JOAQUIN WALL JULIA SBRILLER ROCO CORBOULD / GLOBAL STEPS / SURFACES OF REVOLUTION
GLOBAL STEPS /
SURFACES OF REVOLUTION

A Bihemispheric Performance
& Video Installation

Featured images by
Julia Sbriller, Roco Corbould
& Joaquin Wall




As presented at AGB
ART GALLERY OF BURLINGTON
Ontario / Canada

17 JAN - 29 MAR / 2020

Curated by
Suzanne Carte

With support from FNA
FONDO NACIONAL DE LAS ARTES
FNA / Argentina



Global Steps / Surfaces of Revolution is a geo-specific video-sculptural project by Argentine media artist Joaquin Wall. The piece hosts a series of collective actions and performances to research possible ways to curve and fold our conception of time-space and territory.

As a performative essay; ideas, productive potential and collaborative strategies are collected and put into practice in two opposite locations of the planet: Argentina and Canada. By exploring climatic contrasts, different and shared motivations and perspectives from each location and its inhabitants, the work reflects on how natural, political, social and economic circumstances can be reframed by the integration of its complementary opposite.

“In which other ways can we imagine a body travelling from one pole to another?”

Drawing on the figure of the toroid as a post-global manifest, Wall aims to intuitively introduce new political and social practices inspired by the surfaces of revolution, the state of constant mutation and the awareness of parallel opposites, in perspective toward our contemporary planetary challenges and conflicts.

For the first stage, produced in Argentina, Wall collaborated with Patagonian artists Julia Sbriller and Roco Corbould and a group of local cultural agents around the cities of La Plata and Bariloche, Argentina.

The second and final installation in Division of Labour is the full manifestation of this thinking and working. It presents a significant ideological shift in programming at the AGB, as it exists within the newly amalgamated programming ethos of tethering the exhibition and education streams.

Studio technicians, Heather Kuzyk and Michelle Lynn, held two workshops, working alongside local potters, who offered their expertise and labour in the construction of the bowls, balls, and donut-like formation. The clay forms rest on shelves in the gallery built from a collection of waste material discarded by the gallery, its patrons, and other cultural institutions. Wall also worked directly with participants attending the Sunday Family Open Studio in a clay performance where children created mini toroids behind a screen of white fabric. Using discarded materials to rehearse and compositionally construct, the participants were given space for play and to intuitively work alongside the artist. A video installation of the local workshops and actions, captured by filmmaker Alyssa Bistonath is centered in the hole of the toroid. The footage of the experimentation and the footage of the experimental exercise in Argentina is hidden behind the curtain.

The night of the opening Wall performs a spinning movement choreographed by Toronto-based choreographer, educator, and researcher Jonathan Osborn, on waste collected from the streets of La Plata. Throughout the course of the exhibition the broken, white clay forms will be reconstituted and rearticulated in the ceramic and pottery studio. In keeping with the low or no-waste principles of the exhibition design, the clay will be reused in future educational programming after the show closes. Built for a multilateral discursive exchange, this unified exhibition / education framework allows for greater engagement of all arms of the AGB. Supporting fluid (and abstract) productions like the Global Steps / Surfaces of Revolution, is part of the how the AGB grows as an institution. In turn, we look to collaborative, commission-based models of resource and skill sharing as an act of economic solidarity.

Taking cue from Wall’s working methodologies, we learn more about what it means to build an ecology for artistic sustainability.

Suzanne Carte / Senior Curator
Art Gallery of Burlington



JOAQUIN WALL JULIA SBRILLER ROCO CORBOULD / GLOBAL STEPS / SURFACES OF REVOLUTION
 
GLOBAL STEPS Part I
HEMISPHERE A 

A Series by:
Assistance / Edition:
Slow Motion Video:
Drone:

With:



Julia Sbriller, Roco Corbould & Joaquin Wall
Eli Portela
Pastel
Tom Pulido

Camila Alvarado Wall
Francesca Giordano
Clara Tapia
Marina Castillo
Antonio Lazalde
Manque La Banca
Angie Rouxel
Sofía Pisoni
Dock5ud
Ticiana Alvarado Wall
Teo Palvi


JOAQUIN WALL JULIA SBRILLER ROCO CORBOULD / GLOBAL STEPS / SURFACES OF REVOLUTION
 
GLOBAL STEPS Part II
HEMISPHERE B      

Video by:
Assistance:
Choreographer:
Consultants:


Ceramists:



Alyssa Bistonath & Joaquin Wall
Hazel Ottley
Jonathan Osborn
Michelle Lynn
Heather Kuzyk

Sasha Bateman
Doreen Caswell
Linda Charlton
Eunice Garay
Inga Gircyte
Nicole Holas
Adele Hollingsworth
Kallie Hollingsworth
Heather Kuzyk
Anne North
Josephine Tam
Barbara Taylor
Gustavo Taffarelo


JOAQUIN WALL JULIA SBRILLER ROCO CORBOULD / GLOBAL STEPS / SURFACES OF REVOLUTION