[channel music] SARAH URIST GREEN: Today we're in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation.

They play host to a variety of artists-in-residence and currently Dignicraft is here, a collective of media producers and ceramic artists whose common goal is to bring attention to the Purepecha pottery tradition in Mexico.

They've made a number of documentary films, including "Brilliant Soil" in 2011, which brought wider awareness to the Purepecha story and Dignicraft's work to educate native artisans to rid their practices of toxic lead-based glazes.

Dignicraft his worked to demonstrate new, sustainable techniques and establish healthier working conditions for the artisans.

They're here in North Carolina, which has its own rich tradition of ceramics, and have been conducting workshops that bring together local artists and Purepecha communities in this region.

We'll be talking with collective members Omar Foglio, Jose Luis Figueroa, and Paula Rodriguez.

Their work is enormously collaborative, between each other and the artists and communities they bring together through their work.

So let's go talk to them.

Hello, my name is Omar.

Paula.

And Jose Luis.

And we are Dignicraft.

[speaking spanish] [theme music] OMAR FOGLIO: Well, the project that we've been working here at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation is called "Encuentros/Encounters."

After having this conversation that was recurrent with all the families of artists that we've been collaborating with where they would ask us, you know, where do my pieces go?

Or they would tell us, you don't know how much I would love to travel as far as to where my work.

So building upon that sentiment, we said, well, let's create a contemporary art project so we can build the circumstances for at least the artisans that are closest to us to actually travel.

SARAH URIST GREEN: Here's how the project worked.

Dignicraft is based in Tijuana, Mexico.

They spent a month visiting artists in Michoacan, in particular the Purepecha region, and bought pottery directly from artisans.

They shipped it all to Tijuana where they cleaned and repacked it for importing into the US.

Then they sent the pottery to Charlotte and flew there themselves.

They had done a lot of research in advance and used Charlotte as a home base as they travelled around the state connecting with Purepecha communities in North Carolina, as well as other artists, crafts people, and ceramicists in the area.

Then they flew over several artists from Michoacan to meet up and collaborate with artists from North Carolina.

For example, Dignicraft arranged for ceramic artist Juan Rosas to meet up with North Carolina-based artists Antoine Williams and Felicia van Bork, who give him technical advice about painting and print making.

Together with Dignicraft, Juan worked on a larger scale than he ever had before, and they were able to make this fantastic new mural punctuated by examples of Juan's ceramic work for the "Encounters" exhibition at the McColl Center.

A piece like this is like you're not getting an object, you're getting a small piece of the artisan who put all their energy into it.

But it's also like a summary of their whole culture.

But you need to learn to kind of feel that and take that knowledge and make it your own.

Your art assignment is to facilitate a collaboration.

First you're going to think of two people that you already know who have shared interests, but that do not know each other.

Second, you're going to facilitate collaboration by introducing them either physically, in person, or online, at a distance.

And you're going to suggest that they do something together.

And third, you're going to document that process and the result of the collaboration.

So, Sarah, on this journey of "The Art Assignment," you have taught me that art is not just painting and sculpture, and I totally get that.

But I just want to confirm that in this assignment we are being asked by artists who didn't make anything to, like, not make something?

Well, they're making something.

They're making an experience, and they're bringing people together.

They're bringing them into encounter, and those people might make something.

And objects may be the result of this assignment, but not necessarily.

And I think it's time-- we have had a few social practice-type assignments-- to think about the theory behind social practice.

No, no, no.

I do not like art theory.

I don't like it.

You're going to say words like "aesthetics."

I guarantee you you're going to say the word "aesthetics."

Well, social practice is accessible, which is great, but there is academic rigor behind it.

And there are people who have thought a lot about it, including Nicholas Bourriaud, who wrote this book "Relational Aesthetics."

I knew it.

SARAH URIST GREEN: He claims that the spread of urbanization and increase in mobility after World War II gave rise to this new kind of art that is also urbanized whose central themes are being together, the encounter between viewer and painting, and the collective elaboration of meaning.

Rather than taking inspiration from life, this art inserts itself into life.

Bourriaud explains art can be a machine for provoking and managing individual or collective encounters.

We've talked before about how art isn't just stuff.

It can be provocation or encouragement for connection.

The production of gestures, he says, wins out over the production of material things.

Bourriaud quotes theorist Felix Guattari.

"The only acceptable end purpose of human activities is the production of a subjectivity that is forever self-enriching its relationship with the world."

This is the goal of Dignicraft's activities.

Through films, workshops, residences, and exhibitions, they are crafting a subjectivity for themselves and for their audiences and collaborators that catalyzes exchange and enrichment between people in vastly different parts of the world.

You have to be flexible for the changes that can arise during the process.

You might suggest, for example, a topic for the collaboration or something that they can do together, or you can do with them together, but you have to be flexible that also they will have an input.

Otherwise, would be pointless.

It would be more like assigning tasks.

It's more like you are inviting people to do something together, and you don't know what will be the outcome.

So that's the beauty of it.

[speaking spanish] [theme music] [speaking spanish] And we are Dignicraft.

[speaking spanish]