Blueprint for Happiness

As Guest Faculty of the five-week Visual + Digital Art thematic residency programme ‘Blueprint for Happiness’ led by British artists Heather and Ivan Morison, Latitudes joined the group in the middle two weeks to lead a series of discussions around working in the public realm. Through seminars Latitudes presented case studies of (realised and unrealised) projects as well as a number of artistic practices that have dealt with challenging issues when working in the public sphere in different geographical contexts. Latitudes also undertook one-to-one studio visits, joined a field trip to Calgary and organised an evening film programme focused on public sculpture, translocation and narration.

For the Open Lecture, Latitudes forwent a chronological account of its projects of the last decade, and instead attempted various transects through its curatorial projects determined by raw materials and their transformation. From the zinc which led to an Esperanto micro-nation, to the air of a Beijing shopping centre, or the dead trees of printed news, Latitudes joined some traits and ideas around their current research on extractive modernity, periodicity and the carbon cycle.