I went over to The Arthouse in Wakefield today with my Dwell Time co-curator Lenny Szrama. We met with the other YVAN micro bursary recipients and presented/talked about each others’ practices. The format was a 10 minute overview of practice and what we were using the mircogrant on. We presented our Dwell Time at Community Rail in the City, Sheffield, May 2019 which Vanessa, Lenny and Rowena made at a rail event introducing our project. Most of the recipients are either disabled or making work with/about disability and it was really good to see the crossovers and potential scope for collaborations.
Lenny and I chatted on the way home about the socially engaged practices and increasing need to make work that addresses massive inequalities. We talked about the format of sitting in a room talking and the type of language this encourages. Jo suggested that we do a walk and talk meet up which encourages a different type of communication which I think would be a great idea. Lenny suggested we have a meeting with food/drinks as this creates a completely different dynamic and sociability as well.
Reflecting on our own Dwell Time meetings, we tend to hold them at our homes (mainly Vanessa’s as she the least able to get out) and we tend to have snacks or a meal. Our dialogues tend to start with a wellbeing check in to see how we each are and will also often digress off agenda into politics or philosophical musings that are related to our subject matter and/or personal situations. Each dialogue is a ‘dwell time’ in itself.
Also at our YVAN meeting, Tom Hopkins presented his PGR questions centred around perceptions of being a Northern artist and invited artists to get in touch for conversations about this. I’ve invited him to come and present his research and instigate a dialogue at Art Lab which he seems keen on.
