Another week has passed incredibly quickly. I have not really had time to think about everything (anything?) that happened, this and a conversation with a friend has made me realised that I am someone who needs time – something which seems to be increasingly rare resource as I get more and more involved in more and more things.
The first session of the Introduction to Artistic Research course was good and I am looking forward to the coming sessions. It felt wonderful to be in an academic environment again, the educative experience is something that I really enjoy – it is my way of understanding myself, the world and my place in it. (And not just the art world, I can say the same of my Swedish classes too!) My impression is that on the spectrum from academic to practical I sit somewhere in the middle, I felt this quite strongly during the discussions and while listening to the presentation on contemporary research contexts and perspectives. I want to maintain and develop this position rather than shift to one side or the other – my own kind of ‘middle way’. We have a couple of assignments to prepare for the next session. We also have a starting point for our course assignment that includes a seemingly simple question that is already making me realise that I need (and want) to know more about the particular art scene that I can imagine myself belonging to.
I am setting myself a personal challenge during the course and that is not to use the word ‘project’ when discussing my own practice. This could be a red herring however it seems too easier a catchall word that lends apparent weight and gravitas to things. I am keen to see if I can develop skills with a language that maintains artistic and creative references rather than immediately adopting scientific, managerial or bureaucratic terms.
Our short presentations of ourselves to the group reminded me how unique the Art & Social Context course was. I feel very fortunate to have done that course and think that is fantastic that 25 years later I continue to reap the benefits of its philosophies.
On Monday I visited KKV (the Artists’ Collective Workshops). It is a large former industrial building not far from the city centre that now houses various workshops that artists and designers can hire by the day, week or month. Walking around I started to think about how having such a place enables artists to continue developing their material skills as well as their conceptual ideas for new work. Perhaps I started to see connections that are not really there but I wondered whether the YBA’s combination of DIY aesthetic and their employment of high-end fabricators had anything to do with the lack of practical resources available after college. Actually the systematic removal of space eating resources, such as casting rooms, wood workshops, weaving looms and print presses, in colleges must lead to completely different generations of artists. I was shocked to see how my old studio at the Slade had been carved up enable more fee-paying ‘digital-based workspaces’, not that I blame the Slade – it is doing what it has to do to survive in terrible times.
Straight after seeing KKV I went to another discussion about artists in relation to Stockholm’s development. The city’s rapid expansion is pushing artists out of the more central areas, and the question of gentrification has urgency about it as poorer districts are being given cosmetic facelifts in attempts to lure the new money to formerly undesirable parts of town. Questions about the displacement of the often neglected current residents in these areas are being raised by artists and curators who are truly embedded in those places. I like these kinds of artists’ town meetings – they feel important and significant, they are open, public and well attended. I hope that Sweden’s more horizontal axis of differentiation (compared with the UK’s more vertical one) means that these discussions have relevance to, and some purchase on, issues of city policy and planning. For me it is refreshing that artists believe that they do and that their opinions (should) have the same authority as those of business.
http://kkv.nu/ Artists’ Collective Workshops in Stockholm. They are about to start a residency programme – details will be on the website soon.
