Zachary Gough (Portland, OR) makes festive, conversational and social art projects that connect individuals and groups with one another to challenge and inspire the ways we operate today. In the past, his projects have manifested as a marching band, a board game, a pseudo-business conglomerate, collaborative radio, and a pod of mobile dental clinics to name a few.
Originally from Kitchener, Ontario, he completed his BFA at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick and is currently a candidate in the Art and Social Practice MFA program at Portland State University in Oregon. He is the interim editor of the Art & Social Practice Journal, and creator of its section Paradoxes & Loopholes.
NS Residency: November 26 – December 31, 2013
A radio booth is set in a ward Hospital or long-term healthcare facility. This booth will be made accessible to patients, staff and visitors. For the duration of the project, long-term patients and staff of the centre are encouraged to make their own radio shows to be played over FM and internet radio. In some cases, the radio booth will come to the patients who are not mobile. The content of the programming will be as far-reaching as the imaginations of the participants: music, interviews, poetry readings, hospital-trivia shows and live musical performance. Zachary will work with participants to create dynamic and interesting programs offering suggestions and prompts such as: gather stories from everyone in your ward, ask everyone in the waiting room to tell you a joke, collect cures for the common cold or interview a new father after the birth of his baby.
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Dentistry at the Museum, Portland Art Museum, May 17th, 2013
A project that considered the accessibility of dentistry and the accessibility of art. Two mobile dental clinics parked in the museum courtyard provided urgent and routine dental care to underserved populations from the Museum’s neighbourhood.
Check out more of Zach’s work at: www.zacharygough.ca