Kate Harding’s Correspondence, Vol. 1 RELEASE PARTY

Thursday, February 23, 2017 from 6 to 8 pm

SARDINE is pleased to announce the release of 'Correspondence, Vol. 1', the culminating publication of 'The Correspondence Project', which was presented at SARDINE in 2015. It was part of the exhibition, 'personal:interpersonal:connected', curated by Lacey Fekishazy. This collaborative work was conceived and produced by Kate Harding with artists from New York City and Los Angeles (Los Angeles: Michelle Andrade, Sally Bruno, Carole Caroompas, Meg Cranston, Sarah Cromarty, Carla Danes, Monique Prieto. New York City: Nat Castañeda, Lacey Fekishazy & Charlie Hurier, Heidi Hankaniemi, Sarah Heinemann, Mieko Meguro, Ellen Siebers, Alisha Wessler. Los Angeles/New York City: Redell & Jimenez).

For this project, the structure of a correspondence course was used as instigation. Sixteen artists from the two coasts of the United States have received identical packets via regular mail with materials and “instructions.” Whether their affiliation was with the east or west coast (or in one case, both), each responded by mailing their materials back in the enclosed self addressed stamped envelopes. The resultant drawings, mailing materials as well as the instigatory package contents, were included in the installation at SARDINE, and have been reproduced within the project’s publication.

Correspondence, Vol. 1 has been independently published in this limited first edition of 60, with a hand-lettered spine.

From the publication:
Correspondence exists in a to and fro, back and forth, defining a relationship whether intentional or not. Distance is traversed, a line is drawn. Information is carried, presumably read, interpreted and a response is given. Mark making is a process as old as time. Time itself existed before it was marked (depending on who you talk to), but as long as there has been anything at all in existence, relationships have existed. Marks made with any staying power whether in mind or material have always carried information, and as is now with literate culture, carried specific meaning and interpretation. A bird’s tracks in the snow, the wetness of ground, a wind, ocean’s current, stagnation, the letter A.

The letter A is not completely oblivious to the communications of its corporeal cousins whom to understand most fully require an embodied reading. The letter A was fashioned from the head of an ox (turned upside-down) in Sumerian script, and represented Aleph, the most powerful, standing at the head of the Alephbeth. With the standardization of the secondary code of writing, information could be carried, held tight and secret, until revealed by opening a book or unfolding a page.

In 1873, Anna Ticknor founded the Society to Encourage Studies at Home. By gathering her dear friends, as volunteer “correspondents” instead of “teachers,” Ticknor sought to “give away what men had long refused to allow women to buy; a liberal education.” While working within the confines of women’s homebound circumstances, the Society was made up of a lending library and dedicated team of essentially committed pen pals- “a network of women teaching women by mail.” It was called “the silent university.”

Currently on view at SARDINE, Process +/- Pattern features work by Shane Drinkwater, Willum Geerts, Heidi Hankaniemi, Keigo Takahashi, & Karen Tepaz. It runs from Saturday, January 28 - Sunday, March 5, 2017.

SARDINE is located on the ground floor of 286 Stanhope Street between Wyckoff and Irving Avenues in Bushwick, Brooklyn, one block from the Dekalb L train and near the Knickerbocker M. Gallery hours are Saturday and Sunday from 1- 6pm or by appointment. For more information, please visit sardinebk.com. Contact: Lacey Fekishazy at 914.805.1974 or sardinebk@gmail.com.