NEO- CRAFT: IDEAL WORLD TECH (CHICAGO)

NEO- CRAFT is a fully integrated system of philosophical thinking tools allowing art producers to proactively engage with systems of power by utilizing the expressive potential of art for personal and social gain. Focusing on the creation of meaningful art experiences, the philosophy of NEO- CRAFT does not propose specific outcomes, but re-imagines the values of professionalism in free market economies with a special interest in creating ties between contemporary capitalism and developing arenas. NEO- CRAFT has reached the public through seminars, interactive workbooks, guided meditations, 1:1 sessions and takeaway objects. NEO- CRAFT’s early sessions emerged in Canada at the Banff Centre OLS residency, The New Gallery, EPCOR Centre and Connexion Arc Gallery. NEO- CRAFT then moved to the University of Chicago, and has since been active in the Netherlands at OT301 and The Sandberg Instituut. NEO- CRAFT returns to Chicago for a public session at Weinberg/Newton Gallery in connection with ‘How the Mystic Sees’ on 10 September 2019, closing the year in Shanghai at the New Center of Contemporary Jewellery and Design. NEO- CRAFT is, at its core, a mindset and a way of thinking defined by conceptualizing art as a path toward personal well-being and meaningful social engagement. While its philosophy is difficult to decipher, pseudoscientific, ritualistic, even cultish, in a world of defamiliarized coordinates, these are, if anything, the significant vernaculars of our time.