White Box Gallery, University of Oregon, Fall 2012
Collaboration is often applauded for attributes of cooperation and consensus building, yet in practice teamwork can devolve into an irritant, challenging an individual’s creative voice through compromise, concession, and even capitulation. This project, 6/one, isstructured to investigate the inherent complexity of six people uniting to create a whole, while maintaining their unique voice. No mission statement was written and no shared vision was developed; rather, six competent and confident makers/thinkers, innately familiar as well as trusting of each other’s practice and work, joined forces around the opportunity of utilizing White Box to demonstrate a shared interest regarding the conversion of materials into form and meaning—creating a whole from disparate parts.
The exhibition, 6/one, is not curated or designed. It strives to demonstrate the complexity of conversations, especially dynamic dialogs among six individuals with very unique views and goals. The differences are a strength; all six individuals respect, appreciate, and rely on one another to work towards an effective exhibition of complicated ideas. The individual objects and images created for the exhibition establish clear associations while obfuscating others, buffeting against one another and perpetuating changing alliances. 6/one is a brief incarnation of a continual dialog with little regard to stasis through static conversations or objects.
Collaborators: Dan Anderson, Karl Burkheimer, Ben Ediger, Chris Held, Todd Isaacs, & Josh Smith
Photos: Mark Stein
