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symptom hall.space
Symptom Hall is an ex (Ukranian Hall) run since 1992 by a group of OCA students and graduates as a performance venue. It is one in a long lineup of self-funded art venues financed, not by grants, not by corporate tax write-offs, not by wealthy collectors or aristocratic private foundations, but by booze cans and Joe jobs. Symptom Hall survives by subletting the a space which was originally occupied by Martin Heath's Cinecycle, then Kensington Carnival, who drew on the services of an anarchist plumber to upgrade the building to code. At Symptom Hall, a lot has happened in the quest to make $2,700. a month rent for the last four years. Sadly, in order to pay the monthly rent, Symptom Hall charges nightly rental rates (about $250.) that are too rich for most self-funded promoters or collectives to break even.
Symptom Hall was initiated by the performance collective Shake Well, including artists Jenny Keith, Louise Liliefeldt and (?) from OCA. Their work shares an interest in the representation of women's bodies through new technology. Shake Well began by organizing performance nights at Cinecycle. Moderated by the hilarious dyke performer Clare Lawler, long lineups of performers arrived with voice, music, sound effects, key lighting, slides and moving-image projection requirements in what invariably became a last-minute logistical nightmare for the small band of organizers who doubled as the tech crew. It is hard to imagine these anarchic groupings of unknown artists with their rickety array of complex technical setups exhibiting anyplace but Cinecycle. It would have taken six weeks of paid administrative labour at most artist-run centres even to write a grant application for this unwieldy programming.
In trying to come up with a "rock solid" organizational structure, the artists recently invited me and several others to an 'elder's session' to share our stories and survival tips. Consulting with 'elders' was only one element in Symptom Hall's multi-pronged survival plan. Other strategies included offering a series of workshops in 'Dumpster Diving' and insisting that everyone who attends a meeting bring a 2" X 4". We discussed problems in attaining organizational stability without government or corporate money, and traded gossipy anecdotes about takeovers, burnouts, breakdowns and infighting in the artworld of yore.
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