Unlearning Practices
Programmed Art Residency
Artscape Gibraltar Point, Toronto Island
Facilitators: Zoe Kreye and Catherine Grau

Program Dates: June 1 to June 14, 2015
Submission Deadline: March 31st
Cost including taxes in CAD: $1115 (private bedroom) or $850 (shared bedroom).
Includes: 2-weeks accommodation, large shared studio, facilitation, and final event.

Unlearning Practices Residency is a two week facilitated exploration of other ways of knowing and being. Unlearning is an active practice of de-conditioning our bodies and minds – and researching through embodiment and expanding our ability to feel. Drawing from years of research in the fields of somatic practices, performance art, alternative pedagogy, social justice and eco-feminist philosophy, Unlearning Practices will facilitate both personal and shared explorations of how to re-wild inner landscapes and open up our senses and perception to the living world around us. On the natural setting of Toronto Island, the residency will be structured as a creative workshop retreat, offering daily facilitated exercises, hands-on tools and resources for individual exploration, embodied research methods, individual studio time, communal meals, and the opportunity to collaboratively produce a final event. For anyone working with embodiment, performance art, dance, alternative pedagogy, land art, social justice, healing, or simply craving to realign through creative processes – this residency will offer the space and tools to nourish and regenerate yourself while opening up to new sources of inspiration. There is more to life than we know!

Artscape Gibraltar Point (AGP) is an artist retreat nestled against the magnificent natural backdrop of Toronto Island. It offers rich potential for the creation of artworks amongst its blue-flag beaches and natural surroundings of Lake Ontario, forests and gardens filled with flowers, fruit and vegetables. On the island, there are tiny quaint homes, a historic lighthouse, a hobby farm and antique carnival grounds. Cozy up in a furnished studio and bedroom, and enjoy amenities such as a fully equipped common kitchen, shared bathrooms, laundry facilities and free wireless Internet. AGP is barrier free and an inclusive environment. The Toronto city core is just a 15-minute ferry ride away!

Facilitators:
Zoe Kreye and Catherine Grau have been collaborating as artists on the theme of unlearning for over six years. They have accumulated a repertoire of tools, exercises, methods and approaches and their art practice can be understood as a living unlearning environment: looking for new ways of activating perception and finding perspectives that enable creative criticality. Interested in invisible and often dismissed forms of learning, they use performativity, play and ceremony as way to counter the overly rational, exploitative, neo-liberal and patriarchal systems we exist within. Their projects are process-based and participatory, often inviting the public into sensorial performances, walks, processions and workshops. Their collaboration has recently evolved from looking to reclaim and activate contested public space to digging deeper into the fabric on the human condition and creative acts of healing. Recent projects and exhibitions include: Measures for Saving the World #5 - Center for Contemporary Art, Graz AU; Unlearning Retreat for FOReCAST - Responsive Art in the Public Realm, ADRIART (International Master Study Program in Contemporary Arts), Graz AU; Collective Walks / Spaces of Contestation - Unit/PITT Gallery, Vancouver CA; Unlearning Weekenders - Goethe Satellite, Vancouver CA; How to Walk Together - {HotelMariaKapel} Resdiency, Hoorn NL; Collective Tasks for Überlebenskunst - Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin DE. For more information on the Facilitators visit: zoekreye.com and catherinegrau.tumblr.com.

Unlearning Practices Residency is limited to 13 residents selected through an application process. The cost for the two weeks including taxes is $1115 for private accommodation, or $850 for a shared room. The fee includes private sleeping quarters, large shared studio, facilitation, workshops, and final event. Arrivals are on June 1 after 1pm and before 3pm, and departure on June 14 before 11am. For more information about submissions, facilities and the Artscape program, contact Teresa Ascencao at: info@residencycoordinator.com. For more information about the Unlearning Practices Residency, contact Zoe and Catherine at: unlearningweekenders@gmail.com. Submissions are accepted until March 31st.

To apply, fill out the online form here. Please include your website or a drop box link with images of your work. http://artscape.wufoo.eu/forms/online-application-for-artscape-gibraltar-point/