I’m working in a graveyard. This residency has me based in church grounds: an old chapel, newly converted into shiny studios. I’ve been appointed as Lead Artist and Project Coordinator for this, and over the next 12 months will recruit other artist to fill the gaps in the studio, and embark on a blistering outreach programme to invigorate the local community. Jobs don’t get any better!
Looking forward to tomorrow. Jonathan Parsons, the ARC co-ordinator in Portsmouth is coming to dispense wisdom, and engage in discussion. It’ll be a good chance to put forward all the studio development ideas I’ve been formulating, and test them against a critical perspective.
I have my first progress report meeting next month on the 12th, so I’m treating that as a deadline for putting the package together. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow’s session I’ll have an effective plan of action.
And as things are looking right now, a lot of phone calls to make. The funding seminar at last weeks NFASP conference suggested putting aside at least 20% of your time on funding based activities. Reckon it’ll be a bit higher than that for these next few weeks. But if we build it right, the work load will be less in the long run. Or so I’m hoping.
Whoops, I can’t find the instructions for the heating system. It’s cold in here! Suppose that makes it all the more authentic though. Freezing artist in old building, cold breath-clouds spiralling up into the even colder ceiling.
Fret not though. Michael is back tomorrow, and he can work the machine.
The future is bright.
The future is toasty.
Enham in Southampton left me knackered. Re-united again with my sometimes-partner in things arty, Jon Adams, we were speakers at a pilot session for the Dada Exchange programme we are involved with. Usually it serves to provide a mentoring service for artists who have or have had some experience of disability in their lives. It’s a fantastic programme, and all the advisors have benefited probably as much as the clients. I didn’t know it would be like that when I signed up for it, but I’m all the better for it.
This pilot scheme is for non-adults living in the socially marginalised fringes of today. Our task was to introduce ourselves and give brief but (hopefully) motivating talks about how they could possibly benefit from such a scheme. Yes, it’s art, but it’s also a mentored path that can help these young people get a bit of self esteem back into their lives.
The second part of the session was were Jon and I led a workshop each. I think he was by far the more sensible of us two, and had them actually making stuff, responding to text from books. For mine, I had them involved with a site-responsive installation drawing with the furniture. Giving these young ‘uns the freedom to pull the room apart, up-end furniture, pile chairs up, and rip up some books (specially provided) was quite an experience for all concerned. Energy levels went through the roof, and control was walking a fine line on more than one occasion! But as we swapped groups over and repeated the session, it seems the furniture drawing had a significant affect on them. The drawings they made in Jon’s session turned out to be a lot more inventive and unimpeded than those of the first group who ran the exercise cold.
Comments ran from Weird, Boring and Pointless to Fantastic, Unexpected and Exciting. I think we can do more of this. But bloody hell, it was hard work!
The Future Jobs Fund is looking to be possible addition to the Chapel Arts studio programme. I had a good chat with those people today, and they think the ideas are (a) good and (b) stand a high chance of acceptance. If we can get a series of 6 month roll-over residencies in the chapel, with each successive unemployed artist placed into a local school or college, we could reach out to literally thousands of people. It’s a big step-up from a workshop teaching a dozen or so locals how-to-do.
The blog I read the other day by Emily Speed has added a lot of impetus to this plan. When she asked about the difference between an artist initiated public-art project and a public-art project, I think she touched on a very relevant issue for what I’m hoping to do here.
Getting even so much as an early stage endorsement from the Future Jobs Fund people is very encouraging .
Interview at the Walsall Gallery went pretty well. Fantastic building. Beautiful floor. Jon and I had a tough pitch to make though. Building a residency programme that has it’s origin on a responsive footing leaves the field of play completely open. We literally don’t know what we’ll be finding.
But that’s how we want it.
The last couple of years have seen us collaborate on an increasing number of projects that involve coming blind to a situation, and creating a site specific response. An unexplored site is an uncertain thing, but an unexplored population is even more so. Who knows what they’re going to do? All we know is that we will use what we find as a starting point and let it grow form there. We both find that exhilarating, scary as hell, but also a way of preventing us from imposing too much of ourselves onto the initial stages of the work..
Working like that, we get more of a call-and-response situation, and something that stays fresh throughout. But, like I said, it does make it very hard to pitch. How do you propose something that you have no plan for? We opted for a discussion on our previous working methods, and the ethics for doing such work..
As it happens, we didn’t get the commission, which was a big shame. We both feel this is an exciting project and I guess we’ll just have to take it elsewhere! Onwards and upwards. The Occasional Collective will appear again.
David Dixon is an installation artist interested in the nature of perception, knowledge and the uncertainty of binary divisions. His work often refers to the research of modern physics. He works as Lead Artist and Project Co-ordinator the new Chapel Studios in Andover.
