Looking for Craft in All the Wrong Places
Spring 2010
Burisch’s research at Artexte examines the intersections of craft and performance art. Through an investigation of Artexte’s documents, sources, and materials related to these two disparate fields, and through considering them together, her research will aim to draw or reveal connections between the two to encourage an understanding of how recent performative craft practices and exhibitions might be contextualized in a broader artistic and theoretical context. Building on recent writings in craft theory that have proposed the positioning of craft not as a distinct class of objects, but rather as a matrix, a methodology, or a form of knowledge, her research will also explore how a “craft-methodology” might be used in understanding the incorporation of craft attributes into other fields, such as fine art, design, or political action.
Nicole Burisch is an Alberta-born artist, critic, curator, and cultural worker. Her practice focuses on contemporary craft and craft theory – in particular, cross-disciplinary uses of craft-based media and their intersections with historical craft, activism, performance, social practice, and curatorial approaches. She has presented and published writing on this topic for several local and international conferences and publications including Utopic Impulses: Essays in Contemporary Ceramics and The Craft Reader. Burisch worked as the Director of the Mountain Standard Time Performantive Art Festival from 2007-2009, and along with Anthea Black is the co-founder and editor of the Alberta-based web journal Shotgun-Review. Nicole Burisch lives in Montreal.