Inside-outside : practice between the private and the social

In the course of the last few years, the work I have been making was very eclectic in terms of methodology and form. My practice ranged from studio practice pieces, to a socially engaged workshop based work. I tend to see the relationship between the different works as dialectical, at least to some degree, while each work is pushing forward a different parameter that was not fully realized in the prior work. These back and forth movements have left me with some questions regarding gallery aesthetics versus socially engaged projects, and my position on the scale between them. The largest question I have, however, is whether I need to choose one practice or another, and if so to which degree the ethics and aesthetics of the different practices can or should be distinguished from one another. In this report I do not attempt to answer those vast questions, which will probably stay with me as part of my practice, but rather to raise four core issues that I find crucial to their exploration, and to which I dedicate four separate sections. Those issues are the gallery as a socially isolated site, questions about the relevancy of socially engaged art change to studio art practice, guilt as motivation for art making, and lastly, relationship between action and documentation in art.