Rod Sayers
C.R.A.F.T. is established
We formed the Centre for Retrofitting and Failure Techniques (C.R.A.F.T.) to invite conversations we thought people should be having more often. [ Centre ] To be a lightning rod and reference point in arts-based practice and research. To form, then document, current experimental practices. for [ Retrofitting ] To activate the possibility of redoing,…
Read MoreThe Object is the Event
During the residency in Arnhem, we wanted to take advantage of the ceramics and wood werkplaats, and to respond to students and the school with a new Search & Research. We built a wood-fired oven in a shopping cart, and held an event with the department and our friends in which we made pizzas in…
Read MoreForm as Meaning: First Nations Prints from the Pacific Northwest
Several of Rod’s prints on display at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria for exhibition Form as Meaning: First Nations Prints from the Pacific Northwest. January 20, 2018 – June 17, 2018. Co-curators: Marcia Crosby, lessLIE, Lou-ann Neel, and Alana Sayers.
Read MoreThe Year of Weird
After everyone went home from WILD_ _NESS/WEIRD_NESS, Rod and I spent a good amount of time discussing how we might encapsulate the exploration of wildness, wilderness, and weirdness that happened at the Inquiry, in a serious work of our collaboration. The concluding project: dedicate ourselves to witnessing and noticing the weird for one year. This…
Read Morehawiicaqḥi
Halfway into our year of appreciating the weird, we present the Sauna/Smokehouse as part of Arrivals + Departures at the Nanaimo Art Gallery’s 40th Anniversary exhibition, a group show on view January 26-March 25. And our next project presented itself days after the opening: a studio. Located on River Road/the Alberni Highway, we’ll have larger more expansive space, big…
Read MoreSearch & Research, a Record of Our Practice(s)
This website represents work over the last three years; walks in the woods, enough sleep, countless conversations. Between its lines, there is a complete overhaul in how we think about how food is grown and how it is distributed. It is informed by one week in 2014 when we took on Truth and Reconciliation wholeheartedly,…
Read MoreWILD _ _ NESS / WEIRD _ NESS
This past August DesignInquiry traveled to Bamfield, BC to study the topic WILD _ _ NESS / WEIRD _ NESS. Amidst discussions of climate change, the anthropocene, queering of spaces, and questioning what is a wild space, the outcome of this Inquiry for Rod and I is a commitment to notice and appreciate wildness, wilderness,…
Read MorePaƛqiqas // Take A Fire and Make Another
May 14, 2016 : Our closing event at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria was an opportunity to further explore the work of the previous six months; we made several new pieces and opened some new collaborative doors. Due to the Alberta fires happening concurrently we opted not to distribute the poster that Emily made for the event.…
Read MoreFire, still going
Paƛšiʔaƛma is installed in the LAB for spring. The imagining part of this work, initially inspired by Emily Carr’s Elephant, was happening just about one year ago. But then Jock & Barbara Niece Macdonald entered the picture, thanks to the unexpected, beautiful open prompt for Circumstance by Gwen MacGregor and Michelle Jacques. (Meanwhile Ms. Carr’s tiny house project becomes what…
Read MorePaƛšiʔaƛma (The Fire is Just Starting)
Paƛšiʔaƛma (The Fire is Just Starting) explores two traditions common in British Columbia shacks, the European sauna and the First Nations smokehouse. Smoke, a by-product from the wood stove in the sauna portion of the structure, is captured and used to prepare food in the functional smokehouse. The work is informed by a long tradition…
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