How Art Works, Stories of Supported Studios by Dr Chloe Watern has been published by Routledge.
“We do not know what we do not know. We do not see what we do not see. We do not hear what we do not hear. This book redresses ongoing invisibility and silence. At the same time, it challenges modes of thinking that seek to classify and define. Through stories of particular people and practices, I conceptualise art as a mode of being, a way of communing with the world, and each other within it.”
Chloe Watfern, a writer, transdisciplinary researcher, and maker, joined Project Art Works and Studio A, Sydney, to learn about the work of our vibrant collectives of neurodiverse artists.
Paul Colley in the studio, 2019. Photos courtesy the artist and Project Art Works
“How might we value, and pay attention to, the relationships at the heart of these studios? How might we value the many paths that art takes, often alongside or tangential to the products that make their way to a gallery? How might we value the quality of an interaction as much as the product it gives rise to? How might we value, and pay attention to, the interdependence at the heart of all artmaking?”
In this book, written as a personal narrative informed by the latest thinking on neurodiversity and art, Chloe tells a tender and exhilarating story of the social and aesthetic dynamics at Studio A and Project Art Works, places like no other. In journeying alongside the complex and astonishing contemporary artists who work there, the book invites readers to radically reconsider their settled ideas of creativity, disability, and care, while learning about lives devoted to making.
Order a copy of How Art Works, Stories of Supported Studios and use this 20% discount code: SMA22. Valid until August 2024.
Lead Image: Eden Kötting work in progress, Project Art Works studio, 2019. Photo Chloe Watfern. Courtesy the artist