Now supported by The Arts Council for England and receiving funding from the National Lottery, ‘Cutting It’ is my blog following ‘Mapping Muswell – An N10 Paper Project’ which relies on the public donating paper to be used in the work, a laborious and intricately hand-cut paper relief. Can I pull it off?
It’s been great, hard, frustrating, exciting, revelatory and damn scary at times but the work is up, the talks are over and it’s all done bar the shouting. Or final evaluation.
I think it’s been a successful project, the facebook page has 72 likes which is pretty good, this website has about 300 unique hits since the project started and I have been front page news once for ‘The Hornsey Journal’ and once for the new ‘Ham and High Broadway’ – their very first issue in fact.
I have spoken at 2 schools, 1 sheltered accommodation for the elderly organisation, 2 Surestart play centres,the University of the 3rd Age, the Muswell Hill Traders Group, spoken to representatives from Muswell Hill Sustainability group, Muswell Hill and Fortis Green Residents Association, the Friends of Muswell Hill Library Committee, and the United Reform Church.
The project has featured online on the Muswell Hill Sustainability Groups website, the Local Gallery’s website, n0tice, in individuals’s blogs, ‘The Hornsey Journal Online’, ‘A London Street’ (Japanese Magazine).
I conducted 5 residences in total – one very short one at the Library back in March as part of ‘Green is Good in Muswell Hill’ and then the Local Gallery in May, the Koukan Gallery in June, Coppetts Wood Primary in July and the 5 day residency at Muswell Hill Libray in August. Three more than I had originally planned.
I also did 2 audio interviews for ‘Muswell Hill Media’ and produced a Youtube video whilst doing the residency at the Library.
Did it go as I had hoped? Yes, mostly. I would have like to have spoken to more schools in the area, I think it’s a great shame that more did not take the opportunity to get me in – as I’m free and green and it is inspiring for kids- I know that from the ones I have spoken to and have seen the work.
I would have liked more people to have remembered to drop some paper off. HUGE THANKS to those that did. There would be no project without it. As it happened I had more than enough and from a great range of ages and people, but, you know there could have been even more participation. I find it a little sad when I hear people saying ‘Wow- that’s amazing! I didn’t know that was going on in the Library’. I did try and get the project ‘out there’ as much as I could.
Do the people of Muswell Hill like the work now it’s finished? As you might expect some love it and some really don’t. The ones that don’t probably wouldn’t like anything contemporary and at least with it’s positioning – although it is approximately 7metres – long you can choose not to see it if you so wish (it is sited above eye-line). And those that do – great! That’s what I hoped. I also hope you will tell your friends and encourage more people to visit the Library which is a wonderful, free resource that we need to support by going there and using it. We’d really miss it if it wasn’t there after all. Thank you.
youtube video of Muswell Hill Library residency
Ah! Back to it. School holidays are over and much has happend since I last posted. I have had a week long residency at the Library which was interesting and revealing. Unlike the other residencies I have held for this project it was was targeted at adults. The Library in Muswell Hill has very distinct and separate areas for the adult and children’s libraries. Sited on different floors children rarely enter the adult library for any length of time and their usual chatter is discouraged by their parents/carers when they do. This is not library policy – libraries are not the silent places they used to be – but due to this distinct separation (not found so much in newer libraries) Muswell Hill’s adult visitors tend to perpetuate this behaviour. This meant that as I arrived with a rather large paper relief sculpture and my ‘Map-Me’ activity it caused a bit of a stir and a few raised eyebrows. Over the week I came to realise that some of the library regulars really viewed the library as an extension of their own homes. It is their library. They visit every day, at around the same time, mainly to read the papers – which happened to be the space in which I was based. Happily enough by the end of the week I had won round most of them – the maps working their magic and drawing people in. I learnt a huge amount about the areas history and peoples own accounts of their time in Muswell Hill, about their special places and memories. Why they came, why they had to leave or why they will never leave. It was so wonderful to meet so many people and hear their stories. And I got some work done too!
Caught between doing the necessary admin to increase project awarenss and making the work. I have now started the second section at least – using two old OS maps of the area I have approximated the region that corresponds to todays postal code (N10). i am still tinkering about with the first, contemporary section though- adding paper worked on by locals at the “Map-Me” activities I have run and small detail cuts of the area.
At times I feel thoroughly overwhelmed by the project – masses of paper in the house and my shed, some worked on other bits waiting to be used. I feel a certain level of anxiety about the amount I still have to do with the school holidays approaching and a week long residency at Muswell Hill Library in August coming up the every spare moment counts. the kids are both in the bath as I am updating this! I suspect i will manage it, but at times it all seems a bit crazy. Not the least is the prospect of putting together a book on the project too…
This isn’t a moan though. There are times when i could not be happier! In the shed dancing about working on it listening to some Ska. Enough said!
Surprised to find myself doing another residency this weekend at the Koukan Gallery on Alexandra Park Rd, N10. I’ve managed to get my project in the AP and beyond Art Festival. I think I have more or less finished the first section bar a few small view insetions. Here’s a peak…
I have recently been visiting a variety of places to try to talk to different sectors of the community in regard to the project and how they can contribute paper towards it. I spoke to the Haringey Branch of the University of the 3rd Age last week and visited a Sure Start Centre today. It is a little odd going into venues where people gather with no express interest in art to talk to them about my work – it feels a bit like some sort of guerilla lecturing! Fortunately most people are polite enough to listen and some really engage with what I am trying to do – but it is hard to gage any follow up interest. I have set up a facebook community page
www.facebook.com/MappingMuswellAnN10PaperProject
and new likes are a useful indicator, but this kind of forum is not within the realms of the ordinary for some of my target audience -the older citizen or children under 13.
Any thoughts anyone?
Anya Beaumont is a sculptor who works in a variety of media recently focusing on recycled HDPE plastic. Her work is often site responsive and increasingly concerned with the natural world. She often explores the boundaries between drawing, painting and sculpture. Beaumont received her masters in Fine Art Theory and Practice from Middlesex University with Distinction in 2004 and was an artist in residence there from 2009 -2011. Currently artist in residence at Pound Arts, Wiltshire and Lecturer at Bristol School of Art.
