Contested Site : Archives and the City (les cahiers)

"Contested Site: Archives and the City is a peer-reviewed exhibition constructed as a complementary discursive engagement with the Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC) conference being hosted by Concordia University this fall. The exhibition highlights the emerging phenomenon of research/creation, which is redefining institutions, pedagogy, funding agencies and artistic practice in a reflexive manner, as perhaps a contested site itself. The parallels and distinctions between artists’ practices and the responsive fields that surround them are complex, due in part to the differing valuation afforded to each. The works on offer here are primary documents that do not illustrate or expand upon rhetorical concerns, but instead call to the imagination and set in motion experience as indivisible from thought. The exhibition framework is discursive, laying bare the networks, individuals, and communities that collectively construct the perceived whole, while concurrently amplifying the distinct methodologies and media required to do so. To this end, the exhibition is comprised of three distinct methods of publication—gallery exhibition, resource centre, and a boxed set of publications titled, LES CAHiERS. The three sites have been employed as a method of recognizing distinctions within and between practices, and the media specificity of each terrain. While the academic language supporting equivalency within research/creation exists, the site in this expanded field is still one of persistent negotiation" -- verso of box set container.