Making art politically

coming soon

a link sent to me by a friend for a video of Hirschhorn talking about making art politically:

http://www.artreview.com/video/video/show?id=1474022%3AVideo%3A595858

I'm overwhelmed with work at the moment. The money-earning kind.

I just got some pictures back that were taken on disposable cameras at the White Night debate, that seems such a long time ago now.

I've chosen this one because of the incongruity of the silly pose, my cheesy smile and the word 'revolt'.

What is the difference between taking a stand and taking a stance? Striking a pose?

I am lost somewhere between the blog that was about my Hirschhorn residency – which is now over – and the need/(desire?) for a blog anyway.

Before I can move from one to the other I have to define for myself what I mean by 'making art politically'. I am amazed that I haven't done that yet – and that you have let me get away with it.

I'll try.

I'm back in Fabrica today holding one to one sessions with artists for the arc scheme. It's good to be back here and in a different guise. I see that my blog has slipped to the third page of Projects Unedited and my last entry was on 19 November.

Where did the second half of November go?

Of course, Hirschhorn's banner has long been taken down. The war is over. But of course, it's not.

War is over.

I just fancied saying that again.

The artist I have just seen showed me work about protest. She had made contact with me during the residency so it was good to meet her in person and see more of her work. We talked a bit about Greenham Common and the legacy of feminism. I talked to her about my undergraduates and about how much the teaching of feminism now so often means starting from scratch and how The F Word is such a dirty one now among younger generations. We spoke excitedly about collecting the memories and the insights learned from earlier forms of activism.

I never went to Greenham. (That's a good title for a book). But I had some friends who did. I was too chicken. Scared of policemen and 'perimeter fences' and of what I might realise about the world. But it was, it is, an example of successful protest. And we need those examples.

I need to reflect on the residency and on everything I learnt. And I need to carry on writing, every day, or as often as I can.

Although the residency at Fabrica has officially finished and the exhibition has been taken down I anticipate that I shall continue to keep this blog going since I have a backlog of material, images and responses that deserve to be uploaded.

I will keep this going until it becomes about something else at which point it will be time to draw it to a close and maybe start a different sort of blog.

The residency has been good for me in a number of ways. It has given me the opportunity to investigate another artist's work over a sustained period in an environment of interested and committed support. I have worked with a range of people had many interesting conversations and almost like an extra bonus, I have made new work which might take me in even more new directions yet.

At times the subject matter of the banner and of the Photo Biennial has got me down and I have wanted not to think about it. At those times I have been prompted to think about those people who live directly in war zones and I have wondered how on earth they cope. We are at war but they are wars over there involving Other People and we get other Other People to go there and fight them for us.

We cannot even begin to imagine…

At the weekend I attended the Conference of the Photo Biennial the best part of which was a visit to Anthony Lam's public event at Jubilee square involving young and older people. There was a soap box for anyone to speak their mind from, a stall where you could make a banner.

Here is mine. As powerless as I often feel in the face of human idiocy I like to think that at least I can challenge hostile thoughts within myself and not pay them attention. I'm talking about hostility towards other people. We all have it in different forms and flavours. It's a bit like hearing voices, though not the kind of voices that won't shut up (they're something else entirely). Voices that come from within and would have us act less than humanly towards others.

It's not surprising in this challenging and competitive society that this hostility arises. I wonder where it goes when we refuse to give it voice?