The Grand Domestic Revolution GOES ON, The Showroom, 12 Sep – 27 Oct 2012

Facebooktwitter
The Grand Domestic Revolution (GDR) is an ongoing ‘living research’ project initiated by Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht as a multi-faceted exploration of the domestic sphere to imagine new forms of living and working in common.

Inspired by US late nineteenth-century ‘material feminist’ movements that experimented with communal solutions to isolated domestic life and work, GDR involved artists, designers, domestic workers, architects, gardeners, activists and others to collaboratively experiment with and re-articulate the domestic sphere challenging traditional and contemporary divisions of private and public. Now GDR goes on, evolving in different scales and extensions, taken up and transformed in different cities, sites and neighbourhoods by those who desire to carry on the GDR from their own home base or by those already engaged with it in their local languages and practices.

The Grand Domestic Revolution GOES ON is realised in the framework of COHAB, a two-year project initiated by The Showroom, Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht and Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, supported by a Cooperation Measures grant from the European Commission Culture 2007-2013 Programme. It has been additionally supported by: Mondriaan Foundation, Arts Council England, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, as The Showroom’s Production Partner 2012, and The Showroom Supporters’ Scheme. Communal Knowledge is generously supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and John Lyon’s Charity.

The Grand Domestic Revolution (GDR) is an ongoing ‘living research’ project
initiated by Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht as a multi-
faceted exploration of the domestic sphere to imagine new forms of living and
working in common.

Inspired by US late nineteenth-century ‘material feminist’ movements that
experimented with communal solutions to isolated domestic life and work, GDR
involved artists, designers, domestic workers, architects, gardeners, activists
and others to collaboratively experiment with and re-articulate the domestic
sphere challenging traditional and contemporary divisions of private and
public. Now GDR goes on, evolving in different scales and extensions, taken up
and transformed in different cities, sites and neighbourhoods by those who
desire to carry on the GDR from their own home base or by those already engaged
with it in their local languages and practices.

At The Showroom an exhibition of contemporary and historical artworks and a
diverse and growing reference library will form a base for workshops and events
that will develop the GDR further, while they will forge connections and
affinities with The Showroom’s ongoing programme of neighbourhood-based
commissions – Communal Knowledge.

Exhibited works employ a wide range of methodologies to playfully problematise
domestic issues such as work at home, housing rights, property relations,
family economies, neighbourhood struggles, and range from the satirical to
social critique and activist actions. These include GDR’s cooperatively
produced sitcom, Our Autonomous Life? (2010–11); Pauline Boudry and Renata
Lorenz’s housewives’ manifesto Charming for the Revolution (2009); Rehana
Zaman’s Like an Iron Maiden Trapped Between a Rock and Hard Place (2010); and I
will not ask anything about you, you will not ask anything about me produced
by domestic workers in the Netherlands in collaboration with Matthijs de
Bruijne, and public cleaning actions by a group of cultural workers
intersecting art work and domestic work, ASK! (Actie Schone Kunsten). A new
video work by artist Joseph Williams, a member of the homeless artist
collective Seymour Arts, will be produced and presented. A full list of works
and events will be available on The Showroom’s website www.theshowroom.org.

Facebooktwitter

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

21