Can generosity be a reciprocal practice?
Artist interview with Kate Murdoch (part one)
Kate Murdoch is a London based artist whose work reflects a fascination with the passage of time and the contrast between the permanence of objects and the fragility of human existence.
Her participatory project 10×10 was originally created in response to a call for art around the theme of trade and currency for the tenth anniversary of Deptford X in 2008, and has since been recreated for Lewisham College, Herne Bay Museum & Gallery Whitstable 2010 Biennale Satelite Programme and more recently, for Coastal Currents in Hastings. 10 x 10 is an everchanging display of 100 objects. Wherever it goes, people are asked to take one item and leave something in its place.
The only rules are:
• One swap per person
• The item must fit in the display space (14.5cm x 14.5cm)
10 x 10 asks:
What is an object worth to you?
How much do you want it and what are you prepared to give in return?
JM: 10×10 structured around a swap: people are invited to take an object but are asked to give one in return. You talk about the inspiration behind 10×10 coming from North American pack rats which leave objects behind in place of things that they take. Have you always been interested in ideas of exchange/reciprocity?
KM: Yes, I have. It’s always been around me I suppose, that idea of reciprocal gift giving and exchange. On our frequent returns from family visits in Scotland, for example our family car would be filled to the brim with coal and briquettes from the local mines, while we’d take up sacks of root vegetables from the local farm which were harder to find in Scottish villages in the 1960s.
I was brought up in a small Cambridgeshire village where daily exchanges of exchange and reciprocity went on. The local farmer for example once brought a brace of pheasants to our home, I remember as a thanks for my family helping out with the difficult breech birth of a calf.
It was from 1987 onwards that my interest in the idea of exchange really started to develop. I saw how successful it was during the time I lived in Ithaca, a small town in upper New York state. A green dollar system, which was basically a means of exchanging skills without using money, originated and developed there and went onto be very successful. I worked for a short time in Ithaca’s Self-Reliance Centre, helping to match up the skills which were offered. A carpenter then, might offer 10 hours work in exchange for 10 hours of child care, a masseuse might take up the offer of exchanging eight one hour massage sessions say for an equivalent exchange of language classes. It was a real success and had a huge positive impact on creating a solid local community.
JM: What were your aims when you first did the project in 2008 at Deptford X art festival? How did you envisage people would engage with the project?
KM: I had no agenda and had no idea how people would respond. I was slightly anxious but also very intrigued. Would it be people’s generosity or meanness that triumphed when it came to the value of the things that were exchanged is one of the leading questions I ask. There’s no doubt that my fundamental belief that people are generally good, fair and have an innate sense of what constitutes appropriate, decent behaviour helped me dare give up the 100 objects in the first place. I keep going back to my friend’s response to what 10×10 would be about after I’d talked him through my initial proposal: ‘It will be a comment on humanity.’ I anticipated that people would interact with 10×10 with a generous spirit and with one or two exceptions, that’s exactly how they have.
The rest of this interview will be published in this blog tomorrow.
To find out more about 10×10, visit Kate’s website at http://www.katemurdochartist.com/ten_by_ten.html
Kate’s a-n blog, ‘Keeping it Going’ can be found at www.a-n.co.uk/p/2295372
This interview is published in full in Issue 1 of my new zine series ‘Reciprocity’ which documents, alongside with this blog, my research findings into ideas of generosity, sincerity and gift. For more information and to purchase the zine for £3 plus postage, visit http://jeanmcewan.com/2012/11/05/reciprocity-1/
