ASH ELIZA SMITH



3 x 3 Book #1

3 x 3 Book #2

3 x 3 Book #3

Link to 3 x 3 tumblr page

3 x 3 is an ongoing exhibition and performance series that explores and fosters graduate and undergraduate research and mentorship housed within the ARTifact gallery in the Culture, Art and Technology Program at Sixth College, UCSD. The results of the paired interactions vary from drawn diagrams that connect mutual conceptual concerns to interviews conducted on one another. There are individual and collaborative artworks mounted within the gallery space and cross-genre, collaborative performances during the evening of the reading series.

The University has the potential for multi-generational, undergraduates, graduates and faculty to think beyond current learning models as the basis of human knowledge and creativity. But often it is the day to day, bureaucratic and administrative needs of the University and its systems that forge what can and cannot be done, what is possible.

We believe there aren’t enough opportunities that facilitate and highlight significant interactions between graduate and undergraduate research on the UCSD campus. Sure, there is the TA-Student interactions in discussion section and the Professor-TA-Student relationships in lecture halls, but these interchanges can be limited, rife with power insecurities, and most importantly they often do not extend beyond the classroom...but it could and should and it often does! What if we framed this informal mentorship exchange that takes place all of the time between grads, undergrads and faculty but often goes unrecognized or unnoticed? Could a culture of mentorship be cultivated? What if there were even more platforms for graduate students and undergraduate students to collaborate, connect, and co-learn from one another’s practice?

Six weeks ago each graduate participant selected an undergraduate student to partake in a month long mentorship research project. The results from the pairs are as diverse as their own unique approaches to mentoring. Participants are Creative Writing, Visual Arts, Human Biology, ICAM (Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts) Music and Art History grads and undergrads. The results of the paired interactions vary from drawn diagrams that connect mutual conceptual concerns to interviews conducted on one another. There are individual and collaborative artworks mounted within the gallery space and there will be cross-genre, collaborative performances the evening of the reading series.

What follows here in the book is a range of co-authored writing, diagrams, and pieces of ephemera from the graduate and undergraduate collaborations that took place durin 2015-2016 at UCSD.

3 x 3 is curated by Ash Eliza Smith and Michael Ano with support from the gallery assistant team: Yuka Murakami, Johanna Schutt and Alexander Uhler.

ARTifact is a gallery housed in the public spaces in and around the offices of the Culture, Art and Technology Program at Sixth College, UCSD. The gallery functions as an integrated learning laboratory, transforming the working environment of the CAT offices into a hybrid space where contemporary art and the CAT curriculum convene.