Harrell Fletcher

Harrell Fletcher

December 17, 2009 at Bétonsalon

"The way that I work is that I'm often asked to go somewhere to do a project, an art center or a university gallery or something like that. Generally it's a place that I would never have gone to had it not been for the offer to do something there. Examples include Eastern Kentucky; Croatia; Vietnam; Hartford, Connecticut; Houston, Texas, etc.

I use these travel opportunities to learn about the place that I go to. This happens in a few different ways. I might read some books and or watch some documentary films about that place and try to figure out a project from that information. Or I might just go there and wander around and talk to some people that I run across. Sometimes I wind up working with the people I meet on a project and am taken deep into their lives. I think of that as primary learning experiences, or first hand learning experiences. The book and film research is secondary learning. I like both forms. The part that is really interesting to me is that on my own I wouldn't have learned about the things I learn about at all-I allow the direction of my research to be out of my hands at the start.

I still determine specifically what I'm drawn to and want to spend more time working with and only choose things that seem interesting to me. Once I've done the raw research I sometimes turn aspects of it into projects for the public to experience. I want to share what I find interesting. It's sort of like referring people to a restaurant that you like or a movie, but in my case it might wind up being a video made at a gas station based on James Joyce's Ulysses or an exhibition about the Vietnam War based on a war museum in Vietnam." Harrell Fletcher

Harrell Fletcher is born in 1967 Santa Maria, California, he lives and works in Portland Oregon. His work has been shown internationally including SF MoMA, The Seattle Art Museum (Seattle), WA, Signal (Malmo), Domain de Kerguehennec (France), and The Royal College of Art (London).

In 2002 Fletcher started Learning To Love You More, an ongoing participatory website with Miranda July. Fletcher is a Professor of Art and Social Practice at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

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