On Sunday morning we went to the most incredible place ever. Even thinking about it now lifts my soul. It’s called Hulme Community Garden Centre. I love every single square inch of that place, seriously. Just go have a look at the place online, you’ll see what I mean. I’ll wait.
…
Isn’t it amazing!? There was this cat I made friends with there too. A beautiful one called Lily. I stroked her whilst she was mooching around and before I knew it, she had followed me back inside the
polytunnel where we was and she climbed up and sat on my lap. I suddenly became really popular haha!
We spent some time writing in our reflective journals, before going to another part of the Garden Centre to sit outside in the sun and have a chat about personal resilience. When you work from within you give a lot of yourself, and as an artist who wants to work with and empathises with people (often people who are vulnerable or face strife), it’s very easy to experience emotional burnout and as freelancers (which I’d say most artists are) and/or activists there’s no Occupational Health to turn to for support. So this was a really important thing to cover, especially as I had only recently come out of a five month spell of depression.
Sara had a flip chart at the ready to explore ideas around balance, and the effects of neuro-chemicals and how we need to keep them in balance for our own mental wellbeing. She did this really useful diagram involving red, blue and green circles and for life of me I can’t find the notes I did about it, but I remember it helped me to see things a little differently.
We explored Meditation/Mindfulness, which some were opposed against. I personally feel it’s a tool to use in moderation, and for the right reasons. By this, I mean that meditation has helped me greatly in slowing down, being in the moment, reducing acute anxiety etcetc. I teach Mindfulness myself, for a reason, and that’s because it’s good. It’s easy to learn and a good preventative tool.
However, in my experience meditation is useless when you’re in crisis (maybe meditation gurus can do it effectively in crisis, but for us mere mortals it’s unlikely) and I oppose the commercialisation of it, the over-reliance of it in healthcare (yes, it helps, but it puts the onus for recovery squarely on the sufferer) and the fact that it stifles justified dissent (‘with each breath, learn to accept the crap life you have!’). It’s a powerful thing, and there’s no denying it works and can help resilience; but like most tools it can be used for nefarious purposes!
Chris continued upon the theme of ‘balance’ by telling us about this Native American Wheel analogy. Again, I can’t find the bit of paper I wrote it on but it was great. It was all about finding balance and it was a good way of reflecting on your life (if I find the bit of paper I’ll come back and add it here!).
After a beautiful lunch in the garden, we headed over to this awesome dilapidated old theatre, the Grand Junction Theatre/Hippodrome/Hulme Playhouse, which has been taken over by squatters and repurposed for benefit of the local community. Whilst we was there, there was a marketplace going on, with a DJ playing music and selling records on the stage. It was mega cool. We spoke to one of the founders and I found her and what the community had done there really inspirational.
We walked into Manchester City Centre to have a look at the Manchester International Festival. One of our UNIONITES, Gulcin, was performing there but her show time was moved last minute and we ended up missing her… which was a shame because I’d have loved to have seen her perform!
We wandered around, and caught this incredible performance that had moments of audience interaction. It was down a side street, and I sat on the kerb to watch it. It involved this amicable British cheeky chappie cab driver (meant to be an Uber driver) and a food delivery biker (meant to be a Deliveroo guy). I don’t even know how to explain it, but the cab driver ordered food from a takeaway in between jobs, but the rider delivered the wrong meal (at fault of the takeaway) and there was this sort of fight going on between them, and the driver was being out of order to the rider to the point where the rider has a bit of a panic attach. We then find out that he was a gay refugee from Nigeria and about the horrific journey he had to make to find safety in the UK… and then some. It was really powerful and emotive and it touched upon all sort of topics in the 15-20 minutes it went on. There were hints of community, racism, prejudice, Brexit, revolution, compassion… there was a lot in there. It was one of the best street performances I ever remember seeing, and I’ve seen a lot!
After seeing a bit of another performance and chatting to some of the others in UNION, I wandered over towards Manchester Piccadilly to make my way to my next adventure. And that was the end of my 3rd UNION weekend! It’s not long to my next one now – end of August, and we’re up in the North East. Where I admit, I’ve never been to lol.
It was a great weekend. I find the organisers and my peers so inspirational and motivational. I feel like I took much more away from this weekend than I did from the Hull weekend (some of the NW UNIONites expressed a similar feeling about feeling like you’re not learning as much on your home turf lol). I’m trying to think of further reflections, but I think I covered most of what I was thinking as I went along.
SUNDAYS TAKEAWAYS
Saturday morning kicked off at the Green Fish Resource Centre with the theme of Working From Within. This weekend would be about using ones own lived experience to inform ways of working.
Fellow UNIONITES from the North West gave their own local projects as examples. Hannah passionately told us about Blaze, a youth-led arts festival organisation that develops the next generation of artists and cultural producers. It was started about ten years ago by adults as an Olympic Legacy type thing, but over time it became more independently funded and led by the young people (16-25) it looks to support (I may be wrong about some of this, sorry if I am Hannah!). The young people have control over Blaze, which looks like a really awesome project. It was good to see how it started off as something that wasn’t user-led, but over time became that… it got me thinking about Recovery College (my work), as I’ve been trying to work towards making it more user-led and coproduced. Food for thought!
Gulcin then told us about her project, the North West Turkish Community Association, after feeling isolated from her culture when arriving in Manchester. From what she was telling us, what started out as a small idea blossomed into an incredible community. The NWTCA is all about the celebration and education of Turkish arts and culture, and it’s programme arises from realising the needs of that community and acting upon it. Gulcin gave the most beautiful metaphor about how she sees ‘working from within’, which has really stuck with me. It’s a Persian story called ‘The Conference of Birds’, which I’m going to attempt to explain (apologies if it’s wrong!). There were many birds within a flock and they wished to find their king. The wisest bird suggested to find the legendary king they had heard about, so thirty of them went out looking. They set out and searched for their Bird King but struggled to find him. However, as they flew together over a lake, they looked down at their reflection.. and saw that they were flying together in the shape of a bird, realising that THEY were the king they were looking for. Like starlings murmerating across the sky, the leader may change for the moment, leading the flock this way and that, until another takes the lead. It is such a great metaphor for collaboration and shared user-led leadership!
I’ve been thinking a lot about non-hierarchical leadership models lately, in the context of work (as mentioned), The Critical Fish, XR and participation in general. How things work in theory, but not in practice. Or how things could work in practice given the time and breathing space… but deadlines, pressures, lack of resources, lack of interest and red tape prevent it. It’s the source of lot of frustration for me over the last six months or so. I’ve been reading a lot about this stuff, but haven’t found an answer to it yet.
Zoe then told us about REIGN, a project where survivors of child sexual exploitation deliver lessons/workshops and raise awareness about sexual exploitation. People share their stories in making change. Zoe also wanted to talk about the Autistic Pride events she runs in Manchester but unfortunately ran out of time. Maybe next time Zoe!
We were then given a presentation by Fereshteh Mozaffari Vanani from Sheba Arts, a user-led project to empower refugees and refugee artists. She challenges the under-representation of migrant communities in the arts, and uses her experience to support other artists so refugees and migrants can present their own narratives to the world. She encourages cross-cultural dialogue – she showed us images of events where people from all backgrounds are enjoying each others cultures and it looked awesome. I really liked Fereshteh’s spirit. I related to what she said about how Refugee Art is treat with pity and sympathy, much like Disability Art.
Inga at the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People was awesome – half the group went to see her over lunch, the others went to Horsfall Gallery. Inga spoke a lot about the social model of disability (vs the medical model), a cause which I feel very strongly about. She explained the difference between Impairment and Disability. Impairment is the physical issue an individual may have, such as brain damage or loss of a limb. Disability, however, is an issue rooted in other people which impose a state of disability (preventing the person from functioning). Disability is something done TO you as an individual. Disability is not a medical problem, but a social problem. We built upon the morning’s conversations by continuing to discuss the importance of language. We say ‘disabled people’, not ‘people with a disability’, as the imposition of dis-ability falls differently within each phrase. Disabled people ARE disabled by others. Inga was spot on in saying that everybody has the same needs, but how those needs are met are different for many disabled people. Again, using ‘service users’ (a term I’ve always felt uncomfortable with at work) comes with a lot of baggage too. SERVICE. USER. It’s a real patronising term and is pregnant with power imbalance, disempowering the disabled person. Also, we don’t say ‘carer’, we say ‘support worker’ or ‘personal assistant’. It sets a very different tone in terms of that power relationship, one that gives back control to the disabled person. I love how principled the GMCDP are in the way they work, how they source funds and their political education, including encouraging involvement in local politics and activism.
They’re involved with the #PeterlooProtest. There’s a public piece of art being installed, a monument, a podium, to commemorate the anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre (I’d never heard of it before, it’s horrible, read about it) and to give people a raised platform in which to protest, to say their truths, to be listened to, to exercise their right to free speech. However, this podium is not accessible to many disabled people! It has a load of stairs and is definitely designed with an able person in mind. It’s disgusting, especially when you consider the context.
This conversation got me thinking a lot about my relationship with my own disability, and how language is used in the NHS and especially at work. There was a real onus around the power of language, and how it is important that the group sets the terminology. I experience and real annoyance and anger at how mental health services have highjacked the terms, ideas and phrases developed by the Survivor Movement way back when, and turned them into empty speech and ‘progressive’ buzzwords. Yet, being an NHS worker, like millions of others, we kind of have to work to existing frameworks and language even though we know they’re wrong or ill-advised. Language is really powerful.
She used a phrase which came to sum up the weekend; “Nothing about us without us!”. Yes, Inga! She explained how the GMCDP work – the coalition of people involved (including allies who understand the principles) and who utilise the organisation have a say in how it develops and how they align themselves. It was very powerful stuff.
Concerning work, it got me thinking about using art for activism purposes, and how we can do things differently, to champion peer-led support and make things more accessible… this could include like… the students making zines that could be distributed, YouTube videos of things to do at home, and try to consider how the groups that aren’t inclusive of all forms of mental health… It also got me thinking that since I’m thinking so much about work, work ought to be paying for me to be here lol.
It also got me thinking about the access of The Critical Fish. I’m annoyed that the first issue isn’t as intrinsically accessible as I would’ve hoped it would be, and I thought about how much of a statement it could make to have the whole issue where it’s black ink on yellow paper, in nice, big print.
For my own exhibitions, events and projects, there’s a few things that can help make something more accessible. It’s not an exhaustive list, but Inga mentioned the following considerations can help:
We also had a really interesting conversation about Assisted Dying, and how controversial it is in disability circles. Should there be assistance with dying after assisted living? Or are we judging quality of life by ableist standards? There’s a real divisive film called Assisted Suicide: The Musical. It reminds me a lot of a somewhat similar controversary in mental health circles… Can someone with supposed capacity make the informed decision to die? Sometimes people with suicidal intent are assessed as having the mental capacity to do so.
Coming back to Green Fish, we were presented with some questions to consider:
– What makes an organisation genuinely user led?
– How do user-led initiatives tend to start?
– What are the benefits of user led activism?
– …and the possible challenges?
– How can art and creativity come into play in user led activism?
– What makes a user?
With these things in mind, the two expedition groups shared what they discovered. The other group went to Horsfall Gallery, where they support young people with managing their mental health through the arts. It sounded really interesting too.
I’d have like to have done more about how to be a good ally at this point, but we moved onto the afternoon/evening activity. The idea was to think about your own lived experience and how that has influenced your activism/work. And then to create art (visual, performance, poem, whatever) with others with similar concerns in response to that. I really, really struggled with this. I don’t know if I understood the question, or didn’t know how to respond, or felt too divided… I don’t know. Zoe was a gem and spent time with me working through my thoughts and ideas, but I still went inward and withdrew.
I think part of it was not knowing what ’cause’ to focus on.
All those thoughts about all those different things flooded my headspace all at the same time… and I felt very overwhelmed when trying to respond to the prompt of ‘think about your own lived experience and how that has influenced your activism/work’. I don’t have one thing I feel passionately for! Anyway, I went inward and moved away from the group for a while and just withdrew, and I didn’t make or create anything. Which in turn, affected me because I thrive on making and creating, yet I couldn’t do it :/
Sara brought with this AMAZING old book from the 70s(?), the ‘A Songbook; A Red Notes Pamphlet’ – I loved it. It was a collection of all the communist, revolutionary, anarchic songs (often set to well known folk tunes) from rebellious days gone by. I loved it. Some of the lyrics in there are SO not appropriate (throwing petrol bombs at the police? Mmmm…) but the rebellious passion and conviction of ideas were so inspiring to read. I enjoyed the DIY, cut-and-paste photocopier sort of aesthetic to it too. I’d love to see an edition of Fish using that kind of approach. I think it would be really refreshing. I posted a pic of it to my XR chapter, saying we need something similar for our actions!
We had dinner together at Green Fish (thanks to Linda and to those who helped make it – it was lovely!) before everyone (except me lol) presented their artwork, performances, poetry, participatory exercises etc on this awesome makeshift stage at one end of the room (think fairy lights and DIY flags). Everyone’s work was brilliant and engaging, and some of them were REALLY moving and powerful (looking at you Adrian) – I really enjoyed watching everyone be so creative and expressive and to see how people channelled their passions.
Later that evening, I was shattered and wanted to just chill out. Went back to the cell, had a shower (yes, they were communal showers lmao) and chatted with some of the others in the ‘Recreation Room’. We had some really great, meaningful conversations about all sorts (I loved the chat ladies, really) and before long, I hit the hay.
SATURDAYS TAKEAWAYS
I’ve been looking forward to this third residency weekend for ages (I always do) – I’m surrounded by other passionate and HUGELY interesting people doing very insightful and inspiring things. This UNION programme has been absolutely brilliant so far, and I’m genuinely gutted that we’re over half way through it now… only two more weekends left!
The theme for this week was ‘Working from Within’. I find it really helpful to write about what we did because I’m really forgetful (it’s an under-researched symptom of recurrent depression, I’m sure) and it helps me to remember things. Also, it allows me to share with you some of the things I’ve learnt about!
As many an adventure starts, it started with a train journey. I got into Manchester Piccadilly, and after I nearly had a panic attack at the station because I couldn’t find the bus stop I needed (why is it not clearly signposted!?), I arrived at The University of Manchester’s Whitworth Halls, which is where we were staying for the weekend. We stayed in student dorms and OH MY GOD… I’ve never seen a room like it. I’m always grateful to have a paid-for bed but they were hot, musty cells complete with mouldy curtains. Everyone’s room was like mine (except others also reported giant spiders!) but we all seemed to take it in relatively good cheer, finding the humour in it. I never did the ‘staying-in-uni-dorms’ thing so it was an experience, but two nights was enough – I couldn’t imagine being 18 and staying there for a whole year though!
Anyway, we then got ourselves to a restaurant called Kim by the Sea, which is nowhere near the Sea. It was this hipster-y restaurant with a really nice vibe, though I got given my meal with a bajillion olives on (which I don’t like) and jalapenos (which I can’t handle). We had some really interesting conversations around the table.
First was about Enneagrams, and some of us did an Enneagram test – I was pretty happy with my result really (Type 4), although I think some of the wording is a bit unfavourable…
The second stand-out conversation I remember was about these cultural differences our conversational group experience, including the similarities and differences between Indian/British Sikh, Turkish and White British. We spoke a lot about our families (mine was deffo the least interesting lol) and experiences growing up. I really loved and valued that conversation, ladies, just so you know :)
Although I was shattered, we went to the pub after with some of the UNION gang before returning to my cell.
SUNDAY 7 APRIL 2019
Sunday felt like a bit of a blur? The focus of the day was reflecting on who we are as artist-activists (Artivists) and what we need to get to where we want to be. Back at Artlink in the morning, and we spent some time going over and refining the UNION agreements. During that day, we also did an exercise exploring where we sit on the poles of:
Past ——————- Future
Individual ————- Collective
Inner —————— Outer
Compliant ————– Rebellious
I found this exercise quite difficult as different parts of my practice can sit on opposing poles. For example, the work I make for ME (physical art-making) is individual, inner, in the present, rebellious… where the stuff I like to do with people (e.g. Fish, Recovery College, workshops etc) is generally future-orientated, collective and outward looking. Which is fine, of course, but it was difficult to plonk yourself along a line when your practice is so varied.
Now this is where I have written a whole in-depth bit of reflective text but have decided that it’s maybe more suitable for my journal instead of on here – the key points though were that I have become much more risk-averse in recent years (possibly also related to my mental well-being) and that that is something I’m already working on. I seemed to fixate on that point during group work (don’t forget, I was in a hypercritical-of-self negative state) which may have suggested a nature not actually reflective of myself. I’m superorganised but I’m not controlling or unbearably pedantic!
With these thoughts and ideas in mind, we did an activity of working out what we had to offer and what it was we needed:
3 things I have to offer:
1 thing I need:
Still think I need that one thing. I do suffer from stress and when I’m in a low patch I can get much worse. And I tend to isolate myself. It’s just what depression does. I meditate and my interests (arting, ukulele, reading, writing, gaming etc) chill me out but they’re quite internal activities. I could still do with some more active, ‘external’ spontaneous loosening. I exist very much in my own head – which is a tendency of an overthinker. It’s an existing quest of mine to live in the moment but have things to look forward to. Which includes new experiences. Always. I’ve been fortunate to experience lots of pretty incredible things in my life – I’ll show you my Life List sometime. But the frequency has slowed down in the last 5 years or so (to be fair, a big part of that relates to finances) so that needs to change – but booking a random trip to India has already shook it up a bit!
After making plans to support one another with various things, we were asked to make an image – a selfportrait as an Artivist. In mine, there was something about knowledge and growth and developing myself into a tool for change:
Chris asked us about creating a term for ourselves that summed up ourselves as an Artivist – his was cool: Mystic Revolutionary. In my irrational mindset however, I found this difficult as I kept going straight for negative adjectives and verbs. I have been thinking on this since though, and the one I have sort of settled on is: Restless Conspirator. Restless because I can’t stay still, I have to always move forward, be proactive, improve the situation (and because I exist on a cocktail of anxiety and frustration!)… and Conspirator because I notice that I get people onside before plotting/collaborating with them to think up better ways of doing things, and then often lead by example in tactfully shaking the boat a bit. I’m not naturally a rule breaker but I am one for challenging the status quo. I think my process involves seeking to change hearts and minds with compassion, reason and lived experience before proving my point with direct, pacifist, creative and effective demonstrations of my argument. As opposed to the anarchic distruptor that most people probably picture when thinking of ‘activist’.
I could do with being a little more anarchic, to be fair . But the term ‘anarchy’ seems to no longer simply mean ‘leaderlessness’ but instead implies anger at any authority, which when stirred by the excitement of protest, can lead to unnecessarily violence But this anger runs the risk of pissing people off and harming your cause if not thought through and/or executed appropriately. How can you make change if you piss off everyone and get the backs up of the people you’re trying to win over? I’ve seen too many worthwhile causes and campaigns get backlash and lose support because of this, or through the invitation of negative spin. Also, in my experience, once walls are built and opinions formed, it is all the harder to bring back down as no-one likes to admit they’re wrong. I’m all for disruption (I goad people on Twitter occasionally – what a rebel) but I think in my day-to-day I hold a bit more of a Sun Tzo approach to activism.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
“To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”
Sun Tzo. What a baws. It was a really interesting way to reflect on the self as an Artivist, although it raised more questions than answered them!
There were things in the Sunday outline that would have been really helpful to have had the time to explore, especially in the mind I was in. About self-care, identifying the next ‘threshold’ in our journeys and exploring the fear and doubt about moving forward. Perhaps that was explored in some ways through the sharing of skills and ideas and thinking about what we needed support with. Dunno!
The end of the day saw us planning the next weekend, which would be in July. Would appear to be in Manchester. After that Fri/Sat/Sun there, I will be travelling to London on the Sunday night to start my fortnight-long Royal Drawing School Summer Programme, which is being funded through my Emergence Bursary. I’m gonna be knackered!
SUNDAYS TAKEAWAYS:
Despite how I felt during and around the time of the weekend residency in Hull, I genuinely had a good time. I loved seeing everyone again, and folks felt much more comfortable in each others presence. The whole programme is brilliant and I love the company of my fellow artivists. Us lot are gonna change the world, you know.
SATURDAY 6 APRIL 2019
Rocked up to Artlink, one of my favourite arts spaces in Hull. The morning was quite heavy, but I really enjoyed it. Vikkie showed a Powerpoint explaining all about the City of Culture (C0C) in Hull – it’s amazing how I had already forgotten about half of the stuff that happened. That’s quite bad isn’t it? It led into a big discussion about both the benefits and criticisms of the management and delivery of CoC, to which the Hullians gave their perspectives through discussion and within a carosel type arrangement. That morning, Franco Bianchini, Director of the Culture, Place and Policy Institute from the University of Hull, came to visit us and gave us a presentation on the statistical analysis of CoC. It was heavy and the facts and figures we’re fired like a machinegun but were REALLY fascinating; I found Franco himself very interesting and if I were in a better place mentally, I think I would have liked to have a natter about it all.
After lunch, the Hullians took the group to various people/places within the city as a bit of ‘field research’ about the impact of CoC to learn of some different perspectives (and in turn, how that relates to personal practice). The group were invited to choose between going to:
I had a good group come with me to see Sharon – we were there chatting to her for about an hour. Shaz is my studio neighbour and in the ~4 months we’ve been in there together, we’ve become pretty good mates and seem to be quite good at lifting each other up; Shaz is great and I have a lot of time for her. Before recently focusing on her own practice, she worked with the Goodwin Trust in developing community arts in Hull. She did a lot during CoC and is very involved with arts and culture in the City, so I asked if she would be happy to share her experiences to the UNIONites as she would have a very unique perspective on CoC and would be very insightful and honest about sharing her experiences. And wow, she didn’t fail to deliver! Sharon, if you’re reading this, you certainly made an impact.
She spoke about how CoC changed her life and gave us answers to questions that we went to ask, but it was the other more personal, meaningful stuff that I (and I’m sure the others) remember the most. Shaz was relatable and reassuring to literally everyone who came to see her, and made us all feel very positive and optimistic about ourselves as artists and change-makers.
After heading back to Artlink, we relayed what we had found out to the rest of the group. Some of the most heard phrases that afternoon included ‘Shaz is amazing’ and ‘We love Shaz’! It was great to hear what the others got up to though – the Preston Road graffiti event seemed to have made an impact on those who went too. I would have loved to have gone to Bean and Nothingness but I’m glad I went to the studios! It felt strange having others in my studio space though – there’s something quite vulnerable about it.
The following task involved mixing up the groups and coming up with some idea about how we would respond to a CoC event landing in our home town, using the information we’ve learnt and the criticisms raised of CoC from Vickie, the Hull UNIONites, Franco, the cities artists and our own practices as inspiration. Living in Hull and experiencing CoC, it was a bit tough to think what I’d do in response to a megaevent ‘after the fact’ (if you know what I mean), especially since I’m already responding with The Critical Fish.
It’s been almost a month since the residency, so I don’t remember all the presented ideas, but my groups idea involved inviting the city’s artists (as a critique of CoC was that local artists weren’t involved/consulted/supported or raised on this platform) to work collaboratively with the community (as much of CoC felt ‘done to’ instead of ‘done with/by’) on the back of already-scheduled buses (simple way to bring culture to diverse communities whilst promoting environmentally-friendly transport). The back of the bus could host performances, gallery spaces, drop-in workshops, poetry readings, conversations… whatever reflects the resident artists practice. Artists could sit in residence as part of an organised programme of bus residencies, or randomly, or both. They can choose to stay on one bus, or bus hop. In addition, bus fare would be included in the booking of tickets for organised cultural events (as transport costs are often a barrier for everyday folk to access arts). On the buses, there would also be a way of displaying a real/digital community notice board, which people could post offers of car shares or proposed shared taxis to cultural events to further reduce barriers. Art on buses. I reckon it’s a corker of an idea. I’ve got a thing about buses as a tool for community cohesion – I’m already trying to get a Recovery College bus!
We did a bit of reflection in our journals before ending for the day at 5pm. We went over to PAVE for a coffee before heading to a nearby Thai restaurant for dinner at 6pm. The meal was lovely. Some went out partying/drinking/socialising after the meal, but I weren’t feeling right in the head so I felt it would be best for me to head home and have a chilled night. Which I did!
SATURDAYS TAKEAWAYS:
