October 2010
The source material for this exhibition is notes and quick drawings I made during classes while
working as an English teacher over the past six years. When leading a class, it is important for
the teacher to keep track of problems, new concepts, and information that may come up, and to compel
the students to demonstrate that they have learned something. Notes are useful for performing both
these cases. In the context of class therefore, the notes are functional objects; they have a clear
purpose. Once class finishes, however, the notes become relics of both the time spent in class,
the personalities present, and the topics covered. Over my years of teaching, I have always been
unable to throw away old notes, as they are a type of journal of my working life, which often make
me laugh and which I often find poignant. This exhibition uses the notes as a raw material in order
to see whether re-contextualizing of them in a gallery setting either enhances or detracts from their
aesthetic power.
The notes would not exist without the class, however, and they are but one part of the arsenal of
tools the teacher has at their disposal that can be used as teaching tools in class. With that in
mind, I intend this exhibition to not only to examine the notes themselves, but to also be a homage
to the act of creative teaching. For that reason, during the three-week period in which the exhibition
will be on display, the public is invited to participate in a series of English-language classes that
will be regularly held in the space. These lessons will use the exhibition itself as a teaching tool,
and will be formulated to incorporate multiple level learners. The resulting exhibit-event will
function sometimes as a gallery, sometimes as a classroom, with the aim of being both and neither.
Lessons will be free of charge, will last approximately one hour, and will be conducted in English.
Conrad Armstrong
The schedule
6.10 (Wed): 14:00–15:00
7.10 (Thu): 13:00–14:00
11.10 (Mon): 13:30–14:30
12.10 (Tue): 13:00–14:00
13.10 (Wed): 14:00–15:00
14.10 (Thu): 13:00–14:00
18.10 (Mon): 13:30–14:30
19.10 (Tue): 13:00–14:00
20.10 (Wed): 14:00–15:00
21.10 (Thu): 13:00–14:00
22.10 (Fri): 16:00–17:00
© 2007, etc. galerie
Kateřinská 20, Praha 2, Czech Republic / info@etcgalerie.cz
