Occupy: A Collaboration Analysis

There is something enticing about the idea of working together, of collective labour in our individual-focused, Isociety. Claire Bishop in her seminal book, Artificial Hells, comments that “Along with ‘utopia’ and ‘revolution’, collectivity and collaboration have been some of the most persistent themes of advanced art and exhibition-making of the last decade.” This revitalisation of the value of collaborative practice can be seen beyond art as it appears more broadly in society in the form of collective and collaborative movements such as the Occupy movement. The idea of working together for goals that go beyond that of commercial viability or financial gain seems to be gaining traction. Collaboration as a working method allows different ideas, points of view, skills and experience to come together in tension, and in harmony, and seems to be fertile ground for these two emerging artist duos of Alexandra Spence and Katrina Stamatopoulos and Akira and Nathan Lasker.

Alexandra Spence and Katrina Stamatopoulos have collaborated on a number of works including Transmission Ring showing in this latest edition of Is this Art? Screening 6. The pair, although meeting in Sydney have been based in different countries for quite some time which has resulted in their collaboration occurring online via Skype, email and file-sharing.Their collaborative relationship developed quite naturally, perhaps given that they both see their artistic processes as being quite similar and intuitive. Alexandra comments on their mutual respect for each other’s work which allows great flexibility and freedom within their collaborations. Whereas Katrina mentions the spontaneous nature of their collaborative relationship and a sense of autonomy that allows a nurturing of each other’s work while also exploring new