Elena’s first post:
We haven’t started arguing yet.
I remember, a while back in my personal blog, talking about collaboration and how when it’s not with the right artist, can be disastrous.
Well since then I have worked with quite a few other artists. These alliances of varying duration and intensity have come about far more organically than before. My previous experience had been with artists similar to me. My thought being that we’re bound to work well together and produce something good.
Wrong.
What we produced – if we ever got to the point of producing anything – was something safe, boring, unchallenging. And in hindsight, I think I didn’t have the confidence to be challenged too much then.
Which brings me here…
While doing an MA, you rub up against all sorts of people. Sparks can fly. Work is exciting, challenging, thinking about it mind-blowing – if you do it right!
Occasionally you meet someone REALLY annoying who drives you up the wall because he questions every decision you make about your work and then laughs at you when you struggle to come up with a coherent answer. That one, for me, was Bo Jones. He has sharpened me up.
His working method is completely different to mine. His output, up until very recently, had no point of contact with mine.
But…
We have certain values in common. We both teach. We have overlapping taste in music – which for me is a big plus. We have conversations that ramble all over the place. We agree on enough stuff, but not everything.
We did talk about working together, as our course drew to a close, more, I think, as a way of continuing the conversation. Recently, through that continuing conversation and exchange of images, we’ve made a material and conceptual link between our work that wasn’t there before – or if it was – we didn’t see it.
We’ve booked a space, and now we have to work towards filling it.
And I have every expectation that Bo’s first post will disagree with mine, just for the hell of it. He’s like that.
