Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin
Trajectory
In the context of Caveat, Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin proposed to weave a contract that links their research to Caveat, together with the Caveat team. They are working on configuring new woven graphics influenced by all the motifs existing and travelling the planet.
Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin’s main focus involves the constant circulation of cultural products on a global scale. They ask questions relating to the transmission of knowledge and techniques on a global scale and modes of contractualizing relationships in different cultural environments around the globe.
Patrick and Olive are developing their research on a large scale, between China, Senegal, Tanzania, France and Belgium. They study the circulation and hybridization of weaving techniques throughout those continents that appear to be are closely intertwined.
During the period of April-June 2019, Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin engaged actively in discussing the socio-juridical issues at stake within their specific proposal, in particular in the context of the Law Science Technology & Society (LSTS) research group at VUB in Brussels together with jurists Serge Gutwirth and Alessia Tanas.
In June 2019, Caveat invited Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin to experiment collectively with the possibilities of weaving agreements. In the open and porous context of the Brussels cultural centre (or, ‘Zone for Spontaneous Action’) Allee du Kaai, they installed their weaving machine (at the same time a tool and a sculpture) in the open air in order to share and discuss their practice with a wider environment and with the communities engaged in and with Allee du Kaai.
The research of Patrick and Olive relates to methodologies for negotiating and open norms, cfr. weaving as 'tisser des liens' – the ‘weaving’ of connections. Through their research on weaving, they open doors to indigenous conceptions of property, governing resources, and the construction of communities through the use of a very specific language, law and the commons.
http://www.eternalnetwork.fr/mot/patrick-bernier-et-olive-martin
- commoning
- urbanisation
- colonisation
- paths & roads
- Zone à Défendre
- archive
- mesh
- mathematics
- transmission
- tool
- diplomacy
- language
- citizenship
- threads
- contract
Biography
Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin, currently based in Nantes, France, have worked collaboratively for over a decade, developing a varied body of work that combines writing, performance, installation, photography and film. Throughout their career, they have developed a string of interests: colonial history, weaving, rights, games, migrations, onomastics, etc. Their projects explore issues of hospitality and hosting, as well as the porousness of identity. Their works are nourished by open collaborations with storytellers, lawyers specialised in author and foreigner rights, an American auctioneer, chess players, and more recently, weavers.
Activities
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Artist Placement. Caveat at Argos Artist Placement is a two-day series of presentations and discussions on the Artist Placement Group (APG), its ongoing relevance, and current projects and initiatives that taking inspiration from it.
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Caveat at LODGERS Caveat is hosted by LODGERS, a collaboration between AIR Antwerpen and M HKA. LODGERS functions as Caveat’s first platform for public programmes, workshops, a display of artworks, legal material, and film screenings: a framework for research and artistic production as well as a public stage to negotiate possible futures of the artist contract.
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Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin's presentation at Artist Placement Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin (Caveat artists in residence) speak about their inquiry into four kodachrome images they found at the CCP (Centre de Culture Populaire) in the industrial port city of Saint-Nazaire in France. These images taken in the 1980s show shipyard workers sharing, in the framework of their company, their cultural backgrounds and primary know-how. The images were an important source of inspiration within their further research into 'weaving techniques' and instigated them to actively interact with its origins, the Senegalese weaving culture. Within the presentation they touch upon different aspects of their research: questions on fair practice that arise when collaboratively developing their weaving skills with indiginous cultures, how their exploration is a research into possiblities of opening up 'the' algorithm and how it generates reflections on contracting and law, on abstract patterns and the process of adding meaning to them, contemporary use of public space and the search for a possible common agenda between companies and artists.
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Caveat Weaving Agreements While in Brussels, Caveat artists Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin propose a collective research into weaving. They approach weaving as a means to record a conversational collective agreement. Together with Caveat, Allee du Kaai, and passers-by, we'll collectively ‘weave an agreement’ that links their research to Caveat.