Carl Wagan

THE CARL WAGAN BOOKMOBILE is a traveling campervan of cosmic proportions. It is a gallery, printshop, studio, library, reading room, classroom, and community project—all contained within a 1988 VW Westfalia. CARL WAGAN promotes active engagement with book-based cultural activity such as self-publishing, zine-making, screen-printing, and bookbinding. Subtitled “The Spaceship of the Imagination,” CARL is partly a loving homage to the innovation of astronomer Carl Sagan whose passion for dreaming continues to inspire generations of thinkers. CARL WAGAN is an experiment in radical pedagogy—bringing the strategies, materials, ideas and dialogues of independent publishing to a wide variety of audiences.

CARL WAGAN is the project of artist Shannon Gerard and first developed as an extension of her Nano Publishing course at OCAD University.

Carl Wagan has been generously supported by Aboveground Art Supplies

A highlight of the Justin Beaver Schoolhouse was our school photographers working tirelessly to upload images to the YEARBOOK live all day.

The JBS blog contains images of both our Friday night photo-booth in Carl and several green-screen pictures made on Saturday at MASS MoCA. Amazing work!

Students wrote lines with the Canadian Breakfast Club in DETENTION.

One of the most popular classes was NUTRITION in which students got to cast their vote for best maple syrup in a blind taste test. The three syrups were Mrs Butterworth’s, a grade A dark amber from New Hampshire and a light all natural syrup from Quebec.
The JBS Cafeteria also included Kraft Dinner cooking lessons and an introduction to Ketchup Chips.

One of the most popular classes was NUTRITION in which students got to cast their vote for best maple syrup in a blind taste test. The three syrups were Mrs Butterworth’s, a grade A dark amber from New Hampshire and a light all natural syrup from Quebec.

The JBS Cafeteria also included Kraft Dinner cooking lessons and an introduction to Ketchup Chips.

Playing cards illustrated a version of an early Canadian bartering system in ECONOMICS.

In HISTORY, gallery visitors removed their place of origin from stacks of cards depicting each continent so that the remaining piles acted as a kind of cultural-census bar-graph. Since most JBS students were from the USA, the North American cards were removed almost exclusively.

Who better to introduce the Principles of Carl than all-time champion keener Anne of Green Gables!?

JBS students learning Canadian lingo like Timbits, Toboggan, Poutine, and Lacrosse and trying to earn an “EH.”

JBS students learning Canadian lingo like Timbits, Toboggan, Poutine, and Lacrosse and trying to earn an “EH.”

JBS Home Room also included a library of student publications!

Camera: iPhone 4S
Aperture: f/2.4
Exposure: 1/40th
Focal Length: 4mm

The first two graduates of the Justin Beaver Schoolhouse receive their merit awards after reciting the Oath of Citizenship:

(please place your hand over your heart)

I affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty, Carl Wagan the First, King of Canada, Best of the Bookmobiles, Champion of the Imagination, and to his heirs and successors, and that I will faithfully observe the Principles of Carl and fulfill my duties as a student of the Justin Beaver Schoolhouse.

The Principles of CARL:

CARL places an extremely high value on the enthusiastic pursuit of achievement, meaning and human connection.

CARL employs playfulness as a cultural engagement.

CARL champions imagination.

Camera: iPhone 4S
Aperture: f/2.4
Exposure: 1/24th
Focal Length: 4mm

Carl made a trek down to North Adams, Massachusetts on November 1-4, 2012 for a student performance at MASS MoCA.
Responding to the current exhibition, OH, CANADA and its curatorial enthusiasm for the Great White North, students at OCAD University in Toronto, Ontario created The Justin Beaver Schoolhouse. In this project we played with myths and ideas about Canadian-ness, engaging museum visitors in a variety of activities that gently educated and stimulated discussion around issues of identity.
Classes, which were all under 2 minutes in length, included HOME ROOM (introducing students to the Principles of Carl), LANGUAGE ARTS (testing students’ knowledge of Canadian idioms), FRENCH (Parlez-vous français? Apprendre dans la classe JBS français), HISTORY (quizzing students in general socio-political knowledge and polling their countries of origin), GEOGRAPHY (drawing maps of Canada from memory), MATHEMATICS (converting standard units to metric), ECONOMICS (bartering the early-Canadian way), and NUTRITION (teaching students how to make Kraft Dinner, introducing Ketchup chips, and conducting a blind maple syrup taste test— Quebec vs. New Hampshire).
Under achievers were sent to the Canadian Breakfast Club in DETENTION to write lines and all students had their photos taken for the JBS YEARBOOK.
The Justin Beaver Schoolhouse activity culminated in a Convocation Ceremony in which visitors recited the Oath of Citizenship (see above) while The Maple Leaf Forever played in the background. Merit badges ranging from General Excellence to Remedial Assistance Required were issued based on student achievement in all classes.
We were joined by the dream team: Lukey P, ALSO Collective, Vanessa & Caroline of the OCADU Student Gallery, and Graham Nicholas, Carl’s favourite musician.
A Canadian Tuxedo themed launch party at Melanie Mowinski’s amazing space PRESS turned Carl into a photo-booth for the evening while double denim shenanigans reigned inside.

All photos in this post by ALSO Collective.

Carl made a trek down to North Adams, Massachusetts on November 1-4, 2012 for a student performance at MASS MoCA.

Responding to the current exhibition, OH, CANADA and its curatorial enthusiasm for the Great White North, students at OCAD University in Toronto, Ontario created The Justin Beaver Schoolhouse. In this project we played with myths and ideas about Canadian-ness, engaging museum visitors in a variety of activities that gently educated and stimulated discussion around issues of identity.

Classes, which were all under 2 minutes in length, included HOME ROOM (introducing students to the Principles of Carl), LANGUAGE ARTS (testing students’ knowledge of Canadian idioms), FRENCH (Parlez-vous français? Apprendre dans la classe JBS français), HISTORY (quizzing students in general socio-political knowledge and polling their countries of origin), GEOGRAPHY (drawing maps of Canada from memory), MATHEMATICS (converting standard units to metric), ECONOMICS (bartering the early-Canadian way), and NUTRITION (teaching students how to make Kraft Dinner, introducing Ketchup chips, and conducting a blind maple syrup taste test— Quebec vs. New Hampshire).

Under achievers were sent to the Canadian Breakfast Club in DETENTION to write lines and all students had their photos taken for the JBS YEARBOOK.

The Justin Beaver Schoolhouse activity culminated in a Convocation Ceremony in which visitors recited the Oath of Citizenship (see above) while The Maple Leaf Forever played in the background. Merit badges ranging from General Excellence to Remedial Assistance Required were issued based on student achievement in all classes.

We were joined by the dream team: Lukey P, ALSO Collective, Vanessa & Caroline of the OCADU Student Gallery, and Graham Nicholas, Carl’s favourite musician.

A Canadian Tuxedo themed launch party at Melanie Mowinski’s amazing space PRESS turned Carl into a photo-booth for the evening while double denim shenanigans reigned inside.

All photos in this post by ALSO Collective.