Starting Friday morning and running through Sunday night, Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice MFA program is hosting Open Engagement— a free-to-all, multi-location conference focusing on “democracy, group work, the boundary (or lack there of) between art and life, education, and transdisciplinarity.”
Not gonna lie, it’s unclear as to what will be said about these subjects, but the featured presenters sound interesting: Fritz Haeg converts out-of-use spaces into gardens in his Edible Estates series, fabricates multi-species houses in Animal Estates, and hosts Sundown Salon happenings in his geodesic dome (no, really— geodesic dome!); Julie Ault co-founded Group Material, the arts collaborative designed in 1979 to address pedagogic shortcomings in arts education, distribution, and exhibition; Pablo Helguera, among many offerings, is know for The Panamerican School of Unrest, a public art project that traveled from Alaska to Argentina presenting multidisciplinary programming in order to court collaboration between regions; and rounding off the featured presenters, the Bruce High Quality Foundation University is a non-accredited university for folks who want to go to art school but don’t like the idea of eternal student loans.
Additionally, there’s a massive list of non-featured contributors, and the Open Engagement schedule can be found right here. Remember, things kick off Friday (THE 13TH!!!) at 9 am. See the Open Engagement website for locations, times, and other bits of relevant info.