Radical Repair Workshop
to
CCB Plaza Chapel Hill & Corcoran sts, Durham, North Carolina

Photo credit and sculpture by Julia Gartrell
Title: PortentDate: 2019Materials: Ceramic fragments, hot glueSize: 2' x 3'
PRESS RELEASE:
The Radical Repair Workshop is a pop-up art experience housed inside a 1966 Frolic camper. The project encourages participants and viewers to consider their relationship to mending, sentimental objects, single-use items, and radical (potentially non-functional) modes of repair. Inside the camper you’ll find an art studio, a gallery of repaired items, and space for hands-on workshops. Items that have been donated by the public or scavenged by sculptor Julia Gartrell are taken in, assessed, and “repaired” in a manner aligning to their history.
The “repairs” these items undergo may be technically non-functional or “productive” but they relate to a sculptural investigation of the object’s story, level of decay, and psychic/emotional energy. The approach to mending will be non-traditional—the item may not actually be “fixed,” but it will be transformed into a permanent art object, thus realigning our relationship to its “value.” The repaired items join the archive of the Radical Repair Workshop, along with their story, to be shared with future audiences along the journey of the project.