02/04/2023
Andrea Francke
I’m a Peruvian social practice artist based in London since 2007. Some times people misspell my surname as Franke, I'm looking at you South London Gallery (in-case you want to google me). My practice focuses on developing structures for being and thinking together (with collaborators and colleagues, or through publications and public gatherings). These exchanges manifest through a regular practice of writing, publishing, public speaking, podcasting, exhibiting and residencies, all undertaken collaboratively. Most of my projects are self-initiated, collaborative and cover extended periods of time.
After years of hosting public events and making things visible, I’m currently invested in invisibility, transparency, and developing administrative and pedagogical infrastructures as aesthetic strategies. I'm currently a BA Fine Arts Senior Lecturer at the Chelsea College of Fine Arts. Current projects include Ten Texts on Sculpture, an ongoing podcast with Matthew de Kersaint Girardeau that functions as a resource to explore reading with art students; FR&ND, a platform to develop and distribute board games developed by artists with Francis Patrick-Brady; and Future of the Left (FOTL), a collaboration with Ross Jardine exploring the political and aesthetic dimensions of administration and policy, through research and writing.
Selected past projects include The Piracy Project,a collaboration with Eva Weinmayr exploring the political and aesthetic potential created through book piracy, copying and other reproduction techniques; Invisible Spaces of Parenthood, a collaboration with Kim Dhillon focused on the politics of parenthood, motherhood, childcare, early years pedagogy and reproductive labour; and Evaluating the Gasworks Participation Programme, a FOTL project that designed an evaluation framework, and reporting mechanism, specific to the Gasworks Participation Programme.
I’m currently a Senior Lecturer at the Chelsea College of Arts BAFA. I’m also a member of the LUX board and a founding member of the Gasworks Participation Programme Evaluation board. My work has been exhibited or supported by the Serpentine, The Showroom, Gasworks, South London Gallery, Bluecoat Gallery, Grand Union, CCA Derry-Londonderry, Bisagra (Lima-PE), Bar Project (Barcelona-SP), The New York Art Bookfair, Filip and 221a (Vancouver- CA), Truth is Concrete (Graz -AT), Rum46 (Arhus-DK), Bergen Kunsthall (NW), and Munich Kunstverein (DW), among others. My writing has been featured in Control Magazine, Parse Journal, Studies in the Maternal and Rhizome, among others. I’ve been invited to teach as a visiting artist or lecturer at the Lunga School (Seyðisfjörður, Iceland), Cubbit Summer Programme, Kunstverein/ Akademieverein (Munich, DW), MA in Art and Social Practices at the CCA - California College of the Arts, BA Fine Arts at the Newcastle University, and the MA Fine Arts at the Rutland Academy/RUM 46 (Aarhus – DK), among others.
This website is by no means an extensive description of my practice. I just gave myself two hours to update it finally, and this is what I came up with.
If you want to get in touch, email me at andreafrancke (at) me (dot) com. It might take me a while to reply.
Current or recent projects
FRAND
Francis Patrick Brady and I are really into play and pedagogy. We design toys and games! FRAND is our toys and games company. DOHL and DOHL care are available via our website. They are both worldbuilding games in which you collectively imagine a future accordingly to different job titles.
Some random stuff that I'm quite proud of
Bad Vibes Club Podcast episodes
Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau and I did some podcasts for his Bad Vibes Club on the things we read together. If you are the sort of person who gets excited to talk about maintenance in Chinese sci-fi or never really understood what Reparative Reading means, this is for you. We are always planning to make more, but we are very disorganised.
Old projects:
Invisible Spaces of Parenthood
Collaboration with Kim Dhillon.
At The Showroom.
Invisible Spaces of Parenthood: A collection of pragmatic propositions for a better future (PDF).
The C-Word: Motherhood, Activism, Art, and Childcare: a paper on motherhood and activism in art.
With The Serpentine.
A recent interview on motherhood, activism and art for the CENTRO HACEDOR DE FUTURIDADES MATERNALES.
The Piracy Project
Collaboration with Eva Weinmayr.
The Piracy Project website.
An essay I really like even though it is probably quite dated, The Impermanent Book.
FOTL and Evaluation
Ross Jardine and I are massive nerds on administration, policy and lefty politics. We've been meeting to read together most Thursdays for a couple of years and just recently started to make stuff together.
As FOTL, Ross Jardine and I are developing a new Evaluation Framework for Gasworks' Participatory Residency. We send out monthly newsletters on the project.
We wrote a paper on the political potential of administration for PARSE magazine some time ago.
Knowledge is Made Here
Sara Greavu and I have been working together for a long time. We've done quite a few things at the CCA - Derry - Londonderry.
KiMH is about working with young people in Derry to understand together how we make and use theory. We ran some workshops with young people and local activists and talked a lot. We are working on a publication that will come out soon.
My favourite of all the concepts that emerged was the idea that institutions (including art) love to dismantle meaningful collectivities and then replace them with meaningless ones. All the nastiness of social practice distilled in one sentence.