The book was eventually published on 6th July. We launched the book with a public discussion event at Outpost Studios. The topic was: what spaces does family life allow for creative practice?
Judith Stewart and Frances Williams (who each contributed an essay to the book) both came to take part. We were particularly pleased that six families came, and that there were different kinds of interactions going on simultaneously: playing, building things, drawing, dressing up, discussing issues of practice and parenting.
On our axisweb page there are further images of the discussion, and of the artwork we put up around the room where the event was held.
Judith Stewart’s completed essay was called ‘Whose Everyday? Politics, Ethics and Art’.
For several years we had been making a body of work about the tensions and creative exploits of domestic life. We had used drawing, written observation, film and photography. We hadn’t found a way to get the work into gallery spaces. In 2012 began to talk about a book as a way to get around this obstacle, a way to put the work into public view.
Judith’s essay spurred us on. During the spring (of 2014) we selected forty or so pieces from this body of work. We invited Frances Williams (at the time working as Head of Education at South London Gallery) to write an essay about the meaning of ‘family’ within government policy and gallery practice. We started assembling these elements and finding an order for them.
