Par Course A, B, & C

With Taisha Paggett

“Par Course A,” “B” and “C,” a body of choreographic sculptures and installations organized as “par course” outdoor exercise trails. Drawn from the collaboration between taisha paggett and Ashley Hunt that goes by “On Movement, Thought and Politics,” these works — which require completion by a viewer — attempt to challenge cultural presumptions of an inherent split between the body and mind, approaching both as overlapped and entangled, with locations of multiple registers of intelligence, representation and action. Often developed in dialogue with a community group or a constituency drawn from a local institution or organization, workshops are structured to in turn generate source material for the worksand different degrees of collaboration, based upon the participants’ interest.

Iterations:

Par Course A (Sea and Space Explorations, Los Angeles, 2010)

Developed for their contribution to a performance program curated by Asher Hartman and Carol McDowell, positioning the viewer as the performer who “completes” a series of artworks, set up as an exercise circuit and “par course.”  Following previous iterations of a workshop held on movement, thought and politics, developed originally during a residency at BAK in Utrecht, Netherlands, the form of the par course became a way to offer the workshop without the artists being present.

 

Par Course B (Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, 2012)

Developed through workshops and dialogue with members of Hyde Park Art Center’s Youth Art Board, taking up the question “What is the labor of community?”

 

Par Course C (Cypress College Art Gallery, Cypress, California, 2013)

Developed through workshops and dialogue with members of the campus Veterans’ Resource Center, who’s recollections of the physical and mental training to transform someone from individual citizen to soldier served as primary motifs and concepts for the work’s development. A part of the exhibition, “Within,” curated by Chloë Flores.

 

 

 

 

taisha paggett &&& project website &&& On Movement, Thought and Politics