Context is half the work
The Individual and the Organisation: Artist Placement Group (APG) 1966 – 1979 at Raven Row, is a must see exhibition for anyone who is interested in context, dialogue and placements. APG sought to place artists within industrial situations, government departments and offices. By negotiating an open brief, removing the need for tangible outcomes, the artists were offered freedom to explore, discuss, debate and negotiate with those from a non arts background. My long standing interest in APG has taken me to the Tate Archive and to plan an in conversation event with Barbara Steveni at firstsite in 2011. Barbara undertook much of the correspondence relating to funding this new art practice model and negotiating the placements. With my interest in industrial contexts and processes out conversation focused on how success is measured within this way of working.
I have just received Pablo Helguera’s book Education for Socially Engaged Practice. I’m starting to dip into it and opened the book on the page detailing Community, page 15 details four definitions of participation, the third is pertinent to this project:
“Number 3. Creative participation. The visitor provides content for a component of the work within a structure established by the artist.
I would say this project sits within this 3rd definition (the others are 1. Nominal Participation, 2. Directed participation and 4. Collaborative Participation). The added dimension is that this project is a commission so the terms have been set by the commissioner such as the historical focus and that the outcome should be digital. The History Detectives and I are engaging in a very interesting dialogue and we explore the materials together with help from archive staff. We will work together to select content to include in the final artwork.
As a process led artist, and one who works repeatedly on residencies I need to immerse myself as fully as possible within the site or subject. I enjoy working with ‘non artists’, people from different professional backgrounds and with different interests. This allows the process to be based on discovery, exploring terminology and documenting different visuals and processes. What I am having to do in this project is work without historical photographs which presents specific challenges, but it’s good to have challenges to my existing process.
There is an outcome required for this commission, I’m starting to think about what this might look and sound like and will be asking the group to talk when we next meet on Thursday about a favourite document which relates to our focus.
http://www.ravenrow.org/
http://www2.tate.org.uk/artistplacementgroup/
http://pablohelguera.net/2011/11/education-for-soc…
