Today we're in Oakland, California,
in the studio of Allison Smith.
She makes performative sculptures and public events
that look into historical reenactment and the ways
that the past can inform the present.
And past works have seen her create and tour around
a life size sculpture of herself as a 19th century notion nanny
doll, and more recently, apprentice herself
to a traditional rope tension drum company
to explore its history and present as a communication
device.
She also created a remarkable series of public events
from 2004 to 2006 inspired by the tradition of Civil War
reenactment called "The Muster," for which she put out
a call for participants to declare their causes,
and provided a platform for them to do so.
Allison harnesses the skills of the many artisans she works
with to think about the connections between craft
and war and the way nationalism is performed and made visible.
Hi.
I'm Allison Smith, and this is your art assignment.
I think my practice sort of ebbs and flows
from really public participatory projects
to very private kind of studio work.
And most recently I've been in a phase
of kind of quiet, private studio practice.
In 2004, I had this idea to organize
my own version of a large scale Civil War battle, um, of sorts.
But instead of reenacting a battle that, that had already
taken place or pitting two sides against each other,
I decided to organize it, uh, as a muster.
It's a military term meaning a gathering
of troops for the purposes of inspection, critique, exercise
and display.
And I love the idea that I could try
to do a project that could be all of those things.
I decided to organize the muster around a question which
is, what are you fighting for?
Around the time of this project, I
was really inspired by an exhibition
I had seen at Sotheby's of early American militia gear.
And I was so surprised at the uniforms in this exhibition.
It was, you know, pink flamingo plumes and, um,
beaver hats and, uh, cheetah skin saddles,
and just this really eccentric stuff
that was the utter opposite of camouflage.
And I got really interested in this idea
of the amateur citizen soldier kind of eccentrically,
you know, getting up and proclaiming something
that, that they were fighting for,
which is very different than this idea of, um,
a uniform signifying something that unifies everyone
into a single identity.
So I, uh, I would say I'm more interested in that kind
of personal flare or, you know, um, flamboyance,
that one might have to express their cause.
What are you fighting for?
Your assignment is to fashion your own uniform out
of whatever materials you have at hand.
And to take a picture of yourself
in front of a neutral background and to send
that in along with a declaration of your cause,
which can be as simple as one line or one sentence
and as elaborate as a full-on manifesto.
John, I loved Allison's original muster project.
But I'm really curious to see how
it's going to work now 10 years later within the context
of the internet.
Yeah.
And I-- the internet is so, uh, reactionary a lot of times--
Yeah.
---in its opinions.
Like, it's a reaction to a celebrity downfall,
or you have an opinion that's a reaction to a news story.
What I really love about this assignment
is that it makes you declare what you're for instead of just
what you're against.
Right, which is difficult for people on the internet
sometimes.
Yeah.
But there's a long history of art intersecting with activism.
You can think all the way back to, say, Delacroix's "Liberty
Leading the People."
Yes, in which liberty led the people right back to tyranny
in the form of Napoleon, but, but go on.
Well, but they were for the French Revolution at the time.
Um, or you--
It didn't work out.
---can think of more recent examples like the Guerrilla
Girls celebrating feminist causes and, uh,
arguing for the better representation of female
artists in museums.
But I think that Allison's project, what
makes it different is that she is not necessarily
declaring her cause.
I mean, she's participating in this,
but she has created this platform for other people
to declare their causes.
And that, um, has its roots in the '60s,
but it's a pretty recent movement.
Artist and educator Pablo Helguera wrote a book in 2011
called "Education for Socially-Engaged Art"
which he defines as a hybrid, multidisciplinary activities
that exists somewhere between art and non-art,
and its state may be permanently unresolved.
Socially-engaged art depends on actual, not imagined
or hypothetical, social action.
Helguera lays out some categories
for how participation can be evoked in this kind of art.
There's nominal participation, where
the viewer contemplates the work in a reflective, passive
manner.
Directed participation, where the visitor
completes a simple task to contribute to the work.
Then there's creative participation,
and for this he uses Allison's 2005 muster project
as an example, where the visitor provides
the content for a component of the work within a structure
established by the artist.
And then finally, collaborative participation,
where the visitor shares responsibility
for developing the structure and content
of the work in direct conversation with the artist.
He points out that more involved participation doesn't
necessarily mean more successful work,
but it's a useful framework for how
we can think about the centrality of participation
in Allison's work and how we are being called to action
in this particular case.
One thing that I, I think about a lot
is the importance of participation
and historical processes.
What I've learned from the Civil War reenactment world, or the,
you know, living history world in general,
is that these are processes that are happening all the time.
And, you know, if we don't, um, participate
in the writing of history, or histories,
plural, then other people will be doing that work for us.
So I'm attracted to these sites even though they
can be very conservative, because this idea of kind
of history in the making is very powerful to me,
and I think that is so relevant to art and artists.
"This is a call to art.
Whereas the issues before us rapidly
assuming a portentous magnitude deserve formal acknowledgement,
I hereby proclaim that the means which
conduce to a desirable result are now in your hands.
Are you ready to devote your time, energies, blood
and treasure to the declaration of your cause?
For the opportunity is now at hand,
not only to make your voice be heard,
but to receive ample reward from your comrades for the services
you render in the field.
We need volunteers to march immediately and report for duty
to the muster, an assembly of troops
for the purposes of inspection, critique, exercise and display.
Engaging in a collective spirit that
aims to proclaim rather than protest,
we will form a diverse regiment of our own design."
[INAUDIBLE]?
It's full HD.
I have been completely-- there's going to be, like,
dog fur floating in the air.
Wow.
Thanks, guys.
Appreciate that.