August 3, 2018–June 30, 2019
The Great Poor Farm Experiment
August 3, 4, 5, 2018
Exhibitions run through June 2019
For its 10th year, the Poor Farm located in rural Waupaca County Wisconsin is hosting a series of exhibitions and educational forums.
Working Group for Unmaking will gather for the first time at the Poor Farm from July 22–29, 2018. This experimental meeting of thinkers and makers in art and design gather around the topic of “unmaking.” Institutions, Disciplines, Models, Forms is the beginning of a long term, multi-platform, dispersed, ever-expanding network of participants working together to interrogate the making and calcification of forms and frameworks. This initial conference at the Poor Farm will lay the groundwork for other Working Group forums both physical and virtual. Working Group for Unmaking is co-organized by Judith Leemann, Abigail Satinsky and Shannon Stratton.
Be a Pattern for the World is a think-tank collaboration between Piscine and Aeron Bergman & Alejandra Salinas. The collaboration takes the form of nine banners, a video and a clothing line. The collaborative project is shown together with a selection from “Examples of Collaboration in Nature (and Culture)” an ongoing series of dye sublimation prints on metal by Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas. Piscine is a multi-dependent exhibition phenomenon based in Copenhagen, Denmark: a hybrid apparatus that handles solo, group and collaborative situations. Current members are: Jens Settergren, Ida Sønder Thorhauge, and Mark Tholander. Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas are an artist duo who co-founded Institute for New Connotative Action: an artist run initiative, and INCA Press.
¿Qué es lo que se aprende… ? is a group exhibition programmed by sodA, a place-based program committed to artmaking and investigation that encourages symbiotic relationships among artists and collaborators in Mexico and the USA. sodA’s 2018 Poor Farm program features Mexico City-based artist Diego Salvador Rios, who curated work by Elsa-Louise Manceaux, Jose Eduardo Barajas, Galia Basail Mulcahy, and Gabriel González Acosta.
Thinkubate and Accellarate! A project proudly sponsored by Public Interdisciplinary Institute, Open Kitchen, Design Week 11c., ASAP!, ADO Foundation, filmfront, Baad Sauna, Night Crawlers, Underware, Green Gallery, John Riepenhoff Studio, Microlights, Bermuda Triangle, Poor Farm, The Open, Peelers and Viewers Like-You!
This year’s annual Lazy River Show Me Your Rafts, Another Can Float features a limited collectable custom koozie designed by Mike Paré. Lazy River Radio will feature Olivia Rehm + Marissa Macias, Jesse McLean + Thad Kellstadt. The float takes place on Saturday, August 4, 2018. Poor Store will be operated by artist Sara Caron out of a canvas tent on the Poor farm grounds. Peelers will produce made to order clothing in response to the audiences Poor Farm experience.
Microlights Cinema, which recently celebrated its five-year anniversary, will present an outdoor screening on the evening of August 3rd. Programmed by Ben Balcom + Jesse McLean, Microlights has presented a diverse range of contemporary film-video artists since its inception in 2013.
What a Life is an exhibition curated by artist Aaron Van Dyke including work by Contemporary Art Writing Daily, Christopher E. Harrison, Pao Houa Her, John Neff, Melba Price, Gunnar Tchida, Sheila Wagner and Interact Center.
Summer School, led by Minneapolis-based artist and educator Aaron Van Dyke is an annual free summer school program. Its curriculum is shaped by dialog around art making, teaching, and learning. Summer school aims to be an antidote to the shortcomings of formal education, stressing openness, experimental forms of education and educational and artistic agency. It resides within the opening weekend of the Great Poor Farm Experiment each year. This year’s Summer School 2018 Reading List here.
The Poor Farm was founded in 2009 by Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam to facilitate and present artist’s projects, forums, and yearlong exhibitions at the former Waupaca County Poor Farm (built in 1876) in Little Wolf, Wisconsin.
The Poor Farm’s programming is aligned with the artist-run project space The Suburban, founded in the Chicago, IL suburb of Oak Park in 1999, and relocated to Milwaukee, WI in September 2015.
The Poor Farm is a not-for-profit project space that honors the tradition of artist directed programs.
Poor Farm
E6325 County Highway BB
Manawa, WI 54949
Poor Farm - Administration
723 S 5th Street
Milwaukee, WI 53204
Contact: michellegrabner@gmail.com
