Site School (is Cool)
Site School (is cool) is an experimental pedagogical project for site-responsive learning that seeks to redefine understanding of art, its use-value, and its role in a community. Initiated and curated by Lana Nguyen and Sebastian Henry-Jones, the project has been developed in collaboration with local farmers and artists in the Albury-Wodonga region.
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) will facilitate a series of skill-sharing activities at the Community Farm in Wodonga, which supports over 1200 migrants from the global south, predominately from Bhutan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Over five days, local artists and farmers will host 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) locates itself parallel to the museum, across the interstate border and into the heat of the day. Here, the politics of place push against standardised timelines, and neat structures are dissolved by the need for flexible, participatory and perceptive approaches to collaboration.
Artists and farmers
Courtney Young,
Glennys Briggs,
Sonam Yangdon, James Farley, Ashe
Ganga McNamara &
Padma Ayyagari
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. Parallel Structures is the exhibition outcome of the Australian Research Council project Parallel.
For more information, please visit https://parallelstructures.art.