in Leipzig, Germany, in the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei, http://www.spinnerei.de, under the sponsorship of the non-profit international art organization, Halle 14.
This project brought together 38 emerging and mid-career artists principally from the Croatian Association of Artists, http://www.hdlu.hr, and the Alumni Association of the New York Academy of Art, http://www.nyaa.edu, as well as additional special guest artists internationally. This thematic exhibition-focused residency program was housed in a 243 square meter atelier in Halle 14. Five to ten artists were invited at a time, to work for 1 to 9 months in the same space, fostering communication and collaboration.
The program encouraged exchange and stimulated discussion within the studio setting and visual cohesion and conceptual dynamism within the curated exhibitions . The project, by design, ran for only one year, the residency beginning on April 28th, 2012, during the Spring Rundgang. All of the participating artists exhibited during the Spinnerei Rundgangs, which takes place three times a year, in the spring, autumn, and winter, http://spinnereigalerien.de/rundgang/. A year-end publication featured all 38 artists and selected works of both OSS artists and Leipzig artists were shown in Zagreb, Croatia, at a museum exhibition at the Meštrovićev paviljon, home of the HDLU.
MISSION
“One-sided story” is about flipping and opening perspective, seeking truth that may not suit you, and being aware of the peripheral. The philosopher and humanitarian, John Stuart Mill taught that to understand an issue it is necessary to learn the arguments on both sides equally well. There are two sides or even multiple sides to every story, especially in our globalized world, but we often only pay attention to one side, our side. There are in numerous truths borne out of each life experience which is essential to establishing identity, but which truth has more validity, the common one or the seemingly outrageous, and doesn’t the time in which we perceive an idea shade its meaning or bring it to light, make it discernible or innocuous, make it efficacious in that moment and inconceivable in the next. History in other words is not linear but an ever moving and mutating story, as time passes new versions discredit the previous. Mill wrote, “If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” So we’re talking about whether the quantitative significance of the mass versus the individual is tantamount, arbitrary, or preeminent. The media, governments, nations, individuals often only see the side of the story that suits their needs and desires and often propagate this single perspective, isolating their own view of the world. The nature of artist residencies when based in a group dynamic is not just about the solitary time spent, uninterrupted by your daily lifestyle, to focus on your art, but is most importantly about the knowledge that you gain from the artists and place you’re surrounded by. You may not have a direct connection with someone but being in the same space as their work still makes a mark on your tableau, whether as something you consciously or subconsciously accept or reject. Bringing together disparate groups that come from very different art education and cultures for that matter, such as the highly conceptual based artistic philosophies of the Croatians and the academic approach of the Americans is putting two sides into one space.
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