“We could say that the face holds within its rectangle or circle a whole set of traits, faciality traits, which it subsumes and places at the service of significance and subjectification. Dismantling the face is the same as breaking through the wall of the signifier and getting out of the black hole of subjectivity. Here the program, the slogan, of schizoanalysis is: Find your black holes and white walls, know them, know your faces: it is the only way you will be able to dismantle them and draw your lines of flight.” Deleuze and Guattari 1998, p.188.

Project ‘petit a’ (Ppa) (www.projectpetita.com) promotes and explores the nature of innovative creative practices that focus on experimental interaction with objects, materials and people. Through creative problem solving and ‘thinking through materials’, Project ‘petit a’ actively encourages the exchange of investigative ideas and processes within a fun, dynamic and supportive infrastructure. Ppa focuses on designing environments that challenge preconceptions and fixed relationships with objects, materials and people to explore the nature of significance and signification. Ppa is interested in building more confident and flexible approaches in applying creativity in day-to-day life, whilst also valorizing human exchange and culturally specific productivity.

Ppa aims to specifically address the nature of this significance and signification in the group exhibition: “Consensual Circle”, which will be the culmination of the work of European and Vietnamese artists brought together in two workshops; one in Charlie Dutton Gallery in London and one in San Art, HCMC. Participants will be given one or more paper circle(s) with the radius of 21 cm (the size relates to Duncan MacDougall’s “Weight of the Soul” theory), a knife, tape, glue, a stapler and sandpaper. Each artist will be asked to work with the given materials to explore and produce a personal creative outcome. Artists will be able to use the workshop to generate ideas, share skills and discuss the creative problem: “Can you open the circle into a 21cm line? Can you cut and re-structure the circle?” etc.

At the end of the workshop the artists will be asked to consolidate / develop their personal outcome in their studio in any chosen discipline. They will have 2 weeks to prepare their work, which they will submit to San Art. The submission of this work must be in portrait photographic format (.jpeg). The submissions will be printed out in standard A4 and displayed (according to the number of chosen submissions) in a single line at eye height around the gallery wall. Photographs and films of the workshops in London and HCMC will be projected in the back room of San Art on a continuous loop.

The exhibition will be a starting point for 1 or 2 talks addressing / questioning / examining the responses. There will be a specific aim to draw out discussion on the nature of subjectivity and signification in European and SE Asian visual language. The exhibition will also be taken forward in proposals for further research projects / residencies / collaborations. The submissions will be collated in colour booklet.