SoHo, New York
Department of Transformation
Groundwork
Canal ProjectsDepartment of Transformation (DOT) is an artist-organized group that mobilizes the power of art and design to prototype new formats and methods for collaborative learning. What tools are needed for individual, collective, and structural transformation? How can the notion of the artist become more porous and interdependent? Where can we gather together to change and grow? Engaging with such questions, Department of Transformation invites artists, thinkers, therapists, and others to explore alternative pathways for art that is responsive to our trying times. DOT was founded by designer, author, and educator Prem Krishnamurthy and takes shape through public programs, exhibitions, educational engagements, and community-based activities (+ karaoke!) around the world. While in residence at Canal Projects, DOT presents Groundwork. Merging elements of a transformation library, yoga studio, workshop space, and karaoke temple, Groundwork convenes new and old friends to process, move, and celebrate together. Canal Projects has invited DOT to act as its own temporary transformation department, testing out, reflecting upon, collecting, and documenting the group’s ongoing efforts to change art institutions from within. Through mindfulness sessions, reading groups, shared meals, karaoke, therapy tutorials, and more, Groundwork enacts the strategies of bumpiness, generosity, and juxtaposition, that inform DOTs experiential methods for collaborative knowledge production and dissemination. The project emerges from the Department of Transformation’s Spring Tour 2023, a recently completed a teaching tour across the US. Traveling to art and design schools, museums, and non-profit organizations, DOT shared new frameworks for art-making, as well as specific tools for collaboration. The approach is also informed by Prem Krishnamurthy’s year-long residency at KW Institute for Contemporary Art (2018), the exhibition space P! (2012–2017), and experimental programs such as Present! (2020 2021) and How can we gather now? (2022).