REHEARSING DISAGREEMENT

Rehearsing Disagreement, in collaboration with Justin Langlois, was originally commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto for the year-long program, Art in Use, which asks: Can art motivate social, political and cultural change? What meaningful role does art play in our lives? How can we use it as a tool?

Art in Use has been conceived in conversation with artist Tania Bruguera, the Association of Useful Art and local and international artists. An online platform of socially engaged forms of artistic practice collated by this association can be found at www.arte-util.org.

Rehearsing Disagreement was the first Art in Use project and was a set of participatory works. The installation investigates ways to explore disagreement and conflict through the lens of art within the structure of a museum. While agreement and harmony might describe an imaginary, ideal space, it also undervalues our lived experiences and the positive effects of difference.

Through this series of new works that include a seesaw and a dartboard, we invited moments of gathering and exchange around disagreement. The work presents the argument that co-existing in difference is a generative part of our civic responsibility that can be explored together.

*photos by Toni Hafkenscheid