Rochdale College: An Exhibition and Free School

Posted: October 06, 2009

Rochdale College


An Exhibition and Free School Happening


At the University of Toronto Art Centre art lounge September 30 - October 31

Toronto - The University of Toronto Art Centre’s art lounge will host an exhibition on Rochdale College from September 30 - October 31. The exhibition does not claim to present a complete historical portrait of Rochdale, but instead prepares a historical collision in which Rochdale never stopped. The fragments of the wreckage will allow us to recontextualize Rochdale in many of its forms.

Rochdale was an experiment in education, cooperative living, and juvenocracy. In 1968, an 18-story high rise at Huron and Bloor opened its doors to Toronto’s young new radicals, ready to rethink pedagogy and redesign the institution. Rochdale was as buoyed by late sixties counterculture revolution as it was burdened by its free spirits and drug culture. By 1969, Rochdale’s population more than doubled with squatters and crashers, blurring the line between educational cooperative and flophouse.

Looking inward and looking beyond, the exhibition does not seek to judge Rochdale as a failure or a success but rather to present Rochdale as a kaleidoscope of people, activities, ambitions, distractions, ideas, and details multiplied over a course of approximately 8 years - it was communal as much as it was individualistic.

The exhibition is comprised of three main components: Artifacts, Student Art, and a series of free classes. The artifacts are borrowed from Coach House Press, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, OISE, and the basements of former residents, following the paper trail of Rochdale’s stream of consciousness. Student art, in a variety of media, draws from the spirit of Rochdale. Work is by Myra-Anne Boyle, Paul J. Kneale, Jol Thomson, Brendon O’Neill, and SPAY. Included in the student work is a bulletin board used to encourage a dialogue among participants, a nod to Rochdale’s Living Laboratory on “Bulletin Board Theory and Practice.” The classes retain Rochdale’s initial emphasis on participatory and experiential education. The classes will address a wide range of topics and will be approached through a wide range of styles, from the most activist and urgent to the most irreverent. See the schedule below.

Other events include: a DVD screening of Ron Mann’s documentary on Rochdale, /DREAM// TOWER/, co-presented by the Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students. Thursday October 8 2009, 6:30 pm. FREE.

Also: Artist’s Talk with Reena Katz: /Culture of Power and the power of Culture/. Starting with a case study from her recent art practice, Katz will lead a discussion of Edward Said’s text, and discuss the intersections and divergences of power structures between artists, publics, and cultural institutions. Thursday October 15 2009 6:30pm. FREE.

The University of Toronto Art Centre Art Lounge is located at the University of Toronto, St. George Campus, at 15 King’s College Circle. The art lounge student exhibition program aims both to encourage rigorous aesthetic exploration and to reflect the diverse practices in student visual art.

Curated by Rebecca Noone, Master of Museum Studies student at UofT, in conjuction with Sunny Kerr, Student and Education Programs Coordinator for UTAC.

Contact:

Sunny Kerr at sunny.kerr@utoronto.ca or by phone at 416-946-3029

http://www.utac.utoronto.ca/student-programs

Join our Facebook page entitled “Rochdale College”

*Free Classes Schedule*
All classes will take place in the UTAC art lounge. Please rsvp to sunny.kerr@utoronto.ca.


Tuesday October 6 1:00 p.m.

/Faux-netics & the Academic Demeanor: Practical Lessons in Name-Dropping, Hob-knobbing, & the Image of Education/

SPAY will be hosting 4 different seminars to teach you absolutely everything you will need to know in order to maintain a healthy appearance of Academia.

Why spend FOUR to FIVE LONG YEARS to get yourself a BA, or a BS?

SPAY will teach you how to teach yourself to teach people that you are, in fact, much more intelligent than everyone else in the room. After this, you'll be so cultured, yoghurt moms won't know what to do with you.
Students for the Practical Application of Youth



Wednesday October 7 1:00 p.m.

/Chance Jewelry Workshop/
Michelle Wang

This workshop combines material and the idea of chance. Chance is around us everyday touching our fate soundlessly, just like a necklace: it’s wrapped around us but with different reasons. Necklaces are round without starting point and ending point; they have personalities; they represent certain moods without the need to explain through words. Chance makes beautiful yet natural results through painting or collage, but it rarely relates to making jewelry. The class will experiment on the idea of chance and allow them to make necklaces/bracelets out of their own 'chance'.



Thursday October 8 1:00 p.m.

/THE ESOTERIC SEEKRETS OF SPAY: Advice in Creative Reading, Practical Magic, and Authoring Reality/

Students for the Practical Application of Youth
SPAY


Thursday October 8 4:30 p.m.

/Revolution/Revolution/
Denise Ryner and Ulysses Castellanos

Non-conformity and revolution are what students have brought to the classroom since the beginning of formal pedagogical systems. Old regimes and authority have always been challenged by the student. These revolutions ignited and diffused themselves in a cycle predicted by Wagner in Der Ring des Nibelungen (1874) and about a hundred years later in Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Zabriskie Point (1970). Wagner himself took part in a failed attempt at revolution with the anarchist Bakunin in Dresden in 1849 that led to his exile in Switzerland and then France where he published his revolutionary ideals in a series of treatises, the most well-known of which is Art and Revolution (1849).
Are revolutions always compromised by their ideals and how are these ideals transferred from generation to generation? Do students naturally disperse and re-absorb these revolutionary ideals through everything they do taste, smell, hear, see and touch? School’s in. How are you gonna keep it real?


Friday October 9 2:00 p.m.

/Healing the Past : Subverting History/
Maria Campos

Deconstruction Methodology collage sessions.
Bring an image that evokes a significant memory.



Tuesday October 13 1:00 p.m.

/Let The Buyer Beware: Rochdale College's Degrees (and Non-Degrees/)
Robin Simpson


Throughout its seven-year existence Rochdale College residents produced an impressive array of printed matter including posters, course calendars, weekly newsletters, and one-off novelties. Amongst this variegated output, one type of document -- the degrees (and non-degrees) -- remained steadfast right to the college's closure. This presentation re-reads the material surrounding the degrees, revealing contradictory and conflicting accounts of their usage, in turn complicating their initial satirical position.

Robin Simpson is currently pursuing graduate studies in Art History at Concordia University, Montreal. He is co-founder of Pavilion Projects, a nomadic and often symbiotic curatorial and arts service initiative (www.pavilionprojects.com).


Wednesday October 14 1:00 p.m.

UTTalk Discussion Session

/Find Your Relationship Deal-breaker/
The class will provide students with a comfortable environment to discuss matters relating to relationships and learn from each others’ opinions and experiences.

www.uttalk.com



Thursday October 15 1:00 p.m.

/from protogentic schizophrenia to contemporary subjective consciousness: the loss of god, the power of metaphor, and the feedback /loop with JoL Thomson.

Inspired by Julian Jaynes’ seminal “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of The Bicameral Mind”, along with ideas on metaphor from Jorge Luis Borges’ lectures at Harvard in 1967, this performative-lecture is an alternative-experimental form of discussing complex interrelated topics of Language, Consciousness, Communication and Time.

Participants are asked to come with an open mind, an interest in discussion, and an excerpt from their favourite poem.



Thursday October 15 6:30 p.m.
Artist’s Talk with Reena Katz


/Cultures of Power and the power of Culture/.

Edward Said proposed a reorganization of social power through the power of visual and oral cultures. What opportunities does this open up in diverse art practices? How do global digital communication and social networking technologies impact cultural work? Starting with a case study from her recent art practice, Katz will lead a discussion of Said’s text, and discuss the intersections and divergences of power structures between artists, publics and cultural institutions.



Friday October 16 2:00 p.m.

/Healing the Pas t: Subverting History II/
Maria Campos
Deconstruction Methodology collage sessions.
Bring an image that evokes a significant memory.



Tuesday October 20 1:00 p.m.

/Post-Pataphysics: Advanced Science of Imaginary Solutions and the Proliferation of Hybrid Contexts/

Students for the Practical Application of Youth
SPAY


Wednesday October 21 1:00 p.m.

/Life in the City: Moving Towards Self Sufficient Living/
Wes Allen

Ways to move towards self-sufficient living in an urban environment. Food and gardening, cooking and preserving, eating and shopping locally and ways to reduce the amount of water you use and or waste in the home.



Thursday October 22 1:00 p.m.

/It’s Why I Became a Shaman/
Brendon O’Neill

A lecture on film and drawing that includes a decent measure of self-reflexivity. Among other things, learn how to tap maple trees for syrup, build geodesic domes as well as magic boxes. Come see me.


Friday October 23 1:00 p.m.

How To Start Your Own Religion
Moonglow Lovefont


A look at the effective and ineffective methods employed by NRMs (New Religious Movements) since the 1960s, with special emphasis on several very successful and extremely unsuccessful movements (Jonestown, Moonies, Heaven's Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, ISKCON (Hare Krishnas) et al.)


Tuesday October 27 1:00 p.m.

/Questioning Answers/
Danielle Fallone

Examining the Politics that live in the Classroom and the Transformative Potential of Collaborative Anti-Hierarchical Pedagogy


Wednesday October 28 1:00 p.m.

/Art for Social Change/
Sarah Switzer

An entry point into various ways that educators facilitators and activists can use the arts as a tool for discussion and facilitation



Thursday October 29 1:00 p.m.

/Art of Conversation or: How I Learned to Love the F-Bomb/

Students for the Practical Application of Youth
SPAY

Sunny Kerr

Student and Education Program Coordinator

University of Toronto Art Centre

15 King's College Circle

Toronto, ON M5S 3H7

Telephone: 416-946-3029

http://www.utac.utoronto.ca/student-programs

/Gord Peteran: Furniture Meets Its Maker /

Organized and Circulated by the Milwaukee Art Museum

8 September - 5 December 2009

/Gord Peteran: Recent Works/

Originated by UTAC

8 September - 5 December