Beasts Least Seen, manifesto

Manifesto for Beasterds **draft 2 edit 16/06
Authors: Caroline McCurdy + Brittany Veitch

We make art because we are compelled, it is our vice, a systematic obsession to sew, sketch and distill ideas.

We make art because we drink coffee, because we eat pistachio baklava. We make art because we watch Total Recall, because we read William Gibson and because we listen to David Bowie.

We make art because we work in creatively unsatisfying jobs, because we work too many hours under the creative direction of someone else.

We make are because we are different, because we are similar, because together we have greater significance.

We make art to satisfy our desire for affirmation, to be held in high regard, to be somebody.

We make art because we are practicing Graphic designers, because we are non-practicing Industrial designers.

We make art to validate absences in our lives, to get excited, to be melancholic.

We make art to wake up with a rollicking hangover, to add levity to serious situations. We make art to get second chances, to make new opportunities.

We make art to prompt a flurry of discussion, to make others sit down and shut up, to make a satirical gesture.

We make art not to be self-indulgent but because we need to. We make art to relieve stress, to be consumed and to gain focus.

It is not a question of why, but of when and where and what. We make art because we do, because we are, because we can. 

Manifesto because

While writing a manifesto for the Beast Least Seen project, I noted many conditions that make me make stuff. Whether they be living situations, relationships, seeking attention or respect, I compiled a rather long list of things.

This is an offshoot from that process. Not really a manifesto, more a statement of conditions. I wrote it while on the train coming back to the city, a nightmare of a trip where some awful man eating roast chicken was throwing the bones on the carriage floor and got extremely angry at me for not talking to him...