Creative Conversations 8 sees me talking to photographer Jim Cooke. I caught Jim during a fascinating exhibition called Riparian he had at the Drill Hall on Portland during the summer of 2012. Jim kindly agreed to give me an hour of his time for one of my recorded conversation.
Jim talks about the exhibition – Riparian. This word was one of his father’s favourite words, it means alluding to the riverbank. Jim is fascinated by these areas between land and water. The work is essentially made of three strands; one an observational, topology one; secondly it is looking at the plants along the River Thames; thirdly it’s through looking at this part of the land through a microscope, photographing microscopically the plants, blood, engine oil, food, etc. What connects all the works is that they derive from the riverbank.
We proceed to talk about his connection to the Island and with Paul and Hannah at the Portland Quarry Sculpture Trust. Also discussing the fantastic space that is the Drill Hall and what a wonderful opportunity it is for artists to show work in this space; though it can be quite daunting as it is a large space to fill. We hear how supportive Paul and Hannah have been, and how beneficial this long term collaboration is.
Ending up with one of my favourite topics – of ways of attracting audiences to see contemporary art. That the Drill Hall has brought in a wide and varied audience, one that Jim wouldn’t see in one of his shows in London or New York.
To hear the conversation go to
http://creativedialog.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/creative-conversations-no8-photographer-jim-cooke/
Putting my Audiences survey together really made me realise just how difficult creating an online survey is. I had originally thought I’d do a fairly simple and quick survey as a means to fill-in for the fact I hadn’t got round to editing last week’s show. But a survey like this is never going to be simple.
There are so many variables affecting people who might be willing to travel to See contemporary art. Every question needed to be talked about, rather than a simple yes / no, or multi choice answer that I have put up. It’s reaffirmed my belief in how conversations can reveal so much richer data than a simple tick box survey like the one I have posted onto http://creativedialog.wordpress.com.
Still I decided to plow ahead and I have put up onto the website a basic survey. I am not sure really what the results can tell us (At the moment the results are given us percentages) about the audiences who visit contemporary art in a rural area. In my discussions during putting the survey together its been emphasised that the reasons are complex (in both why people attend and why they don’t attend) and hard to pin down in.
Can help me formulate a question around audiences going to see contemporary art in a rural area?
I won’t have time to edit this wks creative conversations show & as quite a few of my conversations have touched on audiences, I thought I’d replace this weeks show with an online survey, which I’d post onto the creative conversations blog.
Post would go along these lines – any suggestions for changes or feedback on its clarity welcome.
Audiences survey
I am very interested in looking at ways to attract an audience to contemporary art, especially in a rural context where audiences are spread across a large geographic area.
What do you think is the main issue stopping people attend contemporary art events in rural area?
– time (there are more pressing things to do)
– distance (people do not want to travel say an hours journey in a car)
– transport (public transport is not as good as within an urban area making it difficult to get to places)
– quality (the type of art event is not to my taste)
– knowledge (it is hard to know of these events)
– other
Comments
Another very interesting discussion features on Creative Conversations 7. This week you will find me talking to Carolyn Black, freelance producer for ExLab.
ExLab had seven quite major commissions shown across Dorset over the summer of 2012. It is also an interesting structure as it saw seven different organisations forming together. Along with hearing about ExLab and its structure, we hear Carolyn being quite honest and open about how things went and the lessons learnt.
I found this to be a really refreshing experience as so many publicly funded arts organisations (NPOs) and arts officers, who are working with public money, have NOT stepped up and agreed to talk ‘on the record’. So often they just seem to want to put in their secret arts council report, which we won’t get to see. So I’d like to offer Carolyn Black a big thanks for agreeing to do one of my recorded conversations and having her thoughts collected into my growing archive.
You can hear the show at;
http://creativedialog.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/cre…
