In the fading light on a December afternoon, Fraisia, Dan and Anna met at the Hotwells Piazza in Bristol to discuss how doughnut economics could apply to an artists’ network and how that could specifically relate to our community art practices. Working with diverse communities teaches us a lot about the precarity of life for so many people; the basic needs of food and shelter are often not met adequately and this has been making it difficult for us to get our heads around doughnut economics.
Artists often live at the edge of these basic needs, but, for the moment, the three of us are fine, so we approached the task enthusiastically. Weary of Zoom working we set about challenging the freezing air by getting out the chalks and sketching out our ideas. Here’s how it went.
Our messy doughnut is part of the Bristol Artist-Led Forum Peer Learning Group- Artists Make Change jigsaw and we’re looking forward to slotting our piece in so we can all stand back and look at the whole. In our sub-group trio, we talked about physical change-inspiring activities in public spaces. Can’t wait to see what we create!
We also realised that we probably work in a reciprocal way with other artists already. Assuming other do this too, we’re going to ask around and have a look at the value we all bring each other- if we’re not able to offer financial reward, what are we gifting?
Article and video by Anna Haydock-Wilson with Brick Project CIC
N.B.
In case you can’t access the video, here are the words on the inside of the doughnut, in our safe space:
- Open Minds
- Love
- Praxis
- Acceptance
- Play
- Space
- Empathy
- Variety
- Community
- Experimentation
- Do no Harm
- Warmth
And on the outside of the doughnut, the things that we feel can damage us all:
- Homogeneity
- Hierarchy
- Competition
- Chemical pollution
- Rigidity
- Capitalism
- Corruption
- Land corruption
- Ocean destruction
Article and video by Anna Haydock-Wilson with Brick Project CIC
