Back in hot and sticky london after ricochetting off the stone monoliths of various UK cities like a wee pinball of energy, and its good to be back in the cool, calm and collected studio of Standpoint.
As I start the second part of my residency, I find I’m heading on a different direction than what I initially planned due to a change in priorities of some external bodies (such is life!) but am excited to get stuck into a new and what I think will be more fulfilling project, looking at the local community of Hoxton and the various estates around the gallery and how to engage with them.
While researching some new ideas, i came across what I had written on my “Research” period in February: “….within this ‘public realm’ work must acknowledge that we do not have to cross every border nor forge every divide. Sometimes, people and communities don’t get along. Not everyone likes everyone else. To paraphrase Claire Bishop (quoting Laclau and Mouffe in Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics) – “a democratic society is one in which relations of conflict are sustained, not erased”. And she further clarifies using the words of Rosalyn Deutsche: “Conflict, division, and instability, then, do not ruin the democratic public sphere; they are conditions of its existence.” By this she means that the utopian ideal where ‘everyone gets along’ is an impossibility, and instead we must embrace these conflicts and divisions as a natural and positive part of culture. They allow different viewpoints, different histories, different perspectives – and these must be nurtured as a natural extension of a functioning societal framework. To erase ‘Conflict, division, and instability’ (I call it ‘risk’) is contrary to the very nature of democracy, and to attempt to do that touches on the difficult praxis as “socially engaged artworks as social engineering.’ Perhaps I’ve been reading too much theory, but it is important we recognise this….
And while I have (thankfully) stopped reading all that theory, it reminded me that I think all too often, we get bogged down in ignoring tensions, and use art to make “the world a better place” rather than acknowledging that sometimes, the world is just fine without our meddling, arty fingers knotting things up. The question is, then, how to explore those tensions in a positive and productive way? It left me in mind of a tug-of-war competition wherein it is within the tension of competition that structure is formed; it cannot exist without people straining against and away from each other, but who are tied to the same rope: a sort of quantum entanglement of groups and individuals. And if we are all ‘connected’ – or, to use a less hippie-ish turn of phrase – if we all are entangled and indeed it is the tensions of entanglement that actually forms the structure of culture and community around us, how can we reveal that?
So, that’s what I’m wrestling with right now. or “tugging” at…
As they say: watch this space…..
