I have just received the exciting news that I have a place on a short course that I recently applied for. Sixteen years after finishing at the Slade I will be back at art school! The course – An Introduction to Artistic Research – is at Konstfack, is part-time over twenty weeks and is in English. Making the application I realised just how much has changed in the academic art world since my time at the Slade, back then artistic and practice-based research was in its infancy even if it didn’t feel like it at the time. Now it seems so established with its own distinct methodologies, terminology and networks.
This particular course intrigues me and I hope it will enable me to work out how my practice might sit within a research context. In the past I have been sceptical about the idea of using terms such as research to describe a/my practice, preferring to insist that my practice (all of it) is art and that art necessarily includes a great deal of research. I am therefore very interested to see in what way my practice can maintain its identity as art and at the same time contribute to what is a distinct academic discipline. Perhaps I am more confident than I previously was that my practice is sufficiently secure and established within itself to shape the idea of research rather than being shaped by the idea(s) of research.
It will be very interesting to find out if I am capable of doing the two different things at the same time – it feels as though it will be a little like patting my head with one hand while rubbing my tummy with the other! I mean that I want to keep making art and I want to see how it works as “research” – which to me two different activities being carried out by the same body. Already I am thinking about the applications to other courses that I have made over the years and how I have often times tried to fit my art in to what I imagine pre-existing frameworks to be, my aim for this course is to test out how I develop my practice on my terms in the context of artistic research and to investigate where this might lead.
One of the other students on the course is Ingrid who (with Anna) I have been working with for the last year on our Sandcastles in Greece project. I also noticed from the email list that another artist who was at the meeting when I met both Anna and Ingrid will be on the course too!
Taking a hard-copy application to Konstfack was interesting in and of itself. I experienced a very real sense of excitement as I approached the building, just as I did when I have previously visited KKH (Stockholm’s Royal College of Art). I really enjoy being in places of learning: schools, museums, libraries, and for me art school is the ultimate. On the day that I delivered my application I had also arranged to pick up the final version of the Ljusfältet film from the filmmaker who lives nearby, I was early and waited in the college café. It is hard to describe the senses of rightness and belonging I have at such times – I remember it was the same when I had lunch in the café at KKH before meeting the research coordinator there. The phrase ‘being institutionalised’ is often and popularly loaded with negative connotations and I am aware that I can make my friends squirm a little when I say that I long to be institutionalised … I mean, of course, being an active member of a good and healthy educational or research institution, a place of enquiry, collaboration and potential. I am absolutely delighted that for twenty weeks from the first of February I will be, albeit part-time, institutionalised again!
I am really pleased with how the Ljusfältet evening here at Wip:konsthall turned out – a good and fitting start to the New Year! The whole idea of doing something in early January is appealing; something to mark the arrival of the new year, a pleasurable way to re-engage with work after the holidays, the opportunity to catch-up with colleagues and …
The evening worked really well: the discussion was interesting and stimulating for both the speakers and the audience – it ran over by half an hour and continued informally afterwards; the gallery version of the installation looked good – the possibility and potential to make non-site specific versions of site specific work is something that I have wanted to develop for some time now and this was a great opportunity to see how it could be done and how the work can work in new ways; people responded really well to the booklet – there is something (perhaps something a little more intimate) about reading words on a page of a book that is very different from reading the same words on the wall of a gallery; keeping the look of the show simple seemed to create space for thoughts, ideas and discussion – which for me is really important; and not least the evening brought together a diverse group of people – the subject under discussion (the future of open and public spaces in the city) brought in a far wider audience than often come to exhibitions at Wip:konsthall.
Thinking around the idea of in-between space in both preparation for and after the discussion has raised a lot of questions for me and has led to interesting and intense conversations with friends and other artists at the studios. One subject that keeps coming up in various ways is the seemingly relentless pursuit of, and faith in, financial capital. Perhaps it is not surprising that artists find this difficult, especially artists with practices that are not solely commercial. Art can offer alternative value systems – how to do this in such image saturated and possession obsessed cultures appears to be a very pertinent question. It occurred to me that my avoidance of image and advertising loaded mass media could be part of my personal strategy for enabling me to see the art when I visit galleries and museums. As the in-between spaces in our towns and cities, as well as people’s mobile phones and social media networks, become more and more drenched in advertisements with their demand to buy, their insidious message that we are always lacking, is it any wonder that people do not know how to relate to (art) images which invite them to think differently, to contemplate something, to simply enjoy the image for what it is. Before the panel discussion I had not heard about São Paulo’s city wide ban on billboards – the conservative Mayor leading the campaign and calling them “visual pollution”, apparently the result has been hugely successful – it’s certainly something I am going to follow up!
It feels as though the evening was not only good for me but also good for the exhibition space. People’s enthusiasm for more discussions and events that give an exhibition additional dimensions is certainly something that could be developed as a core part of the exhibition space’s future programme.
Birgitta and I were not the only ones to kick off the New Year with something exciting. Last night the contemporary galleries in the Hudiksvallsgatan area of the city all opened with new shows. These evenings when the galleries open together are always enjoyable and last night there was a definite sense of excitement and energy. Going around the various shows I bumped into two of the panel guests from Tuesday evening as well as other people who had come along and people who had heard about it but could not make it – in total more people to stop and chat with than I would do in similar circumstances in London. I had a new sense of starting to belong in the art-scene here – and I like it!
This morning I collected the test print of the Ljusfältet booklet – it looks really nice. I am looking forward to being able to give them to people when they come to the show, and to sending some to people who can not make it here. It feels more more ‘me’ to send something real than a link to a website. Of course the two things are not mutually exclusive – perhaps I should produce a web-version of the booklet for my next website update.
Thank you Michael …
Art is wonderful. Michael Petry let me know that his installation Golden Rain will soon be in the permanent collection at Palm Springs Art Museum where it was shown this summer. This is great for Michael and I am delighted to hear of his success. The news, and timing, is particularly poignant for me. I was one of the 100 artists that Michael invited to make something that would be sealed in to one of 100 golden glass bottles in the installation. At the time that Michael invited me to participate John (my partner) was alive and we regularly saw Michael at the shows he curated for the R.A. Schools. Between being asked to take part and making my piece John died. The piece I made Letter to John is my memory of the night he and I met inscribed in to thermal paper that is the length of our combined heights. Michael’s news about the acquisition reached me as I was marking the fifth anniversary of John’s death. It is amazing and wonderful to think that a part of John’s and my story resides now not only in an artwork but in a museum collection – I really could not ask for more. I am incredibly grateful to Michael for his generosity and his commitment to his truly innovative and inclusive practice.
Before each artwork was sealed into its own bottle it was photographed. There is no record of which artwork is in which bottle (if I remember correctly even Michael does not know) and the bottles’ golden reflective surfaces are completely opaque so there is no chance to see the pieces inside. However the museum will produce a digital catalogue showing the picture of each piece so that visitors can ‘see’ them.
Preparing for the panel discussion that will be part of the Ljusfältet evening at the Wip:konsthall has encouraged me to think around the idea of ‘in between’. The discussion will focus on the importance of ‘in between’ spaces for artists (primarily) however beyond the literal interpretation, for example the places that most of us have our studios and show our work(!), I have been thinking about how ‘conceptual’ (?) in between spaces are changing too. The other evening I was on the train home and after weeks of not looking up from my books I had time to sit and gaze out of the window. I also had time to notice how almost every other passenger was doing something with their mobile phone (surely now a rather out-dated name for the device), one was reading a book, no one was talking to anyone else in the carriage but a few were talking to someone somewhere else, and no one else was looking out of the window. Technology has enabled the boundaries between things to become fuzzier – emails come direct to mobile devices be they from work, a friend or a representative of an unknown deceased person who named you in their will. Likewise silently tapping away on a screen in the office or studio might be work or it might be an online second life fantasy game. While the idea of the physical ‘in between’ space intrigues and excites me, the reality of the virtual ‘in between’ space, or at least the diminished distinction between ‘here’ and ‘there’, I find quite terrifying. This of course creates friction with friends who do not understand why I do not often answer my mobile phone, or why it takes me a few days to reply to emails.
As much as I want ‘in between’ spaces I also want places with distinct boundaries. Without these places and their clear identities I feel lost and confused -sometimes I do not know if I am in a train station, a hospital or a modern museum as everywhere seems to increasingly resemble a shopping mall.
To my mind the most interesting artworks are those that manage to be both themselves and something else, to understand the importance of ‘in between’ and at the same time recognise the necessity of distinction. Art is wonderful.
www.psmuseum.org/palm-springs/exhibition/michael-p…
www.mocalondon.co.uk
Ljusfältet part ii is taking shape. Birgitta has is doing brilliantly at putting together a panel that will discuss ideas of in between spaces and creativity in the context of my installation specifically and Stockholm generally. I would really like to be able to have sufficient command of the language to express myself in Swedish but that is not going to be possible. I hope that I am able to follow the thread of a more academic conversation in Swedish so that my (English) contributions are appropriate.
Writing a text for the leaflet that will accompany the show at the konsthall is proving difficult and time consuming. I have never been the fastest writer and now I feel hindered by a writing process that is so dependent on reading around my subject. I still enjoy going to the library, it remains an important part of my routine here however for very different reasons. Every Wednesday afternoon I go the ‘Swedish Language Café’ held at a library on Södermalm. Afterwards I often wander around the bookshelves trying to do what I used to do in British libraries – looking for words that make some kind of connection with the subject I am working on. My current lack of familiarity with the Swedish language makes this a challenge.
There is simply too much information on the internet. Something that I have always appreciated is that the process of producing a book – particularly before the advent of desktop publishing – includes a great detail of investment and commitment on the parts of both the author and the publisher. I am thinking mainly about academic publications at the moment. The fact that books made it in to a library gave them a veracity and authority that I understood, not least because I understood what a librarian was. On-line publishing is truly post-modern and even if I did not always accept it I miss the great casualty of post-modernism – the grand narrative with its clarity and singularity. I like to have something I can argue against or stand up for rather than a never ending collection of vague sentences that are always readily available cut and paste … this, if nothing else, is going to force me to become proficient in Swedish at some kind of academic level, in the meantime I will keep making trips to the UK to go to bookshops and libraries, and support them the best I can.
The current obsession with technology and the ability (desire?) to produce and distribute ceaseless unsubstantiated information is perhaps merely a phase we (western mankind) is going through. I am reminded of Lyotard’s description of postmodernism as a ‘nascent state’.
My practice is not global, my life is not global, I am not global. I am and I live here and now, I can call my practice site-specific and talk about my interest in social context or I can put it another way; my practice is local, my life is local, I am local – at least I am doing my best to be local …
