Relive the inspiring, thought provoking and creative projects hosted by the Cooper Gallery at DJCAD during 2023. This snapshot reveals some of what happened in a year when ‘our hearts and minds are enthused by potential and possibility, our eyes marvel at the inspirational light of everyone we have learnt from and worked with during this exceptional year, marked by solidarity born of sorrow.’
The Gallery hosted exhibitions such as Harun Farocki’s Consider Labour, a non-narrative film project which questioned the technical, aesthetic and political conditions of making labour visible.
Antje Ehmann and Harun Farocki with participating filmmakers, Labour in a Single Shot, 2012–2014. Installation view Cooper Gallery 2023. Photo by Sally Jubb.
There were also workshops, discussion groups, screenings and live performances.
Some Women Other Women and all the Bittermen | Screening & Discussion between filmmaker Rehana Zaman and founder of The Voice of Domestic Workers campaigner Marissa Begonia. Pictured: Marissa speaking in Rehana’s film.
In the summer the internationally renowned contemporary art festival Art Night came to Dundee with new commissions at venues across the City including a video installation in the Gallery by Heather Phillipson.
Heather Phillipson, Dream Land, 2023. Installation view Cooper Gallery. Photo by Sally Jubb.
The Ignorant Art School returned in the winter with the Otolith Group presenting their exhibition But There Are New Suns for Sit-in #3.
The Otolith Group, …But There Are New Suns, 2023. Installation view Cooper Gallery, DJCAD.
Photo by Sally Jubb.
The Ignorant Art School has also initiated a research group which explores intersections of alternative art pedagogy and new forms of collaborative curatorial agency.
Practising Duets #2. Online presentation by Gudksul, November 2023
What I am Reading Now continued throughout the year with contributions from artists, educators, writers, translators and a DJ sharing insights into their current reading.
Finally there is plenty to look forward to in 2024 starting with The Scale of Things an exhibition of three moving images works by Grace Ndiritu, Saodat Ismailova and Margaret Tait which consider relations between humans and non-humans forming an exploration through history, intimacy and spirituality. The exhibition is co-curated with Prof. Sarah Perks (Teesside University) and runs from 26 January to 6 April 2024.
Grace Ndiritu, Becoming Plant, 2022 (film still)
Click here for many more highlights of 2023.