Make a human collage.
Design a hat that is also a monument.
Call your mother.
Give an apple to a teacher; devour instead.
Take a nap.
These were just a few of the tasks to select from at TASKTABLE, a participatory art project hosted Tuesday at 4MOST Gallery at 543 SW 4th Ave. in Gainesville.
Graduate students studying sculpture at the University of Florida organized this event with Oliver Herring, a Brooklyn-based artist, and Sean Miller, an associate professor at the University of Florida School of Art. Herring designed the project known as TASK in 2002 and has since helped to spread it around the world.
“Whatever you bring to it is your experience,” he said.
The rules are simple; there needs to be a designated space, willing participants and any type of materials.
Every participant writes a task and adds it to a pool, and then they pick one task to complete.
They can interpret the task however they like, and once the person completes it, they can write a new task and continue doing tasks for as long as they like.
TASKTABLE resulted in tables covered in chalk, paper crowns adorned on participants and abstract portraits hung on the walls.
Boxes of glitter, glue, pencils and fabric were available for participants to use. Brown drawing paper was dispersed around the room, and miscellaneous craft items like pipe cleaners and plastic cups laid in plastic bins for easy access.
The event began at 10 a.m. and ended at 8 p.m. Within that time, over 100 people visited the gallery to participate or watch the activities.
“I think it is very popular because it allows you to play,” Herring said about TASK. “It allows you to be creative on your own terms without anybody else telling you what to do.”
When Herring first started the project with the same basic rules, he hosted a TASK event with a 10-person limit.
Now, he has collaborated with museums and educational institutions internationally to use TASK as a participatory project to connect with others and explore creativity. He has organized TASK events with over 1,000 participants, he said.
Miller collaborated with Herring to host a TASK event in Gainesville with the idea of making the tasks related to a table, hence the name of the event.
Miller made two large plywood tables with graduate sculpture students based on the designs of Donald Judd, an artist associated with minimalism. The tables were painted with chalk board paint so they could be drawn on.
TASK was adapted into TASKTABLE for this event to try and ‘"table" the creative action in a more distilled and intimate space,” according to Miller.
Changil Kim, a graduate student studying fine art and sculpture at UF, helped Miller create the tables for the event.
He hasn’t encountered a project like this before, but he was excited about it.
"I didn't meet this kind of thing when I was in South Korea,” Kim said. “It is a totally new thing and feels free.”
He said the freedom to interpret the tasks feels a bit chaotic, but the purpose of the event was the process of doing these tasks, not the result.
Noah Kellough, the resident director of 4MOST Gallery, worked with Miller and Herring to organize the event.
“I think there's so many entry points and ways to engage the work,” she said. “Like just through the diverse amount of materials or just who's in the room. I think there's a lot of opportunities for chance and play, and just creative experimentation.”
Graduate students and community members can apply to have their art shown at 4MOST Gallery. The gallery has 16 shows planned for the 2024-25 school year, including this event.
The next event at the gallery will showcase Elmira Yousefi’s work, a graduate student at UF who does painting, drawing and printmaking.
Miller, 4MOST Gallery and a grant from the UF College of the Arts funded TASKTABLE.
