Northern Spark—TASK Party
Primary artist names: Oliver Herring
Hours of project: All night
Project location: Main Gallery
TASK is an improvisational participatory event with a simple structure and very few rules. Write a task, pull a task, interpret a task—the possibilities are endless.
TASK's open-ended, participatory structure creates almost unlimited opportunities for a group of people to interact with one another and their environment. TASK’s flow and momentum depend on the tasks written and interpreted by its participants.
In theory anything becomes possible. The continuous conception and interpretation of tasks is both chaotic and purpose driven. It is a complex, ever-shifting environment of people who connect with one another through what is around them. It is also a platform for people to express and test their own ideas in an environment without failure and success (TASK always is what it is) or any other preconceptions of what can or should be done with an idea or a material. People's tasks become absorbed into other people's tasks; objects generated from one task are recycled into someone else's task without issues of ownership or permanence.
Herring, a New York-based artist, developed the concept and held the first such party in London in 2002. Since then, hundreds of TASK workshops, events, and parties have been held throughout the world at museums, galleries, and schools.
For more information, check out the book TASK.