We Become Each Other’s Unmakers started off as an unstructured idea of collaboration between two departments last September. The group of Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Writing graduate students that gathered were given very few guidelines – only tentative dates of a soft opening during the College Art Association Annual Conference and then an official opening reception in late March. The nature, methods, and exhibition of work were left entirely up to the group.

The collaborators early on all decided to explore concepts of “unmaking” each other’s work, and was left open to be broadly interpreted. Some artists took raw material of others and made new projects. Some collaboratively came up with new ideas and deconstructed them as time went on in different ways. There were times of tension and confusion, especially early on in the project’s trajectory, as boundaries and merges were felt out by individuals and groups within the collaboration. At the same time, the group was highly conscious of the dialogic interaction as an integral part of the project, which led to the kind of growth the artists had hoped to achieve – something organic and entirely new, made and remade.

Yesterday, on Friday April 4, the official reception was held at the C33 gallery at 33 E Congress Ave. Many works were installed, reinstalled, updated, or changed for the occasion in the preceding weeks, days, and hours. Video projections and monitors were ubiquitous. Sculptures adorned the walls and hung from grid lines. Performers moved about the entire space.

The event proceeded with presentations of developed work that often contained several components and strands that came from free flowing authorship and materials. Next week, the Unmakers are holding a “Dancing Audiences,” which will be guided toward viewer participation and interaction.  Guests are welcome to watch or participate, and are free to come and go throughout the event. It is free, open to the public, and kid friendly. Stay tuned for this event, as well as a dynamic future since the Unmakers have the C33 Gallery as their workshop until May 2, 2014.

To read more about the Unmakers, click here to like their page on Facebook.