JESS DOBKIN

JESS DOBKIN
SAT/SUN 06.01 & 02 @ 12 – 2PM
HUB
www.jessdobkin.com
“FREE CHILDCARE PROVIDED”
Facebook event
Speakers:
Arti Grabowski, Shannon Cochrane, Carron Little, Kestutis Nakas, Fereshteh Toosi
RP13 photos by Rosa Gaia Saunders
more on flickr

Jess Dobkin’s (Canada) work is presented at museums, galleries, theatres, universities and in public spaces internationally. Her artistic and curatorial projects have received support from the Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art and the Astraea Foundation. Her Lactation Station Breast Milk Bar received international audience and media acclaim and was named in the “Top 10 Performances of 2006” by NOW Magazine. She has taught as a Sessional Instructor at OCAD University and the University of Toronto and is a Fellow at the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto.

“Free Childcare Provided” offers a creative festival hub for children of festival artists and adult audiences attending Rapid Pulse. Participating festival artists will present 5-10 minute for children about their performance work and artistic process, welcoming both children and adults to attend. The space will also provide engaging performance-based actions and activities, as well as a mediatheque where kids can view curated documentation of performance art work.

This performance comes out of my own experience as a parent and performance artist and a desire to find more synthesis in these often compartmentalized roles and identities. I am interested in children as audience and engaging them in conversation about performance art. Many performance artists are inspired by impulses and ideas that originate from primal, magical, playful sources that tap into childhood notions. These ideas get translated into theoretical language and sophisticated expression for adult audiences. I am curious about the language of the work then coming full-circle, articulated back into a simpler form, to ask artists: how you would explain your work to a three-year old? To a ten-year old? How do we understand the importance and value of communicating with children about complex artistic concepts?

The proposition of free childcare also comes out of an activist history and practice of feminist and women’s organizing, where childcare is understood as an accessibility issue to allow parents, primarily women, to attend and participate in a social world of adults. I am also interested in offering a different kind of festival hub, where adults, with our without children, are invited to attend the artist talks and engage in conversation where children’s needs and perspectives are at the centre. The space also offers a site for artist and audience parents to discuss issues about what they bring their kids to see, and how adults talk about performance art with kids, and also a meeting place for children where they can experience a temporary community and connection.