I took part in a Collective North live chat today about action and activism today. I met (online) some really interesting practitioners and shared ideas and concerns. This online chat group is an interesting mode of dialogue in that threads start popping up and I ended up swapping between various sub conversations with different people. It’s a form of multi-channel dialogue that couldn’t really happen in real life. I suppose in theory you could have multi-directional conversations in sequence. Taking inspiration from the first patterns in taekwondo Four Direction Punching/Blocking (Sagi Jurigi/Sagi Magki) where you punch/block in the four 90 degree directions in sequence – a performance could be where you maintain four independent/concurrent dialogues with four different people moving around on the spot facing N, E, S, W or vice versa. I sounds like a parlour game or a game the surrealists might come up with! Would there be dialogue between the dialogues? A question and answer format or more broadly a response to the utterance? What would the guidance for the participants be?
Lenny and I went to Dwell Time’s partner (Bibliotherapy) network meetings and found out loads of really relevant things that are happening (successful networking!) I was thinking in the meeting and afterwards about the nature of dialogue in collaboration (following the Compass Live Art development meeting topic of partnerships) and especially the first meeting of potential partners and collaborators. How what we do and have to offer and also what we want/need is communicated respectively. Also thinking about the liminal spaces inbetween the ‘official meeting of informal conversation and friendly chitchat getting to know these new people. At the beginning of the meeting before introductions, we had a conversation and kids going back to school and grown up kids going off to uni. A good ten minute conversation about the education system in the UK and comparison to other countries’ systems ensued. Notably how careers advice conversation go and how ridiculously early children are made to chose subjects of potentially a lifetime. This dialogue is based (or certainly was when we were receiving it) on academic achievement over interests. The options of courses that blend diverse interests was and probably still is limited and the motivation/pressure to go into a financially rewarding careers is huge. A better model would be to be enrolled in further/higher education and pick modules of interest, indefinitely, whilst contributing to society in the process with the learned skills and knowledge. I’m sure similar models must exist somewhere. And this was the dialogue before the 2 hour valuable meeting took place! Maybe every meeting should hold a space for a non-business agenda ten minute dialogue at the start!
I’ve been thinking about the visual response I’m going to be giving to the Echoes of A Market and the relevance of dialogue. The dialogues that are recorded and happen in the space, the dialogue between the existing work and the space. I’d previously mentioned to the group my dialogue/monologue prints I’d made as a potential starter for thinking about this project.
I think I’d like to build on this work and start with monoprint and ink drawings and see where that takes me.
Art Lab at Dean Clough returned after a break over August with a fantastic September line up of David Fennell-Roberts, Gill Crawshaw and our regular slide presentation Robert Donald.
I asked everybody to briefly introduce themselves and then handed over to David. David presented an oeuvre of his work and inspirations which was a great introduction and received an engaged response in the Q&A session. We took a short refreshment break and had the opportunity to look at some of David’s paintings he’d brought.
After the break, Gill talked about her upcoming show in Wakefield produced in response to the Damien Hirst ‘Charity’ sculpture at Yorkshire Sculpture Park as part of Yorkshire Sculpture International (opening 25 September in Wakefield). The Q&A did inevitably focus on Damien Hirst’s work somewhat and Gill noted the reluctance of doing Hirst’s work for him in a sense, but platforming the disabled artist in the show outweighs the attention that her curatorial response gives it. Representation, visibility and
Robert Donald then presented a selection of slide starting with Malevich’s Black Square and through Soviet Russian art as a response to the political mess we find ourselves in now in the UK. He took us through the use of art as propaganda and Stalinist oppression, drawing out comparisons with contemporary British culture (we’re ready for a revolution).
Having three instead of four presenters is definitely a better format and less rushed and time pressured.
If you’re interested in presenting at a future Art Lab please get in touch!
We had a development session at Compass Live Art in Leeds last week (we being the artist development bursary recipients with the Compass team). This one was looking at partnerships.
Nicole Mollett and Sarah Butler’s A-Z of Partnerships was used as a starting point of conversation.
- Approach each partnership with generosity
- Be patient
Etc
We also looked at defining terminology: partner/funder/collaborator/supporter – and the differences we each saw in those roles.
Co-production was also discussed the language used in both internal dialogue (between partners/collaborators) and external audience focused dialogue.
Thinking about supporters, a useful mapping exercise was suggested on writing down who are my supporters are.
