Process, process, process
From Saturday the 17th we have been taking part in a collaborative workshop here at Tokyo Wonder Site. Split into 3 groups of 8 people – each group consisting of some UK-based artists (British, Irish and Portugese) and some Tokyo-based artists (Japanese, Americans, Portugese) and multiple disciplines – artists, architects, designers, illustrators, musicians… Somehow our challenge is to come up with a collaborative response in our groups to the On Site Lab theme – New Communitiy Design in the context of March 11. Working through cultural differences and language barriers; inidividual hang-ups and group dynamics – and perhaps BECAUSE of those things rather than in spite of coming up with creative responses.
After a fairly generic team-building / intros day on Saturday (day off on Monday) both Sunday and Tuesday were pretty full-on, scoring perhaps 9 out of 10 on the intense scale! This is partly due to any group of 8 individuals thrown together in a room full of strip lighting. But also because of the very meaty and challenging topic we are discussing in a short space of time. By Saturday the 24th we have to present our work to TWS staff, CCW staff and members of the public. Thankfully, we have reached the point in our group where we have agreed some principles to guide our work. Rather than designing reconstruction plans for new towns in the disaster-affected zone (phew) we are concerned with what is:
– local
– small but scaleable
– interactive installation (referencing things like a tree-house rather than specifically art-world concepts)
– invites public participation
I’m hoping that today we will get out and about on some research expeditions (getting in some fresh air and natural light) and define who are ‘public’ is.
