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For Information and Documentation, see http://thefutureisonthetable.ning.com
Pictures, blogs, notes on all events and participants are packed on that site. On that site you can also download the various parts of the catalog.

*Full text of the Future Is on the Table


The Community Arts website is presenting The Future is on the Table as part of "Community Arts 2008: The Year of the Great Leap" written by Linda Burnham. Scroll to "The Local Leap: The Future is on the Table, Charleston, S.C." at http://wayback.archive-it.org/2077/20100903214337/http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2008/12/community_arts_4.php
"The most intimate and delightful convening I attended all year was The Future Is on the Table,... The remarkable thing about these two artists, is their concept of inclusion. They throw ideas into the air and then collaborate closely with whomever is willing to catch them. This strategy results in arts productions so diverse that the two artists have to take on the role of ringmaster to the circus... The opening drew one of the most diverse audiences I have ever seen in an art gallery anywhere... Conversations circled around the surprising combinations of elements that drew the show together... there was much testimony about personal change..."

See also: http://wayback.archive-it.org/2077/20100903214300/http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2009/03/exchanging_gift.php

The various parts of the catalog can be downloaded at http://thefutureisonthetable.ning.com/
There you may also peruse through over 200 pictures, artists' pages. blogs and notes from the many events associated with the project. And don't hesitate to become a member and bring your own comments and questions.
"The Future is on the Table" seeks to explore the territory where artists test how far they can engage their art in the daily politics of the world, without losing their ability to "perceive things differently". We do not seek answers. With social justice as a backdrop, we embrace ... we embrace ... the list of limitations is yours to write...
We have built 58 three-legged stools. The seats are cut from a singe sheet of marine plywood painted with a map of the world, oriented towards the North Pole so that all continents have equal visual representation. Each seat is a piece of a large 58-piece puzzle, which will be reassembled at the project's end...
"The Future is on the Table #3" starts with a gift from us to you: the stools. We will trade works as the project develops. It will be a "fair trade", where the arts are not commodities but accomplishments, invaluable for the depth of their anchors, the breadth of their reach...

As a participant, you will receive a bundle of stools but will not get to choose which ones. You are to use them as a symbol for starting a work group, or a rhizome, to speak in ROOTS terms. The work group will be made up of anybody you wish - its work what you create. Contact Jean-Marie Mauclet and Gwylene Gallimard to become involved. jemagwga@knology.net

Updated Janurary 2008

As of today (June 2007), one stool is in Montreal (Canada), five stools are in London (England), five stools are in Besançon (France), five stools are in Capetown (South Africa), six stools are in Thane (India), six stools are in Pennsylvania (USA), five stools are part of "Capturing the Moving Mind" from Moscow (Russia) to Beijing (China), six stools are in Orangeburg and six stools are in North Charleston, both in South Carolina (USA). Who is receiving the stools? visual artists, dancers, musicians, a women cooperative, an African American store, scientists and economists.

Thanks to MarketPlace Handwork of India, a fair trade organization, The Arpan Cooperative -- Arpan means to Dedicate or Offer Oneself -- an artisan women's cooperative, are asserting their right to live independently and send their daughters to schools. They are using The Future is on the Table as a platform to review their festivals and their mission. They participated in workshops with the stools lead by Gwylene Gallimard and filmed by Michèle Waquant. They are finishing a book, using the media of both writing and embroidery, in response to the gift of the stools. The exchange will continue with proposals for a table cloth initiated by the content of the book. Other elements are in discussion, including a special production of tuniques/shirts for the project

Delphine Ziegler's project "Table of Ice/Alluvions glacées", on the Doubs river between France and Switzerland is developing on a longer schedule involving the participation of a dozen of interdisciplinary artists and the school population of Villers-Le-Lac. They are experimenting and doing various recordings of their interactions with the metamorphoses of water and landscape affected by the cold. Three week long residencies took place in January and February. The Doubs river froze up to 17cm deep this year. Many generations from both countries made a plan to meet when the Doubs was frozen and became a gigantic skating ring. An exhibition and participation in a festival in Besançon are the next events being planned.

Phinias Chirubvu, in CapeTown, South Africa, has assembled with other artists a group of around 30 youths and teaches them sculpture, the art through which they will develop self-sufficiency and individual skills in a country where there are very few jobs. Their present artwork is a sculpture made out of Spring stone). It is called The Big Five, (education of the senses)”. The Future is on the Table project is their link to the art world

Wok Marcia Kure, from Nigeria, presently living in Pennsylvania (USA), relates to the project through her practice with "the Burqua as Shelter",for the Burqua to be seen as shelter, as a cloth that protects and shields the wearer. It is another view, an important aspect of the burqua that many people don't see." To sum up her project she borrows from the song "War" by Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Rajni Shah, in London, England reenacted something that, in a way, started the whole project: a gift. She offered the stools to different people at the occasion of a performance of her piece"Mr Quiver", and is now planning a Web table of The Future is on the Table participants.

Omari Fox, a Hip Hop poet and visual artist, is using the stools to develop a strong connection between his "Open Mic and Movie group", "The Future is on the Table" and the Afrika House in Orangeburg, SC. See also: http://www.wbjrfilms.com/joewillie/castcrew.html

Arianne King Comer, a visual artist specialized in indigo dyes and batik techniques, is using the stools around one of her lifesize metal and fabric-made tree for workshops and performances and revive the historical and symbolical meanings of oak trees as community shelters in the world."

With their participation in Capturing the Moving Mind/Management and Movement in the Age of Permanently Temporary War aboard the Trans-Siberian train in September, Gwylene Gallimard & Jean-Marie Mauclet built a traveling box for "The Future is on the Table". They are now working on a film installation for "Voyager et Inversement", in France. An excerpt from this work in progress is shown as part of ARS 06 at the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki, Finland. See also, Trans Siberia and Back Again: Capturing the Moving and Ephemera web magazine.


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