Institute for New Connotative Action

Address: 2 W Roy St, Seattle, WA 98119
Contact: Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas
Email: bergman@incainstitute.org/salinas@incainstitute.org
Website: incainstitute.org
Open Hours: Wednesday-Saturday 3-7pm

How is the project operated?
Institute for New Connotative Action (INCA) is an artist-run, not-for-profit based in Seattle, WA.

How long has it been in existence?
INCA Detroit 2011-2014.
INCA Seattle since 2013.
INCA Press begins January 2016.

What was your motivation?
We like working with great people. Also, we want to focus attention on the social life of art rather than the objects themselves. In Spain and South America, the “tertulia” tradition draws attention to the social life of art and literature without institutional regulation. Our motivation was to produce an independent, quasi-institution that would burn itself out before becoming a self-replicating zombie.

Number of organizers/responsible persons of the project.
Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas founded, direct, run and curate INCA. It operates with valuable assistance from Justin Waterhouse, Kat Seidemann, Ryan Dorsey, Joseph Alexander Vinson and Hami Bahadori.

How are programs funded?
INCA is funded from our (Bergman & Salinas) salary as teachers, and operated by craftiness and generosity.

Who is responsible for the programming?
We (Bergman & Salinas) direct and curate. We have also invited guests to organize/curate at INCA such as poet/artist/scholar Gregory Laynor, artist/architect Ulrika Gomm, and curator Clara López. In the upcoming year we will work with Martí Manen who just curated the Spanish Pavilion in Venice.

Number and average duration of exhibitions/events per year.
We average around 13 exhibitions/events per year, lasting from 1 evening to 1 month.

What kind of events are usually organized?
We organize public gatherings around art, poetry, education, politics, and whiskey.

How is your programming determined?
Taste! Happenstance! Spite! Generosity. What objects fit in suitcases or priority mail boxes.

Do you accept proposals/submissions?
No. But if we meet and get on, we’ll have a look at your work.

What is your artistic/curatorial approach?
Check boxes, build boxes, add-on to boxes, box up boxes, stack boxes on boxes, pull mothballed items from old boxes, dump boxes into rivers, look into other people’s lost boxes, paint boxes white or other colors, cut holes in boxes so larger items fit, pile up books in boxes, use boxes to sit on, stack boxes into ladders to reach higher up, cut boxes into frames, watch cats and children play in boxes, and finally: stand up on soap-boxes.

What’s working? What’s not working?
Physics. Ideology.

What kind of role do you hope to play in your local art scene or community?
A parallel universe.

What idea are you most excited about for the future?
Our sun going supernova.

Images courtesy of INCA.