Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Leeds : B - Design
The Frozen Academy (2008-2013)
The FA is a curatorial/conceptual collaboration between Hay & Danek exploring collaborative creativity and experimental pedagogy through traditional, digital and communications technologies to link artists from c. 30 countries in projects, networked events, performances and exhibitions created/curated by Hay & Danek.
Loosely inspired by Beuys’ Free International University, Fluxus and some aspects of Dada, Situationism, mail-art and 19th-century artists’ colonies, the project develops concepts such as Bourriaud’s ‘relational aesthetics’ and Deleuze/Guattari’s rhizomatic structures, to participate in postmodern debates on creativity, distributed authorship, the de-centred self, (and artworld), cyberspace studies, the digital/analogue divide and institutional critique, whilst exploring the (art)teacher/student relationship. Specifically, the research explores how collective creativity might be manifested and developed through networking technology (simultaneous, geographically distinct events linked by Skype) and simple digital means (Photoshop layers).
A major output, “FA: Collected Projects” (text by Hay), documents the combined outputs of Hay & Danek between 2007 (2008 for this exercise) and 2013 [Item 1].
The Prague Exhibition (‘Cose se stano v roce?’) demonstrates the curatorial, pedagogical and networked aspects [3,4,5].
Collaboration involves: research and concept generation, development, creation of individual and collaborative works, collaborative curation, textual/catalogue/website production. The research manifests itself through the curation of group projects which also include individual creations by Hay & Danek. Individual contributions by Hay/Danek vary but are 50%/50% overall.
The events, interventions, exhibitions, workshops, lectures, publications, performances, and site-specific installations have involved hundreds of artist-participants in over 30 countries, with 26 exhibitions in the UK, Czech Republic, Germany, Cyprus, France, Armenia and Bulgaria. Specific impact exists in the CZ where the work is known in all four centres of Czech art: Brno, Prague, Ostrava and Usti-nad-Laben. The ‘Homage to K.G. Hay’ featured in Brno’s “Week of Art”, celebrated 20 years of CZ/UK (specifically: Leeds/Brno) collaborations. [11]
