INSTANT COFFEE
Instant Coffee is a service-oriented artist and curatorial collective based in Seoul, Toronto and Vancouver. Through formal installations and event-based activities, we build a public place to practice, where ideas, materials and actions can be explored outside of the isolated studio and in a manner that renegotiates traditional exhibition structures, but is still supported by them. Instant Coffee’s frequent practice is to build architectural installations, which become venues for a series of organized events from formal lectures and screenings to informal gatherings and workshops. Each installation requires hosts who initiate some form of social interaction through the presentation and performance of ideas that pertain to artistic production and discourse.
Instant Coffee has an extensive art practice, spanning over fifteen years established in 2000. As an artist collective we have been invested in combining the social with the aesthetic, and as such have worked in public spaces to engage expanded audiences. We have shown extensively nationally and internationally, and have exhibited in many prominent art institutions as well as have produced numerous permanent and temporary public art projects.
EXHIBITION GALLERY
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Together we have developed a multi-disciplinary practice that culminates in bringing together large numbers of artists, designers, musicians, architects, writers and other cultural producers. We offer networking services that promote local, national and international activities through weekly listing in Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver to over 9000 subscribers. In conjunction with our exhibitions and events, we also publish bookworks, posters and other multiples.
Instant Coffee has had numerous solo exhibitions, including Take the Easy Way, MKG127, Toronto and The hero, the villain, the salesman, the parent, a side kick and a servant, Simon Fraser Art Gallery, Vancouver. IC participated in a residency program at Incheon Art Platform, S. Korea and designed an installation for the Craft Biennale Cheongju International. We have launched a publication with Western Front, Vancouver relating to our exhibition Feeling So Much Yet Doing So Little. IC recently launched Colours a public artwork at MetroTown mall in Vancouver in 2015. As part of the City of Vancouver’s 2010 Cultural Olympic programme, IC opened Light Bar a full-spectrum light bar installation and venue. In 2009 IC exhibited the Disco Fallout Shelter, at the Toronto Sculpture Garden, and as part of Subvision, Hamburg; Nooks as part of How Soon is Now, Vancouver Art Gallery; Light Bar as part of Assume Nothing, New Social Practice, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Other select residencies and exhibitions include Sølyst, Denmark, Kuenstlerhaeuser Worpswede, Germany; Flaggfabrikken/Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway; School of Non-Productive Learning, Aarhus, Denmark; Mercer Union, Toronto; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Casa del Encuentro MDE07 encuentro internacional, Medellin, Colombia; the Yerba Buena Centre, San Francisco and the America’s Society, New York. In the Fall of 2016, we were awarded the Vancouver’s Mayor’s award for Public Art.
Instant Coffee was founded in 1999. Our current members are Jinhan Ko, Jenifer Papararo, and Khan Lee. Instant Coffee has been Kate Monro, Stephen Crowhurst, Cecilia Berkovic, Timothy Comeau, Jon Sasaki, Emily Hogg and Kelly Lycan.
Instant Coffee as a collective was founded in late 1999. Our membership has expanded and contracted over the years, shifting as projects demand and geographies allow, incorporating individuals into our fold for their skill and interest. Each have an impact in what and how the collective moves and produces, but always with the mind to perform to Instant Coffee. We have defined ourselves in numerous ways over the years with an understanding that Instant Coffee has an identity beyond any individual that makes up the collective. There are characteristics that are definitively Instant Coffee and when one works within the collective those attributes manner the way they participate and what they contribute. There is no quantitative list of these qualities and only rarely do we articulate our traits with direct and definitive resolve, but we know that one is never enough and as a colour we are fluorescent pink. We play with inclusion and exclusion equally. When we say “we love everyone” we know this is an impossibility. We set ourselves to fail with the best intensions.
Instant Coffee: Bright Futures