Gwylene Gallimard & Jean-Marie Mauclet's Page

“THE FUTURE IS ON THE TABLE”

“THE FUTURE IS ON THE TABLE” is a stream, an art stream, a river of art projects, whose tributaries will converge in Charleston SC in SEPTEMBER 2008, with sources in India, England, South Africa, Nigeria, France; the United States also, South Carolina and Charleston. Global in spirit and momentum. Not the Global of greed, financial madness, war, repression, self-censorship, individual and mass depression. Everything to do though with the new century, moved by diversity, social justice, small as beautiful, and – why not? – peace, as necessities for the well being of the world. ”THE FUTURE IS ON THE TABLE” has chosen WATER and SHELTER as focal points to assert its relevance. Each participant has been exercising the freedom, offered by the practice of art, to create original works based on various collaborations with communities or other artists.

We initiated the project began in 2003 by sending 56 handmade three-legged stools as gifts to artists around the world. The seats of the stools were cut from a single sheet of marine plywood painted with a map of the world, thus each stool represents a piece of the global community. The stools were sent with a proposal to use the arts to generate conversation about globalization and social justice issues, focused on water and shelter as basic human rights. Artists, artisans, and arts collaboratives who agreed to participate in The Future is on the Table were challenged to create an object, an installation, a performance, or other art project in response to these issues. The diverse array of projects including artists-in- residencies, workshops, stone carving, gift exchanges, and others, took place across the globe in England, France, India, South Africa, and the United States.

Beyond responding to social justice issues, The Future is on the Table embraces a belief in the importance of local communities. Its goal is to create an open dialogue around the metaphorical table referenced by the title of the project. This is a table around which local communities can gather as part of the global community to share ideas, discuss problems, and contemplate the future of our world. The purpose of The Future is on the Table is to invite people to this table and to use art as a means to create community dialogue and encourage activism.

The eight carts presented here were created specifically for this installation and were inspired by the art projects that occurred around the world. They will be dressed and fed by the artists when they come to Charleston in August and September. Museum visitors are encouraged to interact with the carts by opening doors, drawers, and compartments to discover more about the specific projects and participants - and you are also welcome to make suggestions for cart completion here!

We have a ning network for the project at http://thefutureisonthetable.ning.com/ Here are some images from the network, featuring the work of participating artists:

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We would also like to present some of our previous work:

YOU COMIN': WORLD SOCIAL FORUM

How we got involved in the Social Forums? We understand that the obligatory world "globalization", the code name for neoconservative, one-sided, one-size-fits-all, economic solutions to the world woes, is in denial of what precisely makes it what it is: its diversity. We work for full acceptance of diversity. On those bases we use community-based arts to experiment ways of collaborating across disciplines, races and social classes. Very naturally we have been developing a deep interest in the Social Forums. We want to guarantee the arts an important role in the many Social Forums taking place around the World. From "Another South is possible" (Durham - June 2006) and "Another world is possible" (Nairobi - January 2007), to "Another US is possible" (Atlanta - June 2007), we developed further two projects: * One is a video work made of very short dialogues between folks who never met before but are sharing the present experience of the Forum. Our team introduces them to each other, creates those mini-events, briefs them on the purpose of the film and centers the dialogue on two questions: Why are you here? What do you want to bring back from here? At the US Social Forum the subject of health was brought back by our partner the Healing, Health & Environmental Team of the forum itself. * The other is a textile project: an "endless" batik banner composed of words and images by Forum participants. It is dyed in indigo and other colors. You may see parts of them behind the various recorded conversations. What do those conversations bring to us? Understanding, ideas, more hope, all based on the experience of looking at you, and you, and you, in the eye. An alternative to discourse, political speech, and dialectics to surpass national identity, religion, race and to motivate others to do the same in their own communities.
Our video conversations are not a documentary of the Forums. We bring back a visual understanding of how our actions and decisions can propel personal voices and stories. We do believe in promoting personal voices without always the interference of a middleman, amediator, an interviewer or a newsman. Our ways of introducing strangers together in front of a non-invading camera is a tool maybe as a powerful in some situations as a Story Circle. As a team of artists and non-artists we wanted to be actors in the forums, not only viewers and documenters. We feel a responsibility to make those conversations accessible to their authors who may come from many countries and all walks of life. We are also looking at how we are bringing home those conversations with a world much wider than a family, much wider than a block, a neighborhood, a school, a workplace, a city, the South or our country. We want them to be meaningful by their content, the created impromptu - sometimes unimaginable - social situation, their various colors and flavors.

Filmed by Amy Cook, Gwylene Gallimard, Arianne King Comer, Jean-Marie Mauclet, Lasheia Oubre, Pamella Gibbs, Latonnya Wallace, of the CHARLESTON RHIZOME COLLECTIVE OF ALTERNATE ROOTS with Rebekah Stone.
http://www.youcomin.org

"I STILL DON'T GET IT: WHY DO THEY WANT TO BE RICH WITHOUT US?"

This project started as a memorial to a housing complex, which was demolished a few years ago. Four hundred people were forced out. For a year or so, SHOREVIEW became an empty field where a few protected live oaks were desperately trying to survive. Then a trailer appeared, the name of the area was changed to LONGBOROUGH. Construction started. Prices were advertised, starting at $85,000 per lot and $450,000 for the house. Today the site is almost entirely built. SHOREVIEW represents gentrification: total transformation of race and culture. We call that a bleaching of our neighborhood, with all the pains, burns and awful smells of overdose. Practically this project keeps the ghosts of SHOREVIEW – that is the plaster houses with pictures of the demolition and texts by the last residents - embedded into the new houses of LOHGBOROUGH. http://www.fastandfrench.org/ArtworkInstallations/getit.html#