Given the subject of Community Networks in Manchester, how would the seven contemporary artists respond? Could we develop a project that stood up in the gallery and how would the work be received in the community venues?
Was it possible that art could work in both places and that the two exhibitions could inform each other. How would art work in the social sphere? Does it matter, or is it essential that art inhabits another sphere?
The following paragraphs describe some of the discussions that arose from this project which set out to raise debate about the role of the artist. These are taken from discussions with the artists and participants and at a panel discussion held during the Castlefield show.
What is a community? What is a network? What is an artist? Where is art best experienced?
Community is a contentious word. A catch-all that means everything and nothing. Could community also mean this community of workers employed to create connections, represent others voices, or to channel funding? Could community be or include the community of artists?
A network is how people develop their communications. This wont always fit a mould or a conceptual framework such as that proposed by CN4M – it might rather be organic, personal and responsive according to needs and strengths of members of that network – everyone has their own network and that can be hard to pin down. It will not respect the assigned borders. Andrew Wilson and Joe Richardson attempted in different ways to map these relationships within CN4M. But CN4M also tries to support these networks to add an advantage to those without.
And what constitutes an artist’s engagement with “community”? Working with community groups themselves, perhaps along the lines of a community artist, requires many more resources than this project could offer as Andrew Wilson discovered. Hoping that Venture Arts, a local charity, would take on some of the work of creating his game. The will to participate was there but they were too busy with their own projects, and without his direct ongoing input momentum slid. Trying to “involve people in making their work” just for the sake of it, may have felt like tokenism, or box ticking or recreating other models. I wanted to see if artists would choose this kind of engagement of their own accord. Maybe its just as valid, to allow artists, if they wish, to hover and float and do their own thing – to observe and play as William Titley did, attending meetings, grappling with the information and finally playing, doodling and making words into pictures and concepts into objects that contained an essence of the understanding of the processes and ideas that the meetings were dealing with. Artists will engage with community or with particular individuals as required by their practice, no need to force it.
