The Grand Domestic Revolution GOES ON

The Grand Domestic Revolution GOES ON (GDR) is an ongoing “living research” project initiated and developed by Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht, in October 2009. The touring version of the project was first presented at The Showroom, London, and it has now reached us.

Inspired by US late nineteenth-century “material feminist” movements that experimented with communal solutions to isolated domestic life and work, GDR has involved artists, designers, domestic workers, architects, gardeners, activists and others to collaboratively investigate and re-articulate the domestic sphere, challenging traditional and contemporary divisions of private and public. The aim is to imagine new forms of living and working in common and put them into practice. GDR shares its ongoing research with presentations of newly produced and referential art works, an exhibition as a platform for a series of public activities and the growing project library. In particular, the touring programme of GDR is conceived as a special form of international collaboration, embedding it in the local context of each host venue and creating closer ties between the organisation and surrounding communities.

GDR at CCA focuses on the contemporary working conditions of caregivers—primarily mothers and grandmothers—in the domestic sphere. In an investigative system of exchange, CCA offers free childcare in an environment created by artist Andrea Francke and SureStart Edenballymore staff, and in return ask that the parents and care-givers making use of the service tell us about the conditions of domestic work in their lives. We also look for inspiration in the historic housing conditions of the city, together with the struggles for change and alternative experimentation undertaken. Research into local conditions, past and present, includes lectures by Patricia Swann on her experience living in the Meitheal Community on Inch Island, Donegal, and Greg Claeys from Royal Holloway, University of London, on utopianism, communitarianism and the domestic.

Artist Christian Nyampeta is commissioned to produce the exhibition design at CCA, which will act as a framework for bringing together existing works by the aforementioned artists, the GDR Library, and new research together. The design includes a reading room that will become a permanent feature of CCA, embedding the organisation’s commitment to research and social space in the fabric of the venue. Additional events comprise talks by curators Binna Choi and Maria Lind; a workshop with self-proclaimed action weaver Travis Meinolf; a graphic design workshop by Åbäke’s Patrick Lacey; and a presentation by scholar Marina Vishmidt.

GDR at CCA features contributions by ASK! (Actie Schone Kunsten) with Andreas Siekmann, Petra Bauer with Southall Black Sisters, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Domestic Workers Netherlands with Matthijs de Bruijne, Andrea Francke, Household Belfast, GDR Library, Nicholas Keogh, Kleines Postfordistisches Drama, Annette Krauss and Read-in, Conal McStravick, Travis Meinolf, Christian Nyampeta, Our Autonomous Life?, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Helke Sander, Kateřina Šedá, and Haegue Yang.

You can read a review of the first GDR exhibition in Frieze by Nick Aikens here, and Art Review’s report by Laura Allsop on GDR GOES ON-London here.