Multiple Elementary

Multiple Elementary explores the elementary school classroom as a site of invention and reception of contemporary art practices. Part exhibition catalogue, part artists’ book and part corner store advertisement, the book reflects on the making of an artwork by Hannah Jickling and Helen Reed, in collaboration with a class of grade six students in Toronto.

Begun as a riff on the Ontario social studies curriculum “Canada and It’s Trading Partners”, the engagement with students evolved as a series of field trips, extended research and finally, the making of 28 chocolates, each as an edition of ten. Explorations of trade, exchange and labour took shape as exercises in public engagement, curatorial experimentation and institutional translation. Beyond socially engaged practices and expressions of art-as-pedagogy, this book explores aesthetic and representative possibilities for process-based and publicly oriented artworks, especially amidst the complications and contradictions inherent to collaborations with children.

Hannah Jickling: Jickling's work institutes sport, outdoor recreation and education as models for performance, participation and feminist engagement, experimenting with form, participation and meaning. In recent years, she has shown and/or presented at Apexart, the Portland Art Museum, Recess Gallery and SFMoMA.

Helen Reed: Helen Reed works with specific communities such as Twin Peaks fans, lesbian separatists, and high school art teacher candidates. In each project, collaboration is a working process from which the artwork emerges. Reed has exhibited in the US at apexart (New York) and Smack Mellon (New York).