Feeling So Much Yet Doing So Little

Description:

In 2005, the members of Instant Coffee drafted a "manifesto" of sorts. In it, they define themselves and their objectives in terms of their caffeinated namesake: Instant Coffee “mimics the real thing without the pretense of being better. It isn't that much easier to make, but that much is reason enough to justify its particularities.”

Feeling So Much Yet Doing So Little was Instant Coffee’s “prospective retrospective” exhibition that reflected on over a decade of collaborative artistic production. Rather than displaying a traditional survey of past works, Instant Coffee reshaped the gallery through the construction of a massive wooden architectural intervention that made space for a series of interdisciplinary programs to occur. Dividing the gallery into three rooms, each space embodied the past, present, and future of their collective practice. 

Representing “the past,” the first room featured a collection of Instant Coffee’s printed matter, objects, and ephemera. “The future” was embodied by a sparse dark room at the rear of the gallery that housed a blank red plexi-glass sandwich board illuminated by a neon light in the shape of a starburst. “The present” unfolded in a multi-use room at the centre of the gallery that contained floor-to-ceiling plywood bleachers with Instant Coffee’s manifesto written across the steps in vinyl; framed Instant Coffee slogans; and a low-hanging fluorescent chandelier. Over the course of the exhibition, Instant Coffee invited a number of artists, designers, collectives, musicians, curators, and critics to host events in this space. Embodying the set of relations that lie at the heart of Instant Coffee’s practice, the collective and their collaborators transformed the gallery into a studio, public forum, shop, and dining hall. 

In the Feeling So Much International Prospective Lecture Series, Instant Coffee invited a number of international curators representing key moments in the collective’s twelve-year history to present talks in the gallery. The events were moderated by Western Front executive director Caitlin Jones.

Each Saturday, Instant Coffee presented STOREFRONT—a series in which the collective sold necessary accessories and special items from their West Coast Modern furniture collection, and were occasionally joined by other designers and artists.


Program: 

Feb 25, 2012, noon – 5:00 p.m.
Making Sense of Things Together
As a response to Instant Coffee’s motto “Get Social or Get Lost,” artist and critic Amy Fung presented an endurance performance/lecture in which she assembled a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle of a Jackson Pollock painting she inherited at an Edmonton garage sale.


Feb 29, Mar 14 & 18, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
Wood Whittling Club
Every second Wednesday, Instant Coffee hosted an informal gathering for anyone interested in carving and socializing.


Mar 6, 13, 20 & 27, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
Classical Reading Group
A weekly reading group for Charles Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities (1959).


Mar 8, 2012, 7:00 p.m
Feeling So Much International Prospective Lecture Series: Bernd Milla
Bernd Milla, director of the Kunststiftung Baden-Wuerttemberg, reflected on exhibition praxis and possibilities for artists’ work and presentation.


Mar 10, 2012, 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Paper Folding Doodle
A demonstration of “distracted origami” by Kim Kennedy Austin and Graham Kaye.


Mar 10, & 17, 2012, 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Jeneral Joke Store
The Jeneral Joke Store provided an opportunity for the public to purchase an assortment of jokes written by artists Jonathan Middleton and Aaron Carpenter. Jokes ranged from “knock-knock,” “lightbulb,” and “chicken crossed the road” genres to a selection of rude and off-colour jokes.


Mar 10, 2012, 8:00 p.m.
Bild N Sound
Presented by the Goethe-Institut and Revised Projects, Bild N Sound featured a selection of videos by German artists curated by Instant Coffee and Bernd Milla that were scored live by a roster of Canadian musicians. Performances by Jeremy Schmidt, Stephen Lyons, Shanto Bhattacharya, Skye Brooks, Marta McKeever, Tess Kitchen and Diona Davies, and Brasstronaut activated films by Andreas Lorenschat, Mirko Martin, Pia Maria Martin, Gabriela Oberkofler, Patrick Fabian Panetta, and Sebastian Stumpf.


Mar 15, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
Other Sights for Artists’ Projects: The Future is Floating
Reflecting on the ways in which the future is “floating”—as melting ice caps, waves of social unrest, listing economies, or just a general sinking feeling—Instant Coffee and Other Sights for Artists’ Projects presented a forum that featured Glenn Alteen, Lorna Brown, Brian McBay, and Annabel Vaughn. Discussion was informed by a recent rezoning application at the intersection of Broadway and Kingsway that led to questions about the future of the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. Loosely structured without a formal agenda, the open-ended dialogue critically explored possibilities for economic and other forms of diversity, and envisioned new definitions of sustainability. Ice cream floats were served. 


Mar 17, 2012, noon – 5:00 p.m.
Paint in Pink 
Visitors were invited to bring in any object for Instant Coffee to paint pink.


Mar 17, 2012, 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
STOREFRONT: Robert Kleyn
Instant Coffee featured furniture by artist and architect Robert Kleyn. Kleyn used the theatre-like installation of Feeling So Much Yet Doing So Little for the staging of a tableau made up of standing lighting fixtures. Employing the improvised fixtures as figures, Kleyn arranged his lamps and other decor in a manner that pulled these functional objects into the realm of sculpture. With this theatrical composition, he also alluded to The Conference Of Birds— the 12th century poem by Farid ud-Din Attar that follows a gathering of birds in their quest for a leader. Each bird represents a human fault, and their search ends at a lake in which all they see is their own reflection. Kleyn’s installation was displayed until March 23, 2012. 


Mar 21, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
The Drawing Salon: gray is off the menu
Artists Jill Henderson and Hannah Hughes led a life drawing workshop using untraditional, Day-Glo materials.


Mar 22, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
Feeling So Much International Prospective Lecture Series: Lise Nellemann
Lise Nellemann of Sparwasser HQ, a not-for-profit project and exhibition space in Berlin, Germany presented on Instant Coffee and collaborative curatorial practices.


Mar 24, 2012, noon – 5:00 p.m.
STOREFRONT: SAMUEL ROY-BOIS
Instant Coffee featured modular seating by artist Samuel Roy-Bois. The selection included Bois’s Fir Tooth stools—seating made from four pieces of dimensional lumber solidly glued together. Cut from douglas fir—one of the hardest softwoods—each stool embodies the playful result of the simplification of form and process. Roy-Bois’s work was displayed until March 29, 2012. 


Mar 24, 2012, 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Pyrography (Woodburning) Workshop
Participants were invited to make buttons and burn designs on wood.


Apr 4, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
Feeling So Much International Prospective Lecture Series: Rakett
Rakett (Åse Løvgren and Karolin Tampere) discussed their collaborative platform for polyphonic explorations within artistic and curatorial space. Their talk explored questions of (co)authorship, (im)material production, the role of the artist and curator, and the potential of mobile and changeable platforms in the institutional infrastructure of art and of society at large.


Apr 7, 2012, 2:00 p.m.
GOOD NEWS Issue 05 Launch
Instant Coffee published the next in their series of “one question” handmade journals. GOOD NEWS Issue 05 addresses the question: what constitutes a successful failure?


The catalogue for Feeling So Much Yet Doing So Little was published in 2016 as a free ebook that featured texts by Caitlin Jones, Rakett, and Dave Dyment.


Presented with the support of Jane Irwin and Ross Hill. 


Curated by Caitlin Jones.