Visit at Instant Coffee residency at the field house Second Beach, Stanley Park
February 6, 2017
The class visited with Instant Coffee's Jinhan Ko at the collective's residency space above the concession stand at Second Beach. In addition to wonderful coffee, tea, and baked goods, Ko shared with the students Instant Coffee's history of making public artand the ups and downs of their residency within Stanley Park. In return, the class presented their Colonial Site Projects.
Instant Coffee is a service oriented artist collective founded in Toronto, and now based in both Vancouver and Toronto. Instant Coffee developed, in part, as a response to the division and exaggerated difference between studio and exhibition practice. Through formal installations and event based activities, it builds a public place to practice, where ideas, materials and actions can be explored outside of the isolated studio and in a manner that renegotiates traditional exhibition structures, but is still supported by them. For Instant Coffee, the triad of art practice production, presentation & reception becomes jumbled incorporating the social as a priority. Instant Coffee defines this social as happening in a number of ways: in getting people invested in our projects and what we are up to, but also as satisfying a way in which we like to socialize?one that centers around production but is dependent on the work of others to sustain and facilitate a critical discourse or at least offer the potential for one. Instant Coffee's most consistant members are Cecilia Berkovic, Jinhan Ko, Kelly Lycan, Jenifer Papararo, Kate Monro and Khan Lee. "Instant Coffee seems to be of the right stuff because it is a little tacky, all consuming and cheap. Yet it still holds enough allure, as contemporary products go, and it mimics the real thing." Instant Coffee: it doesn't have to be good to be meaningful Instant Coffee is alright: trust Instant Coffee.
