On Rants:
Re-thinking acts of complaint

Sustained closed-door initiative with public activation
1 August 2020 - 31 January 2021

On rants is a work-in-progress.
On rants is the labour of re-thinking complaints.
On rants is a mapping of futures.

Imagined as a series of workshops, focus groups, and discussions, On rants is a platform for participants—fresh graduates of art schools—to engage in further discussions, drawing from Sara Ahmed’s conception of complaint as method. The project aims to give agency to emerging voices within the creative industry.

Taking a loose structure and further guided by readings, it draws upon peer-led orientations wherein participants create space to navigate ideas and strategies to critique modes of education. We redirect opinions that have been couched as “complaints” or “feedback” on institutionalised learning to inform alternative learning modes that emancipate the learner from the teacher, and the classroom from the institution. Taking place twice a month, participants are allowed to suggest the different modes each session will take, while also allowing space for external collaborators to hold individual sessions. This will culminate in a public-facing series of activations at the site of soft/WALL/studs, as suggested by the participants.

The sessions from On rants culminated in the concurrent exhibitions, dis/content and Lather & Pave, hosted at the new artist-run space, starch.