Until Proven

Inner Title Page

2007-04-23T10:17:00.001-07:00

Text:
The inaugural exhibition 2002

Featuring:

Amy Szostak
Emmet Dale
Idan Gavison
Lisa McConiche
Noreen Keats
Tamzin Hine
Yelena Barbalich

Art Compass
Compassion Cente
132 Tory Street
Wellington
New Zealand

Foreword

2007-04-23T10:11:00.002-07:00

In the mid part of the twentieth century, the American philosopher, John Dewey, talking of the historic cultural conditions that led to the siphoning off of the creative function into a particular class, regretted the fact that this gave:
Sanction to the cultural conditions which prevented the utilisation of the immense potentialities for the attainment of knowledge that were resident in the activities of the arts.

Much later, in 1984 in the UK, the Shelton Trust launched its Campaign for Cultural Democracy, and declared in its charter that art was an active, participatory process. It described cultural democracy in the following terms:
Let us tell the story... We believe that people have the right to create their own culture. This means taking part in the telling of the story, not having a story told of them. This story of ours... We believe that people have the right to put across their own point of view in their own particular way. This means not being told how to do this by people who don't understand it. Now listen to our story.... We believe that people should have the right to reply. This means that people should have equal access to resources to give them an equal voice. Through creative activity we interact with, gain understanding of, and change the world around us. More people have creative potential than are allowed to realise it, and more people have the right to participate meaningfully in the making and defining of their own culture than are given opportunity. Art is both process and product, and we may have concentrated for too long, not only on the ‘product’ but on particular kinds of products, made by particular kinds of people. Through more general access to 'process' we unleash the potential for products we haven't yet dreamt of, and allow the dignity of creative action to previously marginalised sections of our community.

I once wrote:
Good community arts practice is empowering and invigorating, and facilitates true participation in the process of naming, describing and affecting the world around us.
This is absolutely true in the case of Wellington’s Art Compass. Led by its director, Marcel Baaijens, it engages in a democracy of expression that respects difference, and values the previously undervalued. Baaijens, a New Zealander who has pioneered a similar project in the United States, has a profound belief in the power of art ‘to change society’s perceptions of people with intellectual disabilities’ and to allow for recognition of their ‘unique qualities and strengths’. He has put this belief into practice at Art Compass and the veracity of this belief is evident in the work that the participants have produced for this show. The term ‘Cultural Democracy’ isn’t heard much these days, but it has a resonance that crosses continents. Culture moves through, and is made by, living, breathing human beings who, be they beggar or prince, may contribute to our understanding of the world by speaking to us from their own special standpoint. Through their artwork the participants in Art Compass’s exhibition, ‘Until Proven’, are participating in a democracy that allows that they have a voice, a view, and a route to beauty and profundity through the practice of art.

Professor Sally J. Morgan

Head of School of Fine Arts
Massey University
Wellington

11 October 2002

Featured Artist 1

2007-04-23T10:11:00.001-07:00

Scream
I just want to
I do?
I do!
Just like everyone else
Love
Marriage
Flatting
Amy Szostak
Single
Promising female
“Special Star”

Featured Artist 2

2007-04-23T10:05:00.001-07:00

Lazy fields of colour
Crossing borders
Carved portals
Plowed over diagrams
Changing territory
Of
Emmet Dale

Featured Artist 3

2007-04-23T10:01:00.001-07:00

Lazy fields of colour
Crossing borders
Carved portals
Plowed over diagrams
Changing territory
Of
Idan Gavison
Free man

Featured Artist 4

2007-04-23T09:57:00.001-07:00

Lazy fields of colour
Crossing borders
Carved portals
Plowed over diagrams
Changing territory
Of
Lisa McConiche
Persevering

Featured Artist 5

2007-04-23T09:49:00.001-07:00

Wool
Tied up
Colours
Trapped inside
A knitter who does not know how to knit
Cocoons
Or handles that let us grasp?
It’s about Noreen
Noreen Keats
“You like it?”

Featured Artist 6

2007-04-23T09:18:00.001-07:00

Anthologizing
Cute
Serious
Illuminated
Picture
Postcard collection
Tracing
Tamzin Hine

Featured Artist 7

2007-04-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

Every line is connected
Moves
As a whole
Lines smother other lines as layers are built
Lines leave gaps
Reveal interior spaces
Yelena Barbalich
Works
Hours in the studio
Often more at home
Still
You get the feeling
That if you started pulling on any of her lines
The whole thing might just
Disappear

Accessing Creative Ability

2007-04-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

At times, interacting and communicating with people with intellectual impairments has been considered by some to be too challenging. The lack of interaction and communication causes segregation, alienation and misunderstandings, causing us to ignore the artistic talents of people with intellectual impairments. This, in turn, portrays people with intellectual impairments, or impaired language skills as having no intelligence, no capability to communicate at all. Society thus misses an important and unique opportunity to learn about their culture and nature.

For the most part, dominant society is responsible, either directly or indirectly, for the process of segregation and sets the conditions for possible integration. The non-impaired community often interprets the integration process as a one-way process in which the minority, the impaired community, is expected to integrate, or rather 'fit in' with the dominant culture. Such a conditional and prescriptive process of integration needs to be transformed, allowing everybody to be ‘beings-for-themselves’ rather than ‘beings-for-others’, and thus maintain their uniqueness, identity and culture. Respect for the culture of people with developmental impairments is a condition for change.
“Change can occur when we begin to accept people with developmental challenges as an integral part of our culture, while also constituting a
culture unto themselves.” (Amidei, 1995, p. 1).

Art has the ability to facilitate such an unconditional process of integration. Art, as expression of identity and culture, can guarantee the preservation of that identity and culture. Art as an alternative and parallel form of communication can facilitate necessary dialogue and interaction, without which integration is not complete. In this capacity art can play an active role, and make a positive contribution to the process of integration of people with intellectual disabilities.

Pete Liebenow, Studio Arts Manager at Little City Foundation’s ground-breaking art centre for people with intellectual disabilities in the United States, says:

“Many individuals who are labelled ‘problems’ and who had basically been given up on, and basically just forgotten about, come here and thrive, because they have been given the freedom [of choice]. We try to create an environment where they can go out, do, seek out things, ask questions, and, God forbid, question authority. . . We are trying to break down the client-staff relationship. When that relationship gets broken down, it become a relationship of peers.“ (Baaijens, 1998).

A similar relationship as described by Liebenow exists at Art Compass. The facilitation process is collaborative in nature. Facilitators critically observe how the artists present themselves through their creative process. The facilitator must be able to observe mindfully and see through cultural conditioning by dominant culture, listen beyond learned communication, and not be distracted
by behaviour adopted by those with intellectual impairments to cope in a society that has difficulty accepting difference. Collaborations happen only after intuitive cues have been taken from the artwork.

One thing that is evident when one observes the artists at Art Compass is that they are instantaneously absorbed in the process of creation when provided with art supplies. They seem to have no concern about how to use the art materials, and no hesitation about what to create. Intellectual impairment does not seem to inhibit the participants, rather, it seems to be a condition that allows the artists effortless access to their creative abilities, expressing who they are and articulating their experience of life. Art Compass welcomes you to its inaugural exhibition Until Proven which explores the creative abilities, artistic expressions, and communications of the participating artists.

Marcel Baaijens (M.A. Art Education)

Programme Director
Art Compass
Wellington

18 0ctober 2002
References

Amidei, T. (1995). We’re Nice Guys, But We Mean Business,
White Walls, a journal for language & art, 36.
Baaijens,M.F.P.J. (1998). “This Drawing Looks Intelligent”, Chicago:
Bubble Productions.
Freire, P. (1997). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (20th ed.). NY: Continuum
Henly, D.R. (1987). Art Assessment with the Handicapped: Clinical, Aesthetic
and Ethical Considerations. Art therapy. July 1987, 57-66.
Hevey, D. (1992). The creatures time forgot: photography and disability
imagery. NY: Routledge
Freire, P. (1997). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (20th ed.). NY: Continuum
Kroeber,H.R.Th., van Dongen, H.J. (1997). Mensen met een Handicap en hun
Omgeving. Baarn, The Netherlands: Nelissen B.V.
Timmermans, M. (1994). Ik ben een artiest. Nijkerk,
The Netherlands: Intro.

With Thanks To:

2007-04-01T04:06:00.000-07:00

With Thanks To:

Major Sponsor:
Suzanne Aubert Compassion Centre

Programme Sponsors

C.O.G.S.
C.L.A.N.Z.
Lotteries grants Board
Telecom New Zealand
The New Zealand Community Trust
Wellington City Council and Creative New Zealand
Apex Electrical

Catalogue Sponsors:

Exel Digital Print Ltd
Barbalich Family Investment Trust
The Stationary Warehouse
J.H. Bethune & Co Ltd Real Estate Agents
Arborea

Photography: Michael Apathy, Marcel Baaijens
Layout and Design: Michael Apathy, Marcel Baaijens
Printing: Exel Digital Print Ltd

Trustees:

Marcel Baaijens
Joan Barbalich
John Di Stefano

Progamme Director: Marcel Baaijens

Artists in residence: Marcel Baaijens, Michael Apathy
Art Compass Artists:

Amy Szostak
Emmet Dale
Idan Gavison
Lisa McConiche
Noreen Keats
Tamzin Hine
Yelena Barbalich