Latest articles for Building the Ugandan Arts Trust
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Reflections by the Nile
by Rocca Gutteridge 3 Apr 2012
A weekend away from the hectic energy of Kampala.
I’m by the Nile, just one mile from it’s source in Jinja, watching a huge patch of green being pulled from it’s home and carried into the swell and then dropping off a lethal rapid.
If that green survives it might end up in Egypt one day.
Looking around me, the green is lush, the water sparkling, the rocks a perfect, rock colour. Locals bathe and fish from a natural jetty. Bright colours of washing lie out to dry while kids run around kids with the unstoppable rubber tyre and stick game.
The idea for 32º East has been brewing slowly since February 2011 and as rapidly as this river since last October.
It’s one of those rare opportunities to reflect and look back on what’s been achieved, as well as forward to what needs to be done.
My view of the Nile with the escaping greenery
I’ve been living in Kampala for 6 months and I still feel the need to research as much as when I first arrived. Being here and understanding the project beats any art theory text on setting up arts institutions.
A year ago, when I was first invited to Uganda by a fantastic NGO, the Child’s i Foundation, I kept a blog to track and record all the arts and cultural activities I came across. I did it simply so the next traveller could use the blog rather than have to spend a month uncovering what I’d already found.
You can see the blog here: web link
It was from this research that fate got in the way, I met a funder back in the UK and the mission to set up a supportive network for contemporary visual art was born.
The arts scene wasn’t what I had expected to find. What does Ugandan Art look like? For me it looks like the people that make it. The diverse, generous, passionate, uninhibited minds and talents of the some 50 artists I’ve met in Uganda so far.
There are issues that affect the work being produced. The audience for Ugandan Art at the moment is predominantly an ex pat one. The ex pat system usually revolves on a three year wheel so there is the tendency among artists to make their work revolve on the same cycle. This leads to a very similar style being created rather than a fight and energy to find one’s own, unique style.
This is the minority; if you scratch the surface of Ugandan Art you’ll find works that comment, question and reveal what it is to be an artist, to be a living, breathing, culturally producing human in Uganda, Africa, the world.
Nikki and I began 32º East with a huge vision: stacks of artist studios, a gleaming new gallery space, a new modern, out of this word, out of Africa, Art space.
After 6 months we’re only just beginning to understand what this art scene might actually need and want.
Meeting artists has been essential to the process. Observing networks that are already in place and seeing what to support and to partner, what resources are really needed, what will survive and contribute to the scene in the long run?
Makerere Art school is one of the growing number of key partners for 32º East.
At a discussion we asked artists what they thought of building an arts centre. The reply came: “If you just build an art centre no one will come, you have to come to us first.”
The energy and passion is already in this art scene. East Africa’s Art is starting to kick and 32º East is part of the movement, by watching, supporting, promoting all it has to offer.
The way forward feels a lot clearer now. We’re building a place where artists can interact, make, show ideas and discuss. We’ll create networks, contacts, exciting projects. Above all, we’ll work with and not against what’s already here.
A crucial and first step to the organistion is the creation of an arts library with Makerere University School of Art. The British Council have donated the books and we’ve just secured free shipping to get everything to Kampala. All we need is a container to put them in. If… if… if… you wanted to join our adventure and contribute to the library I’d be so grateful.
Here’s the link: web link
I’d also love to hear anyone’s comments on our work so far. It occasionally gets a bit lonely in the head out here. Criticize, critique, question me! Or just say hi (that’s nice too).
Have a lovely week and thank you for reading,
Rocca
And here’s a little image diary from the last few weeks:
Blissfully unaware of the reality behind his new paint job.
This is the stuff that Africa is made of.
Pre-dive warm up
Public health warning, Africa style.
A visit to a local weaving loom in Jinja
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Pop up shop culture in Uganda.
Ant tracks. I’ve been told they can kill a puppy in minutes.
Up close and beautiful, but deadly. The best thing I’ve seen on safari!
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The beginning of my journey: Setting up an Arts Trust in Uganda
by Rocca Gutteridge 19 Feb 2012
Last night the skies burst. I was at a neighbour’s party: Cold Club beer, beautiful kids darting around the scorched compound, guests with real stories to tell and glowing African sunshine. It gets dark here at 7.30 on the dot, like a blanket being chucked over Uganda. Bang! Day over, night begins. It’s 7pm though and night comes half an hour quicker today: a huge black meringue sweeps over us. It happens so quickly- I’m terrified, the kids start screaming with joy and locals calmly take their matoke, potatoes, rice and beans inside just as the first fork of lightning rips across the sky.
Nothing here is constant, nothing is settled, it feels like anything could happen at anytime. But Uganda’s also a contradiction of terms, In 1907 Winston Churchill visited Uganda and called it ‘a garden of sunshine and deadly nightshade’. Life stumbles along leading you to believe the chaos will always remain and the mindsets are concrete. It’s not going to be easy but there’s hope and adventure bursting out of every artist and conversation I’ve had so I know I’m in for an exciting ride.
Maribou stalks watching over Kampala- huge beasts towering over you from lampposts, trees, buildings and huts
In October 2011 I packed up my Edinburgh flat, bags and wrote off (not-intentionally) my little white van to move to Uganda to begin 32º East | Ugandan Arts Trust: A passionate attempt at creating a network to support and bring together the nodes of artistic excitement in this growing art scene.
I’m working with Nicola Elphinstone, my co-founder and curator of the organisation. Nikki contrasts with and therefore compliments everything about me: Nikki’s blonde, calm, grounded and incredibly diplomatic.
We’ve just taken on board Sophie Alal, a Ugandan Arts writer and new General Manager. Sophie’s husband is Scottish and Sophie is a beautiful mix of a deep East African soul and a sharp, cheeky Scottish mind. I have happy thoughts about the potential of our trio.
Boda Bodas: My daily commute to work on the back of one of these. Scary / stupid / exhilarating.
We have a venue in Kansanga, a district of this bustling, dusty, hectic capital city, Kampala. Within the venue we aim to: build a resource centre, filled with books thanks to the generosity of the British Council, create an experimental exhibition space and have an open communal workspace for artists to meet, discuss, fulfill projects, push ideas. The business plan is extensive, we’re building partnerships, creating networks, developing exchanges. The plan is also in flux. I’ll explain why soon but in a nut shell the last twelve months have been dedicated to research, to making sure this project is needed, will work and essentially be sustainable.
A first sketch of the art space in Kampala. Containers stacked to create a flexible working environment
I’m going to use this blog personally, to unwrap and describe everything that happens in between the endless funding pitches, meetings, budget sheets, plans, politics and all that I’ve discovered is needed to set up a body for the arts. The words therefore are my own and not those of the Ugandan Arts Trust.
If you want to comment on my blog please do, it’d make me happy to feel connected and to keep being challenged by your thoughts, I want to be questioned and critiqued. If there’s anything anyone wants to know about setting up projects of this kind just let me know and if there’s a way you think you can get involved please get in contact anytime here or by emailing me at rocca@ugandanartstrust.org
Previously to this project (and as you’ll see in prior posts) I ran a project called Artachat: a discussion network for Contemporary Art, predominantly focused around public art and social engagement. Artachat is set to continue both here and in Scotland through my planned trip home in May and by the generosity of Orange Uganda, who have provided technical equipment to live webstream the talks from Uganda.
Thank you to the Edinburgh Mela festival who are paying my salary until the end of April, without their support this project would be impossible. Thanks also to Chris and the team at PAR +RS for allowing me to use this space to blether and connect.
The lightning’s still flying all over the seven hills of Kampala, I’m going to sign off, have some eggs on toast and prepare for the week ahead. I look forward to being in touch soon and thank you for reading.
Rocca
A few pics so far:
A butchers shop- Francis Bacon would have been in heaven
The market’s are artworks in themselves
Pearls of Africa
Buckets of sculptural charcoal
A post office in the town of Kasese, Uganda
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The Goodman's Croft
by Rocca Gutteridge 20 Oct 2011
“For the next ten days the Goodman’s Croft, SSW’s brand new radio station, will be streaming untapped and unheard arts and cultural content from the depths of Scotland. If you’ve got audio you’d like to showcase then get in touch: radio@goodmanscroft.org”
The Goodman’s Croft- a brand new online and on wheels radio station is up and running at the Scottish Sculpture Workshops
The title comes from an age old North East Scottish myth- 300 years ago every farmer would leave a section of his land untilled as an offering to the devil, without doing so one feared their entire field would be destroyed. We applied this myth to the contemporary concept of community radio and asked: “What if a media voice was given to all the unheard, untapped and untilled voices and talents of the local area?”
Since our launch on the 15th October the Goodman’s Croft has been gathering stories, discussions, live music, debate and community banter from near and far. Content includes radio dramas by Rhynie Youth Group, interviews with local artists, poets and musicians, discussion on agricultural and farming issues with broadcast journalists and people local to the area directly affected by the topics.
The station is broadcasting live Tuesday – Sunday, 5- 7pm until the 31st October. You can tune in by clicking on the giant ear at www.goodmanscroft.org
If you miss a show, fear not- you can listen again to the Goodman’s Croft podcast archive by just a click of the mouse.We want this station to grow and be truly integrated into the area. So drop us a line at radio@goodmanscroft.org or pop into the Scottish Sculpture Workshops communities room for a cuppa, to learn how to use the equipment and perhaps become our next Goodman’s Croft DJ star!
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Let's Get Together- Write Up
by Rocca Gutteridge 21 Sep 2011
An Artachat discussion with:
Angus Farquhar (Creative Director, NVA)
Peter McCaughey (Artist, Lecturer and Director at Wave)
Blane Johnson (Former RGU student)
Deborah Beeson (The Mother’s Art Movement)Last Thursday’s Artachat, the first in three devised in collaboration with Robert Gordon University, focused it’s attention around the theme of collaboration in Contemporary Art and asked the following three questions to a fully engaged audience at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture in Aberdeen.
Why do we collaborate and with who?
What types of collaboration do we pursue?
How do we know when collaborations do and don’t work?The following transcript is a series of Twitter style short notes composed by independent curator Dane Sutherland for Artachat. A podcast of the event can be heard here: http://snd.sc/p6t3F4
and thank you as ever to Stephen McGarry for his excellent photo documentation.-
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Opening Presentation- Angus Farquhar (Director, NVA):- I can see two main reasons for working collaboratively:
- I’m primarily publicly funded, so already I define this as a collaboration.
- I don’t make objects for galleries.
- Collaboration brings groups of people together in positive circumstances.
- In a wider field, it is necessary to collaborate with funders, statutory bodies and the public.
- If you’re making public art, there is a responsibility and importance to explore the effect of the work on people who have not asked for the work – these people have different interests from those of the artist.
- A challenge in my work is that often my collaborators are disengaged with my artistic interests.
- Some projects I have been involved with illustrate the idea of resistance – people who don’t initially want something to happen. What happens when an artist goes into this situation?
- The artist must learn the language and work with the system of the public domain, otherwise there is a loss of control. These are often life skills to be learned, not just artistic skills.
- To work collaboratively and meaningfully, a building of trust is required, which can only be done through time – years, not days or weeks.
- An artist I worked with in Skye had a meaningful message but a limited mode of expression. We provided the challenge, and were challenged, to develop the work in this situation.
- There is an iceberg principle at work – what holds the peak up, is a mass of relations underneath.
- With planning authorities, comes a burden of suspicion with regards art. Again, building relationships is required.
- We live in a deeply controlled, and risk-assessed society – there are demands of best practice to prove the value of the works and of working creatively.
- An example of our (NVA) collaboration with the public was the re-enactment of the White Bike Plan project for Glasgow International in 2010, where we released 50 white bikes into the streets for the public to use during the festival.
- 21 bikes were returned, while some of the remaining 29 have been spotted in places as far as New York and Germany. This was noted through a further, unmediated, collaboration via social media platforms – it seemed to become a truly democratic project.
- It caught the imagination of the popular press, and not just the artworld, producing an impact on the wider world.
- We had no problem with a re-appropriation of the bikes, whether by junkies of the press. We knew that the original scheme failed, but not the idea.
- We were implementing a trusting, positive statement.
- Looking for an opportunity to change and affect policies – democracy is fluid.
- Trying to produce art that looks for a pro-active, rather than a reactive response, which challenges current views of the world.
- The project was a beautifully human experience, with the collaborative capacity to be collectively good for the individual.
Inconversation- Peter McCaughey (Director at WAVE and artist lecturer at Glasgow School of Art):
- In the past I have been a rotten collaborator – I have come from a fine art educated tradition, where I have acted as a maverick, formed and working in a vacuum.
- Being formed in this environment produces isolation and a disconnection from a culture.
- Part of the reason I wasn’t very good was the tendency for those of us educated in a particular way to consider ourselves the most important part of a process. This means I could be difficult to work with, a control-freak.
- I do have to remind myself, however: don’t totalise – this method does have spirit. With this mode there is a truth to yourself, and not giving a damn about others.
- An act of creativity would be to extend this practice out, and ask how the art works, and who it speaks to.
- I mapping the diversity of experience in this room – even to harness an nth of the experience here, would be incredible.
- Ideas are not just conceived in isolation, but in relation to contemporary times, geographies, politics etc
- I am reminded of Liam Gillick’s words: ‘compromise is the most interesting place’
- Often we measure the value of what we achieve by how much we exert total control over making something, to the extent that allowing any outside influence seems disingenuous.
- Control = incredible attention to detail.
- How to we broker compromise?
- Investment in ideology leads to failure.
- In being beholden to an idea, we fail to realise how ideas function in the world.
Angus Farquhar:
- Production of relationships is a key part of the work.
- Validation of experience and the process = success, and is as important as a final product.
Peter McCaughey:
- How do we build different systems of values? A challenge for those working in institutions with normative values of the object?
- A lattice of support can be created through trust, criticality, and being stuck with people, which leads to becoming close with people.
- Artists are most interesting when they are placed at other ‘tables,’ where they can have a great impact – the people in this network can affect one another – and also, artists can sit at many tables.
- You never make art just for yourself – there is a case for inter-subjectivity in art and in everyday life.
- What are we going to do about the parts of the world that don’t care about our valued parts of the world?
- Are we going to try to understand how we impact upon these things, to allow them to make an impact upon the world?
- I mean that our work should have a degree of functionality.
Deborah Beeson (Artist and head of Mothers Art Movement):
- My experience of collaboration is deeply rooted within local schools – I am an artist and a mum, with a family and so cannot travel etc.
- Here. I engage with the kids by creating an artistic environment for them.
- My methodology incorporates a compromise in my personal practice, though I also ask the kids (and teachers) to compromise, that they do research etc.
- By doing this they learn how to look at art and make the installations themselves – it is completely their work.
- This process has a life of its own, where project can take on new directions, allowing a growth in practice for all involved.
- It encourages people to think in a different way.
Audience (Craig Barrowman, Stray Dog Art):
- An important concept for me in that respect is that of play – playing games can solidify relationships etc.
Deborah Beeson:
- In our lives there is a lack of emphasis on ‘play’ and I encourage the kids to play – it helps them pick up more ideas.
- Unfortunately, an element of ‘play’ is lost in the rigid timetable, which gets worse throughout school – this is a division of learning.
Sally Thomson (Grampian Hospital Arts Trust):
- A creative practice which involves collaboration and even playing has had a humanizing effect in my area of work – many professionals have found it key to viewing people as people again, rather than as patients, as part of their job.
Peter McCaughey:
- Everyone has a circle of influence, which extends throughout their life.
- In terms of the ‘tables’ or networks I was talking about earlier, the ‘ripple’ [of creativity] can disappear very quickly once an individual leaves – here, there is dependence upon a charismatic person rather than creating a support network.
Angus Farquhar:
- If artists and project are funded by outside bodies – how can we do something that is possibly critical of the funder?
- In scientific research it is OK to trash legitimized truths or norms in order to make progress.
- Here art can learn from science – scientific research is very good at changing policies – art has, overall, not been very good at changing cultural policies.
- Some of the attempts at policy changing such as community-led design have been problematic – there is a problem in the process in that there is a question as to whether they are truly democratic (artists come in as specialist consultants) or sometimes these projects produce very bland results.
Peter McCaughey:
- Is the pursuit of truth through scientific methods enough?
- Scientific methods are not unbiased – failed research is not published especially to the same extent that art and its failures are documented and embraced.
- John Latham’s Artist Placement Group in the 1960s was a project which involved the linking of diverse institutions.
- From this we can learn that we all have our own knowledge that we can exchange for a particular problem.
Blane Johnson (Artist and Recent Graduate of RGU:
- I’d never thought about collaboration at all – it wasn’t spoken about or explicitly communicated at university.
- I suppose I was unaware that it was actually happening.
- It is obviously important for any art practice.
Peter McCaughey:
- Degrees are always individually awarded, so it is difficult to assess explicit collaboration and how or when it is happening.
- The idea of the ‘unique individual’ is still an index for contemporary practice and assessment which stems from the mechanisms of capitalism.
- We should make critical decisions based on these traditional values.
- For example with textiles [Blane studies Textiles as Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen], how the maker of ‘the thing’ can extend into the realm of/connect to the user of the thing.
Craig Barrowman:
- Capitalist culture manages collaboration across the globe.
Angus Farquhar:
- Artists need to be taught ‘how’ you make your work, as well as ‘why’.
- We’re all to some degree complicit with these power structures – asking ‘how?’ has an ethical consequence.
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Goodman's Croft- Radio Lumsden.
by Rocca Gutteridge 19 Sep 2011
Goodman’s Croft. Radio Lumsden
In 17th century, and particularly in the northeast of Scotland, there was the widespread belief that a part of every field should be left untilled. This was based on a myth that if all the land was tilled by the farmer, the devil or the fairies would come back and take part of the crop or the precious cattle. This area left to the spirits was known as the Goodman’s Croft.
If you walk around Aberdeenshire 300 years later, you can still notice the parts of fields that remain untouched, some possibly being the legitimate descendants of the Goodman’s Croft. The superstition associated to this practice might have disappeared, but the metaphorical question can still remain: What are the areas that nowadays remain untouched in small rural communities?
Politics, social agendas and individual voices are one such area. Many of the critical decisions that impact upon rural communities have been deferred to the urban centres and institutions, while issues such as the decline of skill, poverty, climate change and anti-social behaviour remain untouched at a local level.
Goodman’s Croft: Radio Lumsden aims to dig up, lay bare and celebrate untilled voices of the Aberdeenshire community. Through the construction of a unique mobile radio station, artist Rocca Gutteridge and radio consultant Craig Priestley will explore how community radio can offer an important media voice for an otherwise disempowered conversation.
Follow us online with SSW’s new blog! web link
For more information or to join in please call 01464 861372 or email intern@ssw.org.uk.
This project is supported by Awards For All Scotland.
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UK Border Walk- New Podcast
by Rocca Gutteridge 11 Sep 2011
Link here to brand new podcast “Without Borders” by Clare Carswell and Artachat, documenting last August’s UK Border Walk.
We’d love to know what you think:
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Let's Get Together
by Rocca Gutteridge 22 Aug 2011
NVA Witte Fietsenplan (White Bike Plan). Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2010
Artachat and Robert Gordon University have joined forces to explore, critique and highlight the artistic landscape of Aberdeenshire.
Over the next six months we’ll be holding hold three Artachats in three distinct Aberdeenshire locations. Each session will invite diverse, knowledgeable and passionate speakers to act as catalysts for dialogue, debate and learning amongst an active audience wishing to participate in the future of… the Arts in the North East of Scotland.
“*Let’s get together…*” draws a close eye on collaboration in Contemporary Art.
What do we really mean when we talk about collaboration? What are the social, economic, artistic and educational reasons for collaboration in Contemporary Art? Who do we collaborate with and how do we know when these collaborations are successful?
Angus Farquhar (NVA) and Peter McCaughey (WAVE, artist and lecturer) will open the debate, sharing their experiences and opinions of the field. Blane Johnson (former RGU student) and Deborah Beeson (The Mothers’ Art Movement) will then subjectively discuss if collaboration is and isn’t working in Aberdeenshire.
We look forward to welcoming you at this upcoming Artachat discussion.
Lunch will be provided.
Places are free but limited so booking essential
For more info and to attend please email info@artachat.co.ukAfter the event there is the opportunity to travel to Deveron Arts, Huntly to view new work by internationally renowned Swiss Artist, Roman Signer and learn more about Writer in Residence Amy Fung’s symposium “Who are we writing for?” who asks: “can we be both critical AND publicly accessible when it comes to discussing contemporary art?”
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Reflections and Focus on Shared Territories
by Rocca Gutteridge 10 Aug 2011
I had a great chat with my friend Jules Barnes the other day.
Jules is the Community Development Worker at LGBT Centre for Health and Wellbeing, on the way back from an ever-empowering game of basketball we discussed the importance of longevity, focus and commitment when running community projects.
It’s the summer holidays and my Shared Territories group are a bit on and off with the now brilliant resource of a session we’ve set up at North Edinburgh Arts. Every Wednesday we have professional voice and dance coaches in to teach our group of 8 – 18 year old, mixed everythings, to dance, sing and become whatever they want to be in the world of urban arts and hip hop.
But I have a sinking feeling that as well as the summer fun I might have also contributed to the slightly less turning up every week factor that the group held just a month ago.
I missed a session due to a delayed flight on the way back from a holiday. The group turned up as usual in their masses (20 brilliantly bonkers kids running around North Edinburgh foyer, ready for hip hop action) and no me so they were all sent away. bang. next week… 6 kids and a bit of a struggle ever since to be honest.
Telling Jules, she gulped and explained- the group have to learn to trust the programme, to feel they can turn up every week and it will be just fine, and great, and there for them. The project has only been running since March so one week with a mess up and you’ll loose them.
Harsh, but I can see the sense. If I turned up to my Tuesday basketball session and the coach wasn’t there just one week (I’ve only been going a few times) I’d be disappointed, loose faith and wonder about the professionalism of the group I’m committing my time too. And I’ve been let down a lot less than some of the kids I’m working with at Muirhouse.
We cant all be perfect of course but it did make me consider where my strengths lay- in setting up projects, ideas, giving things that kick and va va voom to get them going? And maybe my strengths just don’t lie in the week in week out commitment that I now think this project needs. The break dance coach and voice coach are excellent, reliable on a weekly basis and execute things to the end. I’m being harsh on myself but I think it might my time to consider if I’ve done my role or at least what my role now is with my weekly North Edinburgh Arts sessions. I’ve set up something that will sustain itself, live on and have a legacy beyond my contracted time. Do I take a step back and watch the group progress, adding ideas and input when I think needed or step out all together and do what I think I do best, getting another idea off the ground, setting it off and letting it roll on…. hmmm.
Lu Angel voice coach at North Edinburgh Arts
Lu Angel voice coach at North Edinburgh Arts
Lu Angel voice coach at North Edinburgh Arts
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Why Is Britain Treating Artists Like Criminals?
by Rocca Gutteridge 9 Aug 2011
- written by my Dad after attending the UK Border Talk
A few months ago two young Argentinian tango dancers, Ismael Ludman and Maria Mondino, had a bad experience at Glasgow Airport. Now what I don’t know about tango would fill several libraries, but I’m told these folk are big in the dance world.
Argentinian tango isn’t like the flouncy stuff you see on Dancing With the Stars. It’s exotic and erotic, sinuous and sexy. With their upper bodies welded together, the dancers intertwine, their legs making graceful arcs around them. It’s fascinating and beautiful, and Ludman and Mondino are two of the best exponents. They travel the globe giving workshops and they’re quite well-known in Scotland, apparently, which is why they were invited to tour a few village halls and other small venues.
Sadly, the UK Border Agency had other ideas. The couple were held at the airport, refused entry and sent home. Just two casualties of a new immigration system that is making a mockery of Britain’s claim to be a magnet for international culture.
I only know about this because I was in Kirk Yetholm on Saturday night, where a public meeting, chaired by my daughter, was held to highlight the problem. There were artists, writers, musicians, gallery-owners and film-makers, even a true-blue-blooded member of the House of Lords, and they were all concerned about a system that is threatening to turn Britain into a cultural ghetto.
In 2008, our government introduced a new points-based visa system for non-EEC immigrants. It’s similar to the one that works successfully in Australia, except that in Australia there’s a special category that allows short-term visits by artists, writers and performers. Australians think it’s important that their country’s cultural diet is enriched by the work of significant international artists. Yet, despite Britain’s claims to be at the heart of cultural exchange, when they brought in our new immigration law, the government simply forgot about the arts.
Big festivals, like the Edinburgh International Festival, are given special status, but smaller events, like a book-signing by an award-winning American writer at your local Waterstones, or an appearance by a international director at a film festival in Hawick, requires a “licensed sponsor”. No sponsor, no entry, and the cost of each licence and visa runs to hundreds of pounds.
Sometimes the artist would have to travel hundreds of miles to get a biometric test – a ludicrous expense if you’re just performing for one night at a village hall where a few people like to tango.
The situation is now absurd: an international writer or a photographer on a tourist visa faces deportation if they so much as open a notebook or take a single snap; an established artist can’t even come to visit his own exhibition of paintings.
Musicians and poets from Africa, artists from Russia and China, and now Argentinian tango dancers, have fallen foul of the rules, and the world’s greatest living pianist, Grigory Sokolov, has simply deleted the UK from his touring itinerary. These are people of genius, whom we idolize for their extraordinary creative talent, and then we let the staff of the UK Border Agency treat them like illegal immigrants. They aren’t stealing employment from us, we invite them to our shores to enthrall us with their art.
According to the meeting in Yetholm, the government simply needs to create an “artists and entertainers visitor” route to solve the problem, and yet, despite a crescendo of complaints from every part of Britain’s cultural establishment, Theresa May’s Home Office remains oblivious and Jeremy Hunt’s Culture department is doing nothing to help.
The Argentinian tango dancers have got their revenge, however. There’s a magical YouTube video of them performing around their suitcases in the airport, a tribute to our pointless bureaucracy and the jobsworth mentality of the UKBA. Do take a look, before you write to your local MP.
Manick Govinda of Arts Admin and the Manifesto Club opening the debate.
A diverse mix of cultural workers attended the discussion in Kirk Yetholm
Internationally acclaimed novelist, Kamila Shamsie contributes her opinions and advises on how to push for reform.
Artist and member of the house of lords, Nicholas Trench
Algerian Visual Artist Zineb Sedira offers her personal account of the situation.
The UK Border Walk + Talk at Kirk Yetholm town hall
for info on how to get involved please see: -
Off to the Walk
by Rocca Gutteridge 3 Aug 2011
This weekend is it then, the UK Border Walk.
Here’s the latest articles regarding the Points Based System and the need for change:
Fingers crossed for a successful discussion. Outcomes here soon…
Rocca -
W.A.L.K
by Rocca Gutteridge 31 Jul 2011
There be a lot of talking on walking at the moment.
Last Thursday’s symposium at the Gallery of Modern Art- “Critical Dialogues on Walking, Art, Lanskip and Knowledge” was a fantastic contribution.
Organised by Suderland University Research Initiative W.A.L.K, Critical Dialogues took a meander, a romp and sometimes a march to exploring the many facets and fantastic aspects of walking… and there were many more clever walking puns throughout the day.
Artist Tim Brennan
web link
chaired the event and was able to generate some honest reflections on a focused but vast ranging topic.Three presentations in total- up first:
Enduring Gravity: Footnotes on walking, duration and distance.
Dr Misha Myers- Myers gives us personal steps and academic lengths on the elusive subject of walking
Footnotes:
- “Rock Tours of Great Britain” He Yunchang
- Exploring the aesthetic of slow mobility
- The Image depicts a series of oil paintings of his journey- I enjoy the contradiction of the slowness yet constantly moving quality of the medium of oil paints.
It’s a surprising way to document a modern journey
Footnote “Spacemen on holiday”
Myers students adorn space outfits and walk, as though on the moon. Through Falmouth. The effort of this, the resistance to doing it.
Footnote “Helston Furry Dance”
- A four mile dance in Cornwall. One of the oldest British customs still taking place today. A celebration of the passing of Winter and the arrival of Spring.
Dancers proceed through houses, nothing gets in the way of their route.
Footnote Tim Brennan- Codex: Crusade (2004)
- Retracing the itinerary of the 1936 Jarrow March when in 1936, mass unemployment and extreme poverty in the north-east of England drove 200 men to march in protest from Jarrow to London.
- Made me think of artists re-enactment- Jeremy Deller, Battle of Orgreave and the many of Rod Dickinson
“Re-enactment seems, as a form of representation, strangely well equipped to address moments of collective trauma and anxiety. Almost as if, taking a Debordian turn, that the re-enactment operates as the uncanny of the spectacle. A live image, in real space and real time, but simultaneously displaced.” Rod Dicinson from this article- Once More With Feeling: Reenactment in Contemporary Art and Culture by Robert Blackson (Art Journal, Spring 2007)
- Thoughts from me of walking, collective action, retracing the anxiety of processions, marches, protests. Re-tracing why they worked, why they didn’t.
- Myer notes the significance of Brennan’s archive of blisters he suffered whilst retracing the 283 mile route. A reminder, a way to record time, record pain.
- There’s something about walking and physical experience here- I think about my walk along the English Scottish border next weekend from Upsettlington to Hungry Law to raise awareness of the highly problematic Tier 5 Visa policy. Do I need to even do it? Is the statement more in the idea? No I include, because it’s experiential and the thoughts you gather along the way are crucial as is the legitimacy of the action.
- I also think of my Dad’s house right by Hadrians’ Wall and the stories walks along this wall must hold.
- An image now of the “Spirit of Jarrow” outside Morrisons by Graham Ibbeson (2001)
- Awkward giggles of this ‘terrible artwork’. I stick up for it, arguing and questioning the relevance of monuments today in such a transitory world. “Maybe it’s educational, maybe it will serve a task” I’m not sure if I’m just playing devil’s advocate.
We discover the monument is commissioned by Mr Morrison who was involved in the crusade, because of this the audience seem to give it a higher level of respect.
Brennan argues the route (from Jarrow to London) is the monument. I like this.
The ongoing and rambling journey of the fugitive
This phrase pops up, I cant remember who from.Footnote “The Anti Vietnam War Demonstrations by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh”
Nhat Hanh already features in my project WalkingAnd… web link
as someone who teaches the art of walking meditation. Nhat Hanh and other courageous monks went to great lengths to implement the importance of Buddhist teachings in response to the brutal, violent, devastating killings of Vietnam.
Other Footnotes Walking an paralysis, Werner Herzog’s walk from Munich to Paris in an attempt to save his own life, ArtAngel project 1395 days without Red “weblin”: http://www.artangel.org.uk/collection/whitworth2011
Second presentation- Artist, Alec Finlay
I’m present this in wandering thoughts I jotted down.
- Are paths, views?
- “You can’t make art about mountains if you haven’t climbed any” a man tells Alec. He strongly disagrees
You can- The importance and function of the imagination- the walk beyond the walk.
The preference of walking around mountains, not over them.
In many cultures mountains were to be viewed and not climbed
Alec’s Grandfather, also shared this preference.
- The Japanese discovered Zen in Skye, Scotland.
- Daily walks (to the bus stop, to school)
Family walks, walks we take together.
- I like this Ian Hamilton Finlay (Alec’s father) piece fragile. You stumble across it, Fragility of us, of the garden, of words
- The walks around little Sparta
- Is a walk that doesn’t return a migration?
- “Can we walk imaginatively? We have to.” Alec Finlay.
- The Japanese term Ginko roughly translates as- walking to be composing poetry.
- Alec presents his project, “The Road North”
A world map of Scotland composed by himself and Alec Finlay as they travel through their homeland, guided by the Japanese poet, Basho, whose Oku-no-Hosomichi (Narrow road to the Deep North) is one of the masterpieces of travel literature.
I pose a disruption I have with the project- romanticism. Why it’s a problem I had to admit I wasn’t sure but it just felt too… staged, inward, self-indulgent… those words are too strong and I’m still not sure where the problem comes from. Any help appreciated!
Final presentation- Matthew Beaumont. “Beginning with the big toe”
Beaumont offers a playful, imaginative, curious and unique look at the world through or big toe.
- The toe is the most repressed part of the body.
- It’s also the key to walking. It comes into play as the conscious and unconscious part of walking.
- L’Age D’or – the big toe and love and sex.
Sucking the big toe of a statue
- Big toes are used to spring and leap
- The time keeping of the tapping of the toe. He metrical toe.
- The world’s first prosthetic- the Cairo Toe 1069 – 664 BC
- A final elastic part of the body
- Man on Wire- the ultimate walking? Conscious walking.
- Charles Darwin’s gout on his big toe “weblink”: http://rheumination.typepad.com/rheumination/2009/02/darwins-big-toe.html
- Our big toe evolutionised so that we could walk.
- The doma people of Zimbabwae
- Understanding the human through walking by turning the anatomy upside down- so life starts with the big toe.
- Life ends and begins with the toe- bite the toe to see if a person’s dead. Croque Mort
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Framework
by Rocca Gutteridge 30 Jul 2011
Framework is a new curatorial research and development project.
I’m very chuffed to have been invited to participate in Framework and last weekend attended:
Jan Verwoert
“Why this town is big enough for more of us”
at Cove Park.
Jan Verwoert
Jan- “How do you value your practice?”
“What resistances and obstacles do you
encounter?”Me- "I value it when… when the creative process can
…and the obstacles?… well feeling like I’m a complete hippy"
be socially useful… I mean I don’t want to sound
like a complete hippy but, erm, well there you
go- I’m interested in art’s
potential, well at least exploring it’s potential to
be useful, socially useful…A glance away and discussion on the roots of socially engaged practices, Labour, socialism, the failures the successes, then more discussion on the importance of discussion around the artwork then…
Jan- “Right I’m going to return to you (pointing at
me)… this term hippy…”Jan is very good at pushing you, I’ve never felt so hot and embarrassed in a casual crit situation. He’s brilliantly direct yet charming and confidence enhancing. I needed the pushing, I now realise it has been a long time since I have been made to dig deep and really challenge, why and why and why.
The afternoon picked at (the ones that resonated most for me) artistic integrity, loosing and keeping curatorial values, institutional logic and the importance of interruptions, problems and processes of collaborative curating, transparency- how much and why. The key phrase I’ll use in my, wanting to be potentially useful practice is, “the gay uncle”. When you’re in a project, say for example with a group or youth kids and it’s your time to get out, (funding, contracts, pain) bring in the gay uncle as a distraction- the kids love him, they forget about you and you can leave, quietly through the back door.
Frameworks’ first session for me was the fantastic cliches: inspirational, mind expanding, invigorating. Hard work too. Cove Park was stunning, the artists in residence focused, friendly, thought-provoking.
Thank you very much Frameworks, the cobwebs of my brain are slowly being brushed away.
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Final Huntly Art Reader and nearly nearly website launch
by Rocca Gutteridge 26 Jul 2011
For my final Huntly Art Reader I chose to present the website I’m working on and near finishing for my Deveron Arts residency.
The site launches at the end of the month but in a nutshell myself and Deveron Arts are aiming to put together a comprehensive online living, growing archive of all things to do with walking…
Walking and… Art, Borders, Comedy, Competitions, Death, Dogs, Equipment, Freedom, Politics, Processions, Women… you name it, we’re covering it.
The idea came from an initial desire to explore walking’s relationship to art and vica versa but to the nature of socially engaged Arts organisation Deveron Arts and my own preference we decided to drop the sole focus on Art and look to the wider web that walking covers.
It’s a bit like an online version of Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust…
I’ll post up the finished piece at the end of the week!
A sneek preview…
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The Huntly Art Reader- Week 7- "Walking After Midnight"
by Rocca Gutteridge 13 Jul 2011
For this weeks’ Art reader I’d like to revisit Rebecca Solnits’ Wanderlust to explore ideas of walking, women, safety and public space.
Here’s a link to a brilliant compiled PDF on Art, Activism and Participation- our text is on page 128
thinktank.boxwith.com/docs/reader/art-activism-reader.pdf
To sit alongside, please see Mark Moxon’s Tube Walker-
I’m trying to figure out as a women which parts of London I’d feel safe walking alone in and which not and why…
See you all tomorrow!
-
Huntly Art Reader- Week 6. "Walking on Water"
by Rocca Gutteridge 4 Jul 2011
Image Credit: http://www.openhandweb.org/walking_on_water_1
“Hi all,
This week I’d like us to read a short extract from the Gospel of John 6:16-21 when Jesus walks on water.
I’d like us to think about the idea of walking and Jesus. Why did Jesus walk on water? Jesus walked a lot to spread the word, did he do this merely because of the lack of more efficient transport at the time or was walking a powerful, democratic tool for Jesus to be near his people?
What would the modern day equivalent be of walking to spread the word? Why for example, do hundreds of people every year still make the pilgrimage to Lurdes in the South of France?
And finally… as a modern day look at walking on water please also see and potentially discuss the following You Tube clip:
Enjoy!
Rocca" -
INSPIRE Write up from the first 5 months of my pARTners residency
by Rocca Gutteridge 4 Jul 2011
I’ve just come to the end of the first third of my pARTners residency between Creative Scotland, Edinburgh Mela, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Forestry Commission.
I’ve previously posted a couple of updates from the residency including my methodology for the full 15 months of the project (I am contracted with pARTners until April 2012)
I have decided to use PAR +RS blog as a platform to share my write up with the hope that other socially engaged artists (or funders, commissioners, arts organisations) will gain from my experiences, add suggestions, critique, comments and potentially get involved with similar future opportunities.
Job Outline
Shared Territories is a dynamic residency programme created by Edinburgh Mela and it’s partners to provide high quality participation in the arts for hard to reach groups.
Two artists of different disciplines, supported by a project manger, have been asked to facilitate a programme of visits by minority ethnic community groups to natural locations across central Scotland. The groups will work towards a collective presentation of their work at the Edinburgh Mela Festival 2011, before reflecting on the overall process through further creative encounters in natural environments.
For the last 5 months I have been working with a culturally diverse (Zimbabwe, Uganda, Singapore, Venezuela, Pakistan, Spain, China) group of 8 – 18 years, each with a passion for hip hop.
My Process
(Proposal I developed at the very start of the residency)Collaboration
- Myself and the Group
Throughout the residency I will learn from the groups as well as being able to teach and advise. I will initiate projects and hope the groups will do so too. I believe the sharing of goals, ideas and responsibility is crucial to a feeling of ownership for all those involved in the project.
- Within the Group
I will focus on building an atmosphere of trust and respect between participants throughout the duration of the residency. It is through this environment that the
groups will have the freedom to talk, share ideas, collaborate and critically reflect on
their work and the project in general. I will use my Artachat project and methodology to cement this atmosphere of trust.
- With other Communities
From the start I proposed I would form link between new organisations.
The key partnership that has been formed from this residency are with MYDG (Muirhouse Youth Development Group). web link
Fundamental to MYDG is the building and maintaining of relationships with young people, as they grow up in Muirhouse.
We are now also forging partnerships between Ready Ready Sauce (Breakdance Group), Soulstress Lu Angel, the Mobile Picture Salon and Leith Community Council. Other collaborations include working with vocal coach Lorna Brooks and photographer Stephen McGarry.
Questions and Difficulties
Can you really collaborate with community groups?
Upon reflection I realise collaboration is tricky word within socially engaged arts/ community projects. A trick word in general?
A project that springs to mind is Re:Create by Stills Gallery “a collaboration between the public in Edinburgh and artists with the purpose of exploring contemporary visual art.”I remember going to a talk by Re:Create artist Alice Betts. Alice made it very clear that it was difficult if not impossible to force a true collaboration upon artist and public. A collaboration would need to occur naturally and happen almost without realising. Time scales, funding objectives and being able to (or not) choose who you work with are huge factors in working towards collaborations.
The Mela never asked for me to collaborate with the group I’d be working with, just to work with them, perhaps even for them.
My practice operates in a very socially engaged, people focused way. Overtime, I’ve put down my chissel, clay and welding skills and become increasingly interested in people, conversations and events being a medium to work with and towards. Is the current outcome of Shared Territories a collaboration? Would I call the work we’ve done my work?
If collaboration = “the action of working with someone to produce or create something” then yes the outcomes have been a collaboration. The group, our partner organisations and I exchanged ideas, worked together to so far put on three performances, build underwater hydrophones, design our group logo, create songs and new dance moves.
To answer my question if the work we’ve collaboratively done is my own or if the project sits within my practice oevrall then I’m not sure at the moment is the honest answer.
I’m not sure if the project yet pushes or answers enough questions to be my own. I need to step further away from it first. When I look at a project like Jeremy Deller’s Battle of Orgreave web link it makes more sense that it’s an artwork. I’m not sure why yet and why mine isn’t pushing those same buttons, or if it’s a problem that it’s not.
Structure
Our group was barely formed when I joined them. A group of isolated BME youths had started to meet on a weekly basis to work in new lyrics of a Soulja boy tune- “turn your swag on”
web linkI quickly discovered that instead of teaching my degree taught skills and forcing a workshop structure onto the group it was more beneficial to first discover each individuals’ creative passion and then work to support these passions and skills in which ever way possible.
The first few sessions on meeting the group were spent just sitting “chilling out” and getting to know the members. I then became a facilitator, or a manager / producer for their talents. There’s no way I could teach the group to sing, or breakdance but I could get the groups small gigs, an interview on the radio and I could inspire them to do the best they can and enjoy it.
Questions
As my skills don’t lie in the groups interest, I saw it as my role to bring in what they needed.
I asked the group- “What do you want to happen each week?”
They replied- “Dance coaching, singing and rapping.”We now have in place a professional singing coach, breakdance coaches and on it’s way a VJer and screen printer to help with the visuals at our forthcoming performance at the Mela Festival.
I did hold in my head a worried question-
Mela are paying for voice and breakdance coaches, is this justifiable, should I be working with the group in my specific skills area to save money?
I think I now see that my skill is in seeking out what is needed and facilitating it. My process is to work with the group on what their true passions are. If I can make this happen then the job is successful.
-——————————————————————————————Structure for the residency (continued…)
I have decided to divide the residency into three parts:
INSPIRE- The first third. Jan – June.
My aim was to first get the group inspired, focused, excited to come along to the sessions.The main event I organised in order to inspire the group was to bring Ugandan breakdance troupe, Tabu Flo to Edinburgh to partake in an action packed weekend of dance and cultural exchange. The event took place at Loch Leven where we worked with one of our partner funders: Scottish Natural Heritage.
For photo documentation of the brilliantly bonkers weekend see: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjufs23X
My write up of the event can be accessed HERE
Before this weekend, the group was attended by about 6 core members. Although this was successful (and I believe in quality not quantity) I knew we could engage many more youths in the area to join in on our activities in a succesful, quality assured way. 6 came to the residential (although it took a lot of persuasion and hassling). By the end of the weekend and the following week, news spread of the “coolest things happening at North Edinburgh Arts”. The core 6 were triply focused and the group is now attended by just under twenty most weeks.
The inspire strategy to push a community project from the start seems to work.Other inspiring trips have been to the Water of Leith to record underwater sounds and a gig during the Leith Festival.
Hip Hop is a predominately urban entity. Part of my brief is to engage my group in the natural environment, using art as lens to do this.
As well as an inspirational tour around Loch Leven, a performance by the side of the Loch and a discussion session in the bird hide we went to the Water of Leith to record underwater sounds which would then be mixed into a track we’d sing and breakdance to.
REVEAL – 2nd third. July – Nov. This section will be all about “REVEALing” the talents of the group to the wider public. Already the group are starting to take a greater level of ownership over the group.
The dynamic within the group
The group are already wanting to take more ownership.
The project is succeeding in becoming a shared learning environment: Individuals within the group are using their own skills to teach each other.Teaching does not just come from the top down but within the group. This makes the project much more sustainable, when I can’t make a session the momentum of the group doesn’t collapse and ultimately when my residency ends I can leave, passing the ownership onto the group which comes to the final third of the residency…
(Image caption)
Each member of the group has a different role. Manny music producer, Eloy leader, Dionne, photographer, Eugene, rapper… Sean, techy
Questions and Difficulties
My perhaps slightly naïve belief is that anyone that turns up to a Shared Territories session can find a place within the group, offer and take something away with them.
But as the group get bigger, will there be control, less ownership for the ones who are more established within the group?
PROGRESS (title tbc)- The final third (December – April) will be about “PROGRESSing” without me but getting out there and doing it themselves and hopefully teaching others to do the same.
Change of artists statement from me to them
Them tagging themselves in social mediaI try to see educational and social engagement projects as part of my practice rather than an addition. So collaboration is in a way a goal I am trying to achieve with my chosen youth group through my residency. I genuinely find the group talented, creatively inspiring and dynamic to work with and would like to work on our next goal (performing at the Mela festival) as another member of the group, collaborating on a shared vision. We’ll see!
Reflection
Blog with PAR +RS
From the start I choose to use this blog to promote the Shared Territories project, reflect on my process and to encourage potential collaborators to get
involved.
This blog is also used to discuss topics from and around Artachat. I would like to reflect further on how to use this tool in a more creative, innovative way. Perhaps by
creating opportunities for my group to post writing, storytelling, poetry etc document their own experiences and ideas.Social Media
I have set up and use a Shared Territories facebook and tumblr site to document the groups progress, post up related opportunities, inspiring videos and to keep in touch with the group. Social media of this kind is free, connected with the day-to-day lives of the group and enables communication to a related but wider network.
I also use my own flickr, blogger and twitter account to promote and give updates on Shared Territories.
Selected photo diary of the first 5 months of Shared Territories
A participant of Shared Territories recording her singing solo in the recording booths at North Edinburgh Arts.
The residential weekend started on a Friday night at North Edinburgh Arts. The Ugandan Breakdance troupe, Tabu Flo arrived to 30 + keen, eager (and a little bit rowdy) Muirhouse kids to deliver a brilliant workshop and breakdance performance.
The janny quoted “I’ve never seen so many of the kids engaged for so long”.
Mixing it up, Scottish dancing with Ugandan twists.
The nature tour at Loch Leven. Craig Mitchel of SNH inspired the group over a two hour trip round the loch.
Watching birds from the birds hide.
To the Loch Leven lodges for breakdance practice. Eloy, a Shared Territories learning some moves.
We camped at Loch Leven campsite where there was a huge barn- perfect for late night breakdance practice, parties and film nights.
The next day we arrived back tot he Loch for a cultural mixed feast by artist and cook. Sophie Fegan. Sophie prepared food from all the different countries we represented. Each plate had a question we had to answer: “What’s your favourite national dish?” “Who cooks in your house hold?”
Last minute practice before the end of weekend performance at the Loch in front of a the cafes’ audience.
Studio One, at North Edinburgh Arts where the weekly rehearsals take place. At this stage we had no coach so participants teach participants. A successful strategy but requires a lot of communication and focus.
ECA student, Catiriona Rose Gallagher came to a session to teach our group how to make hydrophones.
Trying them out.
For one week, as a boost before our performance at Leith Festival, singing coach, Lorna Brooks came in to teach our three budding sing stars.
Using our homemade hydrophones to record underwater sounds.
The performance at Leith Festival (venue- the Word of Mouth Cafe)
A question and answer session with Kerrie Sauce of Ready Ready Sauce at the end of the performance. From this session Ready Ready sauce have now come on board as full time break dance coaches for Shared Territories.
Eugene and the Shared Territories logo
The group now decide where they want to go next with the group- and for the performance a the Edinburgh Mela festival.
Final two pics to show the talent of the Shared Territories Crew!
- Myself and the Group
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The Lonesome Wanderer
by Rocca Gutteridge 30 Jun 2011
Huntly Art Reader, Week 5
“Hi Anna,
This week I’ve got a song all about the walking wanderer, John Muir.I’d like it to spark a discussion about the individual wanderer, solitude and discovery… hope you enjoy!
Rocca"
*I asked the Master Builder
Why did he make John Muir
From the seed of a man, so hard and unforgiving.
A father who tried to use the Gospel to ensure
That his son’s life would never be worth livingAnd the Lord’s voice answered on the High Sierra wind
From the mountains where the clear waters lie, saying:
“Hold the bravest heart, above the gravest of sins
And I’ll show you how to make a hero rise”Chorus:
Leave Calvin and the Bible
To the parish o’ Dunbar
Give a blind man back his eyes to find
The brightest o’ the stars
Then lead him to the altar of a better God by far
In the vale of the redwood cathedralI asked the Master Builder, how did he find a way
To put the man in the mountains
And the mountains in the man?
How long did he search to find the uncommon clay
That he needed for his Master builder’s plan?
And the Lord’s voice came down from the High Sierra skies
Saying: “Take a heart, – of hard Scottish stone
Plant the seed of a wild place, deep down inside
And I’ll show you how to call a hero home”Chorus:
And as I stand by the thunder of the roaring mountain falls
And hear California call you saviour
I cannot help but wonder, had a different fortune called
Would you have done the same for Scotland the Brave -
Your home and your father’sChorus:
God lives above the redwoods, so men say
Looking down, straight and true at the best of all his treasures
And if a man should stand among them to pray
It’s against them the Lord would take his measure.
And who grew straighter than long Johnny Muir?
A redwood of flesh, blood and bone
Filled by the Master Builder with a passion so pure
For the mountains no single man can own.Chorus:
Lyrics & music © Copyright 1991 by Brian McNeill.*
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Parades and the Politics of the Street
by Rocca Gutteridge 21 Jun 2011
My chosen text for week four of the Huntly Art Reader is the introduction of- “Parades and the Politics of the Street” by Simon P. Newman. Here’s the link:
It might also be interesting to take a quick look at this site about the rights to parade:
Look forward to discussing the politics of walking and parades as political acts, human rights, visual spectacles et more.
-
Narcissus Reflected
by Rocca Gutteridge 18 Jun 2011
Narcissus Reflected
I was able to pop in super super quickly to the Fruitmarket’s current show, Narcissus Reflected last week and wont be able to again (finishes 26th June) I like what I saw so far- any one else see it and have comments?
-
Leith Late
by Rocca Gutteridge 13 Jun 2011
LeithLate is a free Leith-based art event happening on Thursday 16th June, co-inciding with the Leith Festival. LeithLate is one huge art opening, with a strong emphasis on visual art and music, but encompassing film, poetry and dance, across 10 venues situated on and around the top half of Leith Walk, most of whom are staying open late in order to participate. LeithLate is spread across 5 art venues and 5 local businesses, with 3 brand new exhibition openings taking place during the course of the event.
The event itself runs between 6pm and 8pm, during which time participants are invited to move around the route, partaking in some of Leith’s finest creative offerings, and then culminating in the LeithLate afterparty at Pilrig St Pauls Church, which lasts from 8pm to 11pm (entrance fee to the afterparty is £4). The Skinny is printing a route map that reflects all participating venues, designed by local artist David Lemm, plus a preview of the event in the June edition of the magazine.
• Word of Mouth Café, 3A Albert Street. 6pm
LeithLate, will be showcasing a poetry-music-video performance by Zorras, plus breakdancing by Edinburgh Mela project Shared Territories followed by an Artachat discussion. -
Huntly Art Reader- Week Three
by Rocca Gutteridge 7 Jun 2011
Hi Anna,
Here is my reading for Thursday
Henry David Thoreau “Walking”
I’m super glad it’s got some poetry in it as although I’d like us to read the text and discuss in the beautiful HAR way I’d also like to really think about the poems rhythm and how it relates to the rhythm of walking. Could we make our own walking poem by the end of the dis…cussion???
-
Oh Huntly!
by Rocca Gutteridge 5 Jun 2011
Artachat and Deveron Arts are currently collaborating on a new website that will bring together ideas on Art and Walking.
Under the proposed title “The Open Institute of Art and Walking” I will spend the next two months researching, designing and producing content for this specially commissioned project.
I’m therefore spending half my time living in Huntly, the home of Deveron Arts. All worries of feeling a bit out of the sticks have been completely dashed by the impression of my first weekend- parties in the square all day and night, pot luck dinners attended by 40 varied and brilliant folk and constant critique, hospitality and support from the entire crew at Deveron Arts.
Any links to walking/arts project please feel free to post on up or email me at rocca@roccagutteridge.co.uk
Below is a wee photo diary just of the last couple of hours!
Huntly Pipe Band in Action
Stroking Owls at the fete
Onlookers snuggle up!
Dutch dance group rock into town
Scottish dancing like I’ve never seen!
Pipers a piping
Men a marching
Owls a tooting
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Huntly Art Reader- Week Two
by Rocca Gutteridge 3 Jun 2011
The Huntly Art Reader in Action!
Week Two of the Huntly Art Reader reading…
*John Ruskin: On Art and Life *(Email to Anna)
Hey Anna,
I bought this book whilst on a cheese making course at Grizedale Arts in Cumbria!
I’m in the process of learning more about the organisation and really warmed to their ideas of art being useful rather than for arts sake.
http://grizedale.org/blogs/blog/8248/locked-in-a-room-to-get-some-perspective
John Ruskin provides a large back bone to their thinking so I’d like us to discuss this text and relate it to the idea of art, usefulness and cram walking in there along the way.
Look forward to Thursday,
Rocca -
Huntly Art Reader- blog a wee bit in progress
by Rocca Gutteridge 31 May 2011
I’m very pleased to be curating the next eight weeks of the Huntly Art Reader.
http://huntlyartreader.weebly.com/
(Email to project director, Anna Vermehren)
Hi Anna,
Here is my first reading for HAR…
I want to start with a book I’ve been dying to sit down and conquer forever. Wanderlust, by Rebecca Solnit. I’ve chosen the first chapter and initial intro and look forward to seeing how this could set a plan for future HARS.
I’d like to use the eight HAR readings to explore theory and practice behind walking as an art and the art of walking. I’d like to explore the crossovers of politics, sociology, environment, sexuality, art and walking.
As well as theory, whilst I’m up in Huntly I’d like to do some experimental walking HARs.
I look forward to sharing and collectively unfolding thoughts, ideas and inspirations as we wander/march/pace through the readings!
Rocca
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UK Border Walk
by Rocca Gutteridge 24 May 2011
Part of the Walk from Upsettlington to Shid Law
The next project Artachat is working towards is the UK Border Walk. A 77k walk along the English/Scottish
border and an Artachat discussion in the Romany town of
Kirk Yetholm halfway along the way.Both walk and talk aim to highlight and discuss the effects the Points Based System (PBS) has for arts and cultural activities across our communities in the UK.
UK Border Talk: Sat 6th August, 6pm
Wauchope Hall, Yetholm.
An open debate on the consequences of the PBS to UK
cultural life.UK Border Walk: Sunday 7 August, start 10 am
All are welcome to join Claudia and Rocca for all or part of the walk.Please contact claudia@deveron-arts.com for more details.
What is PBS?
In autumn 2008 the UK introduced a new points-based system (PBS) for managing migration to the UK. The regulations have led to a restriction of non-European artists’ ability to come to the UK, at the invitation of arts curators, promoters and artists. UK hosts are now required to be licensed sponsors if they wish to invite visiting artists. This has regulated the relationship between international artists and UK hosts from one of convivial artistic exchange, collaboration and cultural production to a contract which is excessively bureaucratic and treats international guest artists with suspicion and control.
PBS has led to the cancellation of artists’ residencies, exhibitions, productions and performances across
the UK. Many artists are refused visas, others are deported from UK airports because they were not
sponsored.For a full dossier of testimonials, petition to UK Government and media coverage visit the Manifesto Club’s website: web link
For more information on transport and booking the hostel contact: info@deveron-arts.com
UK Border Walk is a partnership between:
Deveron Arts, Artachat, Manifesto Club and ARTSADMIN
In collaboration with GASWORKS, Thami Mynyele Foundation and Edinburgh Arts Festival -
inspirExchange
by Rocca Gutteridge 16 May 2011
Congratulations to all those who took part in the inspirExchange residency.
The legendary Ugandan Breakdance Troupe, Tabu FLo inspiring and exchanging at North Edinburgh Arts
All images can be viewed here:
weblinkand a review in the Edinburgh Guide here:
weblink -
This weekend- breakdancing, camping and much much more
by Rocca Gutteridge 4 May 2011
A quick plug for the Shared Territories Event this weekend.
inspirExchange weekend
More info on us see (it’s the youth group project I ranted about in a previous blog) see: http://sharedterritoriesmmg.tumblr.com/
Maybe see you for some Break dance body popping on Friday!
Rocca -
An Easter Break at Grizedale Arts
by Rocca Gutteridge 1 May 2011
The Mobile Dairy School
Cheese Making Course for EnthusiastsRead the flyer… I have to be honest I am not a Cheese Enthusiast but had traveled from Edinburgh to Cumbria, alone, sleeping in the back of my beaten up white van, over the Easter weekend, to fulfill a too long term ambition of getting to know more arts organisation, Grizedale Arts.
web linkGrizedale Arts aims to be “a new idea for an art institution which exists as a growing network of projects and ideas”. I’ve only previous come in touch with the project via it’s website and feel like its the sort of project that needs to be peeled like an onion, layer by layer.
Speaking of onions, Grizedale Arts’ mother hub, Lawson Park, has the most beautiful vegetable garden one can imagine. Lovingly tended to by all that live and work at Grizedale the garden feels like a sanctuary and an immaculate, stunning art work all at once.
Grizedale’s history is with the UK land art movement, it used to be the now Grizedale Sculpture Trail, a decaying sculpture wood full of Anthony Gormely’s etc. Adam Sutherland joined as director over ten years ago and exchanged the sculpture wood for a farm.
Over a tea of home grown pig cheek, Adam gave me a quick look into the centres’ philosophy. It made immediate sense that they would opt for the farm, a much better way to engage with the Lake District environment and public. It also felt incredibly genuine Adam and cos. love of the area, their land, what and who they were engaging with.
GA believe Art could and should be useful. By this time I was quite sleepy from all the cheese but I think Adam was telling me- a long time ago art had a choice to be useful or to be art for arts sake. We choose to make it for arts sake but GA wishes it was useful. This blog post by Deputy Director Alistair Hudson, explains
http://grizedale.org/blogs/blog//8361/.13By the end of the weekend I still didn’t totally ‘get’ Grizedale Arts (and I hadn’t become a complete cheese queen) but my experience did make me see the Arts part of GA in a more wholesome, full bodied way. It made sense that art did things, was a cheese course, a stunning vegetable garden, a farm. I liked the way that I was still left staring through my artists eyes at an organisation that confused me a bit, challenged me and didn’t sit totally comfortably with me right away.
Below is a little photo diary of my weekend.
Thank you to Grizedale Arts, Fernando, all the course attendants for a very special Easter weekend.
The Coniston Institute
The cheese making course took place in the Coniston Institute. Grizedale Arts are trying to restore the Coniston Institute for the town. It was a mechanic institute. A centre for alternative and informal education. A life long learning centre.
The Coniston Institute used to hold museum objects selected by John Ruskin. They’ve now all been taken our and put in a lottery funded, snazzy but possibly a little bit soulless museum around the corner.
Artist and Cheese Maker, Fernando Garcia Dory is commissioned by Grizedale Arts as our cheese master
Fernando García-Dory ´s (b. 1978) work engages specifically with issues affecting the relation between culture-nature now, embodied within the contexts of landscape, the rural, desires and expectations related with identity aspects, crisis, utopy and social change. He studied Fine Arts and Rural Sociology in Madrid, Spain. Interested in the harmonic complexity of biological forms and processes, his work addresses connections and cooperation, from microorganisms to social systems, and from traditional art languages such as drawing to collaborative agroecological projects, actions, and cooperatives
http://www.fernandogarciadory.com/
Cheese making is complex
It’s really really complex!
Stirring the raw milk
Adam Sutherland, director of Grizedale Arts shows us how to make ricotta
Cutting the soon to be cheese
Breaking it manually
Yum
Collecting the whey
At first you don’t do much physical stuff with cheese, then all of a sudden it’s all hands on deck
Pushing cheese into cheese pots
Cheese Tasting (not our cheeses)
My favourite cheeses
My favourite cheeses
Fernando’s beautiful Shepherd School images
Fernando’s beautiful Shepherd School images
Fernando’s beautiful Shepherd School images
Visiting Lawson Park
Lawson Park’s amazing vegetable garden
Lawson Park’s impressive spinach
Two happy little piggies
Grizedale- theory and practice
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Upcoming Walkachat
by Rocca Gutteridge 18 Apr 2011
Upcoming Walkachat info here!
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Am I Engaging Enough?
by Rocca Gutteridge 14 Apr 2011
The boys hard at work
Harry working his magic on a Ugandan instrument
Benni getting his swag on!
Benni’s pure brill lyrics
Eugene looking serene on the drums
Yesterday I met again with my Shared Territories Music Group in Muirhouse, Edinburgh.
I had a bit of a freak out before hand. Am I engaging with the group enough? Should I be setting more goals for the group and doing far more prep before the sessions?
The group are a core of about 6 young people, ranging in cultural backgrounds from Zimbabwean, Ugandan, Pakistani, Scottish, Mixed Race. Already they’re incredibly focused and getting stuck into rewriting the much too cool for me song “Get Your Swag On” by Soulja Boy weblink
The session went brilliantly, at first I did my usual, just sitting with the group, listening and showing them I’m not some mad artist there to make them do ridiculous experiments with cardboard and cheese (or similar).
And then after time, the sitting, smiling seemed to work, and the group invited me to start rapping with them and I felt like I’d genuinely made a bit of a bond.
It’s a funny thing being plummeted into North Edinburgh Arts (where we’re meeting). I’m quite posh and walking from my car to the centre terrifies me- all those youths kicking balls and talking about eights and ounzes and what not. As soon as I enter through the automatic doors of NEA and into the quiet, clean surrounding of the art centre I feel my body going, ‘ah you’re safe’. Pathetic.
On entering the centre as well as physical calm I then had an overwhelming mental panic of ‘what am I doing?’ ‘Can art really do anything at all?’ ‘Why do I still have some overwhelming passion for the concept of art and social change?’ I’ve studied and vigorously thought about Art and Social change for two years- the Artachat facebook site is full of links and info exploring this area weblink
But now, while sitting with my Wednesday evening group wondering how I can get them to feel the power and magic of art in their lives, and how this will absolutely make them feel better about themselves- their ups and downs, their boredom at school etc I did start to wonder if I’d had my head stuck in the books for too long.
But as I disclosed to them my ideas of bringing the brilliant Ugandan breakdance group, Tabu Flo up to Edinburgh to do an improvised dance routine to their music. The group were really excited about the possibility of their music coming to life in new ways and finally finding a platform to perform from. A wee success?
After the session I left through those same doors, this time with the group, feeling like I’d started to make some friends and in return had come up with ways that I could contribute and help along the talents that the youth group already hold.
I’ll write more soon, in perhaps a calmer more considered way!
Rocca
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Walkachatted away
by Rocca Gutteridge 12 Apr 2011
Emma Herman Smith racing up those snow peaked mountains
All Walkachat pics can be seen here: weblinkT’was but a stunner of a day for Sunday’s Walkachat.
14 of us set out to conquer as much or as little of Beinn nan Aighenan as we could muster.Anthony Schrag, current Artist in Residence at Deveron Arts kept the ‘achat’ side of the walk up with ad hoc performances over dinner, on rocks, in the snow.
Walkachat performances at the top of the munroe
We walked for an impressive 9 hours (with many a stop for cheese and pickle and whisky along the way) and even managed a sleepy sun bathe on the top of the very handsome munroe, Beinn nan Aighenan.
Next Walkachat scheduled for 29th and 30th May.
Here’s the full Walkachat programme weblinkLook forward to the next time!
Rocca -
A Walk in the Sun
by Rocca Gutteridge 9 Apr 2011
The view from a January Walkachat session
Hurrah, it’s sunny and I’m about to set off with a mixed bunch of fourteen- artists, filmmakers, musicians, architects, critics, curators and Nick the Art Lover from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Huntly- to tackle a hill in the stunning area of Glen Etive for the forthcoming Walkachat!
Anna Vermehren will give a talk on “Cairne Bashing” this evening and then we’ll be setting off at the slightly painful Sunday morning hour of 9am to hit those rocky hills. Early bird catches the worm and all.
Look forward to posting outcomes at the start of the week!
Have a great weekend,
Rocca -
Monumental Memories- Write up
by Rocca Gutteridge 4 Apr 2011
Setting up at Out of the Blue
Artachat in Progress
Me getting far too overexcited!
The essential drink and afterchat.
I began last Wednesday’s Artachat session by unpacking the title of the session itself Monumental Memories.
By monumental I am not necessarily speaking solely of the massive, imposing or plonked public artwork, but making reference more to a work that is physically enduring or physically significant.
And by memories, I am referring to the temporary public art works where something cerebral rather than physical is left.
The Artachat set out to explore the social consequences of these different types of public art along with the way they are commissioned.
Three “catalysts for group conversation” were selected for the session:
Juliet Dean, Director of PACE
(Public Art Commissions and Exhibitions)Juliet gave a short presentation on her experience of commissioning permanent art works in geographically diverse contexts. From the Comedy Carpet in Blackpool weblink to a Community School Auchterarder and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London.
Claudia Zeiske, Director of Deveron Arts and co-author of ARTocracy weblink
Claudia showed a variety of temporary projects commissioned by Deveron Arts and introduced the methodology behind the organisation.
Craig Coulthard, Artist and musician introduced his Artists Taking the Lead, Cultural Olympiad Commission, Forest Pitch and acted as a case study of a project that encompassed much of what the previous two speakers raised.
Dane Sutherland’s tweet notes are below and slides from both presentations will be able to be viewed by the end of today by going to the Artachat slideshare site here:
Please note all the notes below are not exact replicas of the conversations, but memories and personal notes on the topics.
Juliet Dean, Director of PACE
- Public Art “consults the audience for or with whom it was made, respecting community and environment” – Lucy Lippard
- PACE’s work is not monumental. To the point where the work may be invisible and provides a subtle, yet permanent, backdrop.
- You could say it’s permanent (non)monumental
- PACE is geographically spread out, working anywhere from London to Aberdeen.
- We have to work hard to get to know the publics and the context, to get to know who the stakeholders are. There is an issue with time and the longevity of the engagement process here.
- Where Deveron Arts initiates projects, PACE responds to existing local initiatives
- What is the future for this kind of work? What is the future for permanent projects?
- We are not only working in a geographic context but a personal context.
- Audience- In working with the children’s hospital, we had to focus on a wide age range – not just provide bright colours and Winnie the Pooh motifs for youngsters. We had to create a vivid language that speaks to people of different cultures, ages, abilities. For example, as well as the children, parents are a significant audience.
- Children are far more visually literate than they are given credit for – adults tend to prescribe what they must look at.
- Health and Safety, and contextual issues are pertinent for developing permanent works of art.
There can often be unforeseen constraints on this type of working. Interest to compare the constraints on a more temporary way of working.
- Our approach includes consultancies, workshops and engagement with the audiences, to create a strategy.
- To allow for permanence or longevity, we build in and consider a life cycle – we consider the work’s obsolescence, and that people may eventually tire of it.
- A Kenny Hunter piece that was developed for the hospital featured a number of animals surrounding the central sculpture, one of which was a crow on top of a nearby door – this was removed after we realised that the crow was considered to be a Middle Eastern symbol for death.
- Who decides who likes something, when making something permanent?
- There are so many different stakeholders.
Also, people can grow to like things.
- Visionary artists are essential in keeping these kinds of projects going.
- “Our island is sinking with the weight of all these sculptures” (Doug Cooke? I think, if anyone knows other wise please comment!)
- I’m being a devil’s advocate here but if we loose our interest in the permanent public art work
What will there be to mark the lives that we live in?
Claudia Zeiske. Director, Deveron Arts
- We work in one place only, and that place is Huntly, its inhabitants, its issues and its spaces
- The town is the venue
- We operate a 50/50 model, which balances the community/local concerns with the international
- this conundrum makes Deveron Arts tick. It is key in creating new work, and new criticality. A successful project must fulfill both.
- As we have no gallery, we must show the work in other ways.
- One of our earlier artists-in-residents, Thierry Geoffrey aka Colonel, used the media, and created a piece that was presented in the Huntly Express.
- We also have developed a Town Collection, which is various works or traces related to the projects which are placed parts of the town which were significant to the project itself.
- This is not just about seeing the art, but a new way of seeing the town.
- I have a background in anthropology, which informs the projects.
- A starting point for projects is always topics relevant to the town (the word issues has negative connotations).
- It isn’t the artist that creates the topic – it is something that interests the community, and I find an artist that fits.
- I live in Huntly, and that is why I work there.
- this model is transferable
- many of the issues are universal, and not only significant to Huntly.
- Example: Eva Merz, Empty Shop project.
- One of the empty shops in Huntly, who’s numbers have grown particularly since the opening of two large supermarkets in the town, was declared as an Empty Shop Monument by Eva.
- National media covered the project, such as BBC Newsnight, highlighting the national breadth of this problem.
- Also, on the MONO project with artist Jelka Plate, she tackled an issue about ‘cruisers’ or young people who endlessly drive their cars around Huntly. Many middle-class, or older people may have thought of these ‘cruisers’ as problematic and de-socialised.
- Jelka engaged with and befriended them, and showed that their unusual practice is more performative.
- The ARTocracy book shares the idea that this model could be done in any small town. Starting with a cultural audit, we presented the transferability of the model in ‘Anytown’.
- This book is a manual to share the method and present study cases to show how it can be done in other places.
Craig Coulthard. Artist
- Project: Forest Pitch – Artist’s Taking the Lead – 2012 Cultural Olympiad
- Project overview: The construction of a football pitch, in the centre of a commercial forest. The pitch will host two matches during the London Olympics 2012 the participating players will be made up of amateurs from across Scotland, who have taken up British citizenship since 2000.
- After the games, the pitch will all be left to grow back, and native trees will be re-planted.
- For more info see: weblink
- The site is to be left for at least 60 years.
- Throughout the project, and the event, I want to really control the documentation – re-call the culture of replay (youtube, mobile video) and retain an element of mystique about what happens
- In a way it’s going to last forever – maybe not the artwork, but the landscape.
- The project does not respond to a public criteria. It takes place on private land, which I think is something to talk about.
- If it lasts 60 years, that is more permanent than most ‘permanent’ architecture.
- The 60 years is based on the lifecycle of the crop.
- I was surprised at how much I was told to stick to my idea and see it through the way I want to finish it.
- There are different levels of participation and direct involvement with the public
- the events are community based, but I never set out to make a community arts project.
- If someone is going to be negative about what I do, they’re perfectly entitled. I’m confident in my idea and its ability to cause debate.
- I want people to think about it and talk about it, and not necessarily agree on things.
I would now like to review the session for myself and next post up my summary of the event. Any questions, thoughts, comments please feel free to post on up!
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Monumental Memories- Thank you!
by Rocca Gutteridge 31 Mar 2011
Thanks to everyone for a brilliant Artachat last night.
Dane Sutherland’s tweet minutes will be uploaded here this weekend along with Clare Carswell’s audio and photos by Stephen Mcgarry- phew! -
Upcoming Artachat: Monumental Memories
by Rocca Gutteridge 28 Mar 2011
Exploring the social consequences of temporary and permanent public art processes.
This Wednesday we’ll be hosting the above Artachat at Out of the Blue in Leith.
Invited speakers include:
Craig Coulthard (Forest Pitch, Artists taking the lead, London 2012)
Juliet Dean (Director, PACE)
and Claudia Zeiske (Director, Deveron Arts and co-author of ARTocracy)Here are my initial ideas for topics to raise and discuss (any thoughts, please feel free to get in touch):
i) Exploring the affect permanent Public Art has on a community
I’d like to review the relevance of the monumental public sculpture in today’s society, especially exploring the monumental in relation to craft and production.ii) Explore the affect temporary Public Art has on a community
How are these kind of projects accepted within a community? Explore the importance of memory, can a memory can be monumental?
iii) Explore the flip between public and private space. perhaps drawing on the case studies of Fettes college and the new Collective Commission weblink and PACE’s New Royal Aberdeen Children’s hospital project. weblink
And look to the participation programmes that go alongside working in these different contexts.
iv) I’d like to weave in Craig’s Forest Pitch Cultural Olymiad commission as a further case study.
Look at the temporary vs permanent nature of this project and the public vs privateness of his concept. I’d also like to look at the participation programme involved in the project.v) Another area that I’d like to be picked up on is the crossover of curator, artist and public in public art processes.
There’s going to be a lot to discuss, the discussion kicks off at 7pm. We are pretty much full to the brim but if you are interested in coming please email info@artachat.co.uk and we’ll see if we can squeeze you in.
I look forward to posting Dane’s tweet minutes and any outcomes from the discussion.
Rocca
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A Braw Weekend Oot
by Rocca Gutteridge 26 Mar 2011
Two great things in Edinburgh this weekend, one finished one a must see!
A Braw Nicht Oot
Just returned from this event at the Scottish Storytelling Centre – an evening of stories, music, spoken word, performance all to celebrate the Scottish slang as an art form.
The highlight was listening to a lady singing solo, when slowly steadily a growing hum from the audience emerged as all those in the know spontaneously joined in, one of those precious moments.
Going Public @ Embassy Gallery.
From what I saw at the opening night a show much worth a visit, watch out for the crying limousine…
on til 10th April at the New Embassy Space:
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Walkachat- 2011 Programme!
by Rocca Gutteridge 25 Mar 2011
Walkachat is a project that has sparked from a love of the Scottish wildness and working closely with the Socially Engaged arts initiative Deveron Arts.
Walkachat combines hill walking with (gentle) art critique and discussion.
So far we have held three Walkachats in stunning central Scotland locations. To see these walks please go to the Flickr site here:
We can now announce our 2011 Programme!
If you are interested in any of the events PLEASE BOOK EARLY as the hostels fill up extremely quickly.
- April 9th – 10th: Glen Etive (Hostel to be booked for 9th)
With a talk on “Cairne Bashing” by Anna Vermehren
- May 28th – 30th: Poolewe (Hostel and tents to be booked)
- July 15th – 17th: Glen Affric (SYHA to be booked for 15th and
16th)
- August 19th – 21st: Loch Rannoch to Dalwhennie
(SYHA to be booked on 19th, tent on 20th)
- October 8th – 9th: Crianlarrich hostel on 8th
For more information on Walkachat and to attend please contact:
If you are based in the North of Scotland: Claudia 01466-794494, claudia@deveron-arts.com
If you are based in the South: Rocca 07944773066, info@artachat.co.uk
- April 9th – 10th: Glen Etive (Hostel to be booked for 9th)
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A look to the future of the Arts in the North East of Scotland
by Rocca Gutteridge 23 Mar 2011
Last night we hosted the Artachat session:
“Oil, Neeps and Stony Ballads”
A look to the future of Arts in the North East of ScotlandThe Artachat was set in the Empty Shop in Huntly and hosted in collaboration with Deveron Arts. It was a full house of 32 artists, organisation representatives and audiences from across Aberdeenshire.
Specifically invited speakers were:
Andrew Dixon, Chief Executive, Creative Scotland
Paul Harris, Head of School, Grays School of Art
Robert Livingstone, Director, Hi-Arts
and Carol Leathley, Arts Manager, Aberdeenshire CouncilThe goal for the evening was to both celebrate the current arts in Aberdeenshire and offer a look to the future. It has to be explained that the day before the Artachat was held letters from Aberdeenshire council were sent out to arts organisations explaining the current funding cuts that will be implemented in the forthcoming year.
Creative Scotland’s Corporate plan was also recently released. You can view it here:
web linkThe Artachat began with a short introduction by Claudia Zeiske informally presenting some of the artists Deveron Arts has recently worked with. Norma Hunter is the current “Arts Visitor” (taken from the role of the health visitor), Wanja Kimani is the current artist in residence here to carry on the work of Congolese artist Baudouin Mouanda who unfortunately had to leave his residency due to visa problems. The introduction finished with a beautiful performance by singer Shona Donaldson and fiddler Paul Anderson.
After a delicious East African curry cooked by artist Daisy Williamson, I began the Artachat with a quick radio style interview session with Claudia and the four invited speakers. I asked them to introduce who they were, what they do and how they perceive the current contemporary arts scene in Aberdeenshire and give a brief look to the future. This was intended as a starting point and to get their voices heard before a more circular discussion began with a very engaged and articulate audience.
Below are notes of the evenings discussion, Twitter style, created by independent curator Dane Sutherland. www.huntlyartreader.weebly.com
www.linemagazine.tumblr.com
Dane and I will be working together over the next few months to capatalise upon all the research gathered during Artachat sessions.Claudia Zeiske (Director, Deveron Arts):
- Claudia introduces the Deveron Arts methodology (web link)
- It is important for Deveron Arts to work with local and international artists and to work with the context of Huntly
- We are developing a model for the rural context
- On hospitality and dialogue:
It’s important to be hospitable for visitors, and also it is a way for people to communicate, creates a dialogue and is good for the local economy.
Robert Livingstone (Director of Hi-Arts, web link):
- Hi-Arts works within a social remit, rather than specifically a geographical remit
- Culture and arts from the Highland and Islands are more visible due to networks maintained with the North-East.
- An organisation in Skye is developing a similar model to Deveron Arts whereby the island is the venue.
- These models are both cost effective and illustrate an inventive use of space
- There were thoughts here on the versatility of arts spaces in the North East and other rural contexts for example, the versatility of spaces such as Woodend Barn web link
Paul Harris (Head of School, Gray’s School of Art):
- Gray’s School of Art aims to expand it’s territory to establish itself as a world class institution – beyond Scotland
- The Parallel Arts School – a device set up to promote learning after college
- Carol Leathley (Arts Manager, Aberdeenshire Council):
- Aberdeenshire Council does have a public art policy. Will be building upon this
- Aims to introduce artists and art into schools, stimulating opportunities for young people
Andrew Dixon (Chief Executive, Creative Scotland):
- I moved to Scotland a year ago and I am constantly amazed
- Creative Scotland has a mandate to promote and invest time and energy and not just money
- Through the corporate plan I hope we can capture imaginations and people will get behind making Scotland stand out
- There are many places yet to define their contribution to a creative nation, yet there isn’t a place I’ve come across that isn’t doing something interesting
- We look at the places that don’t get so much attention and also learn from those that are visibly successful
- People, Place, and Pride are things that make creative culture a success
Nuno Sacramento (Scottish Sculpture Workshops)
- We are our own networks
- SSW is a node in a worldwide network
- Let’s question rurality and its opposition to urbanism, and discuss the present economies
- We don’t have to do things in relation to cities, we don’t have to choose between being here or there, because we are both here and there simultaneously
Mark Hope (Woodend barn)
- Aberdeenshire has recently done a great job of fostering a diverse array of arts organisations
- There is an array of networks with people sharing passion
- (In reference to Deveron Arts and the idea of both the local and the international) Why do we bring in international artists when we have very good local artists? Because one leads to the other
- I would stake money on the goals of the Creative Scotland corporate plan, because we have the raw materials.
- Geographical boundaries are constantly superseded through personal connections – people travel constantly between the city and the shire
- We failed to articulate how the arts are not something peripheral and ‘cuttable’
Bryan Angus (COAST Festival):
- Talked of creating a model of communal sustainability, so that the community may embrace and own an organisation
- It’s the glue we have to find, a single vision for us to work around. There needs to be a curatorial element and direction.
Mary Bourne (Artist and Deveron Arts Board Member):
- An important factor for culture in the rural area is the longevity of projects.
With longevity people will trust a project and potentially participate
- It is also important to be woven into the fabric of the town.
Andrew Dixon:
- It is in the psyche of Scotland not to celebrate success
Scotland didn’t know that it had 280 festivals!
- We should call upon everyone to recognise what we have here.
Donald Boyd (Town Coordinator and Huntly Development Trust)
- The importance of promotion and opportunities
Robert Livingstone:
- Importance of reliable branding in getting across to the powers that show what Scotland actually is
Paul Harris:
- Just because we are from the North-east, we don’t have to consider ourselves 2nd class citizens
- There is no need for a comparison just between Gray’s and Glasgow School of Art or Edinburgh College of Art – we want to be a world class institution.
- To retain people in the North-east it is important to provide resources, facilitate, bring people together and develop a strategy beyond formal education models to allow graduates to deploy their skills
- There is a need for continuous support and collaboration
- We must fit into this ecology of cultural provision
Pete Stolley (Musician):
- This is the place of all the places I’ve worked that you don’t need to look for a network – they find you
Bryan Angus:
- Quite often creative activity stops once the kids leave school
- Are Banff and Macduff actually urban communities in rural areas?
- Young people have these cultural expectations (ref to the urban culture)
Mark Hope:
- A sustainable arts organisation is not something that makes money… but sustainability means channeling in resources from a diverse range of sources
Lorraine Grant (Cultural Services Manager, Aberdeenshire City Council):
- There needs to be a shift from providing support downwards, to nurturing talent upwards
- Community development base model
Rachel Kennedy (Duff House):
- Tourism plays a key part
Andrew Dixon:
- It would be interesting to map a cultural day in the life of Aberdeenshire – to show how it does glue together a place, economically and socially
- The corporate strategy is not a 3 year plan but a 10 year aspiration
- It is culture and environment that defines these places
Summary (Offered by myself)
- This was an honest celebration of Arts in the North East Scotland
- There seems to be an emphasis on seeing the North East and Aberdeenshire not as a periphery but a central node in an international Arts network.
- Collaboration feels key to any progression that might take place
- If we are to create a map of Aberdeenshire Arts, will it be a map of how we see ourselves now or what we want to be?
If I have forgotten any key points please feel free to post below or email me
info@artachat.co.uk -
A Starting Point- Ugandan Arts
by Rocca Gutteridge 20 Mar 2011
I explained below that as well as using this blog to share research and info gathered at and around Artachat sessions I will also track the progress of my current Partners Residency with the Mela Festival and the Scottish Forestry Commission.
I’d like to do this to see how the two ventures might collide and to share the process of not only discussing, researching and critiquing socially engaged, participatory projects but directly discuss the actual doing of them as well.
My residency has very amazingly begun with a month long research trip to Uganda. This was previously set up and organised by myself and Ugandan based charity the Child’s i Foundation but upon receiving the Partners post it was agreed that the trip would form the initial foundations for the 15 month residency.
I should explain now that 50% of the residency is to be spent on my own arts practice and 50% of my time working with ethnic minority groups, using “art as a lens to engage groups into the Scottish environment”. (Quote from project brief). I’m keen to hear anyone’s thoughts on the residency structure.
I returned from Uganda two weeks ago and not to turn you over to yet another website but here is the research I gathered whilst exploring the amazing, often a bit confusing, wild, loving and lush green country they call Uganda:
http://artsuganda.blogspot.com/
Now back to the soft silver skies of Edinburgh I have begun working with a young group from Craigroyston high school in Muirehouse (Edinburgh). They are a music group set up by an inspiring man called Jonathan Omar, an extra curriculr activities teacher at the school.
Tomorrow I’ll be meeting them for the second time, last week I discovered the group’s main interest is to pursue a song they are collaboratively devising- a very cool rap/pop song that made me feel not so cool for admitting my favourite band were the Spice Girls (their early tunes). I’ve decided to take along with me a trunk that whilst in Uganda I filled with locally made instruments, cultural objects and artifacts. I wanted to bring back objects that would act as catalyst for conversations between myself and the group.
I’ll post more soon!
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Oil, Neeps and Stoney Ballads
by Rocca Gutteridge 17 Mar 2011
Next Tuesday’s (22nd March) Artachat (titled Oil, Neeps and Stoney Ballads) will feature a discussion on the future of Arts in the North East of Scotland.
Artachat and Deveron Arts will be hosting an “on your laps” dinner in the Empty shop on Bogie street in Huntly followed by a discussion with Andrew Dixon (Chief Executive, Creative Scotland),
Paul Harris (Head of School, Grays School of Art),
Robert Livingstone (Director, Hi-Arts),
Carol Leathley (Arts Manager, Aberdeenshire Council)
and Artists and Arts Organisations from Aberdeenshire and beyond.I’m looking forward to acting as the go between and intend to facilitate a conversation that will explore and celebrate what Aberdeenshire arts and culture has to offer locally, within Scotland and internationally.
If you come along to the event expect to also hear information on Creative Scotland’s evolving commissioning process.
At a time when the words “funding” and “cuts” are being generously passed about I’m looking forward to having an informal, open, honest discussion between the funders and those wishing to be funded.
Any thoughts on discussion points, please post on up.
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Hurrah for the return of the blogs!
by Rocca Gutteridge 16 Mar 2011
In the last year Artachat has kept on going, running crits and artists talks around the area of community arts and socially engaged practices.
We’ve held:
“Mapping Communities” with the formidable Lucy Lippard and David Harding. An “Art and Sustainability” short film session at Edinburgh’s Royal Botanical Gardens with the Guerrilla cinema project. An Edinburgh festival discussion “Where is Public Art Today?” with Big Things on the Beach in Portobello and an Annuale discussion on “Professionalism within the Art World” with Leeds based artist collective Black Dogs.
Nuno Sacramento has been to Edinburgh Sculpture Workshops to discuss further his new plans for the hardware and software of the Scottish Sculputre Workshops and we’ve also launched “Walkachat” a new arts and walking collaboration between Artachat and Deveron Arts.
As well as Artachat I’ve now been lucky enough to start working as artist in residence for the Mela Festival. It’s a Partners Residency, called Shared Territories, between the Mela and Scottish Natural Heritage and Forestry Commission.
I’d therefore now like to use this blog to continue the debate and discussion around the perception of community arts and socially engaged practices as well as extend it’s remit to include the work that we execute over the next year for the Mela.
I hope for this to include: updates and documentation of Artachat sessions (the next of which is due to take place on Tuesday in Aberdeenshire, I’ll post up more details tomorrow) contributions from participants on the Shared Territories residency programme and general information, links and research around the area of public/socially engaged/community/participatory arts practices.
There’s a lot to fit in so I look forward to future bloggings and would like to thank Public Art Scotland once again for giving me the opportunity to extend the discussion around my ever evolving research interests.
Rocca
www.artachat.co.uk -
Community Engagement- an magasine
by Rocca Gutteridge 22 Mar 2010
Another article that caught my attention-
from a-n magazine a couple of years ago now… -
Podcasts, Central Station and further research...
by Rocca Gutteridge 22 Mar 2010
The podcast for “we don’t need no gallery education” can now be viewed at:
I have decided to use Central Station as a way to host these podcasts as their software is quicker than mine and I hope it will widen the audience and debate for Artachat further still.
Along the same lines of education I am currently writing up an Object Biography for my Masters. The project is titled. “Word of Mouth Cafe: An Alternative Education Space” and explores cafes as alternative spaces for learning as well as taking a deeper critique into the Artachat project itself (which of course is held at the Word of Mouth cafe).
I hope I will be brave and post this Biography up once its done for anyone’s perusal and comments!
But for now I thought I’d post up a couple of useful web links I’ve found while researching the project:
http://e-flux.com/journal/view/127
http://www.engage.org/scotland/
Article by Iain Biggs:
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Podcasts and thanks
by Rocca Gutteridge 16 Mar 2010
Thank you to all those for attending last nights session. As always a podcast for the event will be available shortly. A podcast from the previous session (Art Education) is now available from www.artachat.co.uk
If you would like full copies of these podcasts please feel free to get in touch.
I will also post up a short write up of the event in the next couple of days.
Many thanks,
Rocca
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"To Studio... and Beyond"
by Rocca Gutteridge 10 Mar 2010
This Artachat session, led by Art Link director Jan-Bert Van den Berg and artists Jonathan Owen and Yvonne Mullock, aims to explore the crossover from an artists studio based practice to when working in a more collaborative, socially engaged way.
The session will begin with an introduction into both the artists and Art Links practice and then continue to explore both the relevance, benefits and challenges that this crossover in practice can bring.
Please join us, at the Word of Mouth, with the usual half price baking deal, for this informative, yet informal Artachat.
Due to limited space, please email roccagutteridge@yahoo.co.uk to reserve a place
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Thank you!
by Rocca Gutteridge 9 Mar 2010
Thank you for all the contributions at last nights artachat session. a podcast and written summary will be available to use from this website and the PAR +RS blog by Friday.
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Upcoming Artachat
by Rocca Gutteridge 3 Mar 2010
‘We don’t need no gallery education’
In Conversation with Stacy Boldrick, Research and Interpretation manager at the Fruitmarket gallery.This Artachat session is focused around the current state of gallery education and aims to explore the following issues:
i) What do we mean by the term education in a contemporary art context?
ii) Is gallery education always necessary?
iii) Why are gallery education programmes sometimes seen as an ‘add on’ to an exhibition?
iii) What ways can we ensure that education is an integrated, innovative and vital part of a galleries programme?
Due to limited capacity in the cafe please email roccagutteridge@yahoo.co.uk to confirm a place for the event
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Neville Rae. A Town For Tomorrow
by Rocca Gutteridge 24 Feb 2010
Please see the below link for Neville Rae’s PAR +RS reflection on his work in Cumbernauld:
http://www.publicartscotland.com/reflections/42
A Podcast from Neville’s Artachat session can also be heard here:
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World Community Arts day 2010
by Rocca Gutteridge 17 Feb 2010
I was very happy to be invited along to the Scottish Parliament last Thursday to witness the fantastic drumming group ‘Drumatik’ play there socks off to the MSPs and passing public.
Please check out their brilliant website!
All of this was in aid of today’s World Community Arts Day, an initiative set up by the dynamic Andrew Crummy. Today, thousands of folk from around the world will be doing one creative action through the belief of Art serving as a “catalyst for caring and sharing”.
http://www.communiversity.org.uk/worldcommunityartsday.htm
Crummy writes: “Community Art is an important global movement, with a complex and long history. Thousands of groups and individuals are part of this story that is rich and very diverse. (Many can be found on Communityarts.net).”
The event is influenced by the life and work of performance artist Reg Bolton www.regbolton.org The boundless energy Crummy and the Craigmillar festival society offer to try and create a ‘one day world festival society’ cannot be ignored and I look forward to having both David Harding and Andrew Crummy along to an upcoming Artachat for both a critique and celebration of this remarkable event.
" But some say that they’ve heard,
A whisper in the wind,
Communities are on the move,
Their way of living to improve and festivals you’ll find."
" The powerful in the land,
Can’t bring a change of heart,
But history will be made,
When the people play their part."
Sung by the late Janet Howie
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Reflections...
by Rocca Gutteridge 6 Feb 2010
After a time to reflect on the last two Artachat events (The Artist Workshop, In Conversation with Tessa Lynch. Identity and Ownership in Community Arts, in Conversation with Neville Rae) I have been thinking a lot about the issues of ownership and control when Artists embark on a collaborative or socially engaged/community/outreach project.
Tessa Lynch www.tessalynch.com presented one approach when working with people in her own work (rather than in an educational context).
“It is about the concept of the work not the people that are getting involved.â€
Tessa sees herself as a ‘director’, the participants are her tools which make up the final piece.I enjoyed Tessa’s honest approach when working with people and it was apparent that Tessa was in control over the amount of ownership she held with her final artwork.
When Tessa works in an educational context (her last workshop was based at Inverleith House, exploring the work of Karla Black) she noticed the difference in her theoretical approach to working with people yet a similar practical approach in order to engage the audience with the artwork.
“It’s less about me, my work and my ideas and more about an ending…
But probably the methods that I use are quite similar to how I’d use things in my own workâ€.For example Tessa uses props in both her own work and educational work as a means to break down the barrier between herself the artwork and the participants.
I have attached a short outline of the interview which took place during this Artachat here:
Notes from Artachat with Tessa Lynch
Neville Rae raised a strong concern over the amount of identity he held with a finished work when working in an educational, community environment. A lack of ownership with the work created a sense of dissatisfaction within his project and a deeper questioning of his process as artist/collaborator/archiver/curator.
The notes from Neville’s session can be see here:
Notes from Artachat with Neville Rae
I recently had a conversation with Devon based film maker Hatt Reiss over the issue of Ownership whilst working on a collaborative project.
Below is the outline of the interview. The work in question was a collaborative animation made after a series of workshops and during a residency with www.terresansfrontiere.org
Interview with film maker Hatt Reiss
Artachat was set up as away to reinstate a hospitable and critical environment outside an art college institution. I am constantly assessing my own levels of ownership and identity when managing such a project. The project aims to offer artists and audiences a platform to both speak and interact but is of course embellished under the umbrella of my own Artachat aesthetic. How much identity and ownership I can take over such a project is my current ponder….
Ramble over!
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Last night...
by Rocca Gutteridge 12 Jan 2010
Thank you for the fantastic turn out and contributions at last nights session. It was great to be able to experiment with the format of the event, with the final session finishing in the very informal pub!
Please click on the link below to download my notes from the evening:
Notes from Artachat with Neville Rae
And I have uploaded a podcast of Neville’s presentation to the Artachat website: www.artachat.co.uk.
If you attended the event and have any notes you’d like to share or have feedback from the session please feel free to get in touch by either replying to this thread or emailing me at roccagutteridge@yahoo.co.uk
Many thanks and I look forward to the next session!
Rocca
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This evening:
by Rocca Gutteridge 11 Jan 2010
We are hoping to start at 7.30pm tonight so please arrive a little early in order to grab a seat, coffee, cake etc so the cafe can close on time this time!
Below is a couple of links to two press releases on Neville’s last exhibitions:
Neville_Rae_A_Town_For_Tomorrow.pdf
The_Skinny_-_Neville_Rae__A_Town_For_Tomorrow___Inverleith_House.pdf
Also please find a link to a very useful Public Art Index created by David Harding:
http://www.davidharding.net/publicart/index.php
and a final link to his essay: Public Art in The British New Towns which may be of interest for this evening.
http://www.davidharding.net/article04/index.php
Best wishes and see you this evening!
Rocca
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Upcoming Event...
by Rocca Gutteridge 5 Jan 2010
Identity and Ownership in Community Arts
In Conversation with Neville RaeMonday 11th January
7.30pm start
Word of Mouth Cafe, Leith Walk, Edinburgh.This session will begin with a short presentation of previous and current works by Neville Rae, leading to discussion into the identity of the individual artist when leading community art projects.
Neville is currently regenerating a series of underpasses in the Scottish New Town of Cumbernauld. Taking leave from Cumbernauld’s first town artist Brian Miller, Neville is working with locals schools and residence of Cumbernauld to reinstate a series of public art works which originally decorated and enhanced the underpasses in the 1960s.
Throughout the evening Neville will question what part his personal artistic vision plays in this project and previous works and how the public view his practice overall. Is there room for the individual artists vision in community arts projects? How much ownership should the artist have in such projects?
If you would like to attend the event please email roccagutteridge@yahoo.co.uk
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Aesthetics of Socially Engaged Practice. Interview with Wochenklasur
by Rocca Gutteridge 27 Dec 2009
Intervention to Overcome Social Barriers
Leeds 2006Below is an outline of an interview I undertook with the artist run group Wochenklausur last month. I was exploring the aesthetics of socially engaged practice with particular interest in Wochenklausurs’ project: Intervention to Overcome Social Barriers. Leeds 2006
http://www.wochenklausur.a/projekt.php?lang=en&id=2
Below is part of the interview, if you would like further information please feel free to get in touch. I hope you find it useful!
Rocca:
I’d be really interested if you could describe your aesthetic, as though I have never seen an image by you.Wochenklasur:
We do not intend any aesthetics with the projects, there is no aesthetic outcome.
We do not produce images or objects whatsoever and there is a very small amount of images documenting our projects. We even forget to take images!When we do we never have an aesthetic in mind, its
just for documentation… it’s just as a document.
There is no purpose in the aesthical outcome.Rocca:
How about the repeated images of offices in your documentation?Wochenklasur:
We always have some kind of office- a big calender and kind of a schedule.
We make it just to feel comfortable to work early in morning and late at night. There is no aesthetic, it’s just to be made comfortable.The Space that is offered varies from project to project
The art and cultural institution have to make a space available that works as an office.
For the Leeds project it was just an empty space. In the part of the city where we were focused on.It is often ugly spaces that are offered….
Rocca:
I recently did a presentation for a Public Art project in Portobello
I handed out three cards, with different examples of public art projects on each. Yours being one. I asked people to write on the cards their initial reactions to the works of art.Their responses to your images were:
What did the project achieve?
How was the concept assessed?
The work is focussed and political.
Doesn’t appeal as an artwork.
Original Idea
Very SocialIt seems clear who you want to work with for the Leeds project. (Both Art institutions and public)
Who is your audience for the documentation for your projects? Does it matter to you that a non-art audience does not so easily digest the documentation of the work?Wochenklausur:
Our interest is in the documentation of the project, but we have no interest in making an art work out of it.We want to attract and gain attention to specific problems in society We want to have the normal art audience involved. We want to make the concepts public….
We choose to have no aesthetic so others can copy our process. With a complex aesthetic this would be more difficult and take away from our process.
Rocca:
How do you see Wochenklausurs relationship to community art?
(To me the aesthetic is very different but the projects methods quite similar).Wochenklasur:
We never set ourselves ourselves into a specific category of art…
In some contexts we are mentioned as community artists… (Grant Kesters’ Conversation Pieces) or Art in public space… or socially/politically engaged art.
These definitions are not set up my ourselves but by others…
Our focus is sometimes on the community… in some other projects its not.
It really depends what your calling a community? Are a group of homeless people a community, even if they don’t realise they are?Rocca:
How do you promote your work to the public? And how can I engage non art audiences with what you are doing?Wochenklasur:
How do people promote Duchamps’ bottle rack? When people look at it what do they look at? Do they really try to find an aesthical criteria? The work is not to look at, that’s not what he wanted…
He has an object, but it doesn’t have to be in an exhibition…
We don’t have an object, only the Results of our project and these results are not to be judged in an aesthetic way. Our work is not only a thing to think about but a thing you can change, we believe art can implicit change.It’s not easy I know but these projects can be talked about… we can talk about the process and how you arrange it and why we call it art…
Of course we come with powerpoints and images
because it’s nice to have a picture inbetweeen the talking. But pictures can be misleading…
They can be pinned to an aesthetic value. And this is not our artwork…Rocca:
The frequently asked questions on your website seem to be an artwork in itself: implementing change within your audiences, to get an audience to open up their minds of what art can and could be. And to highlight some of the hierarchical problems within the art world. Would you agree with this?Wochenklasur:
The writing for the website, especially in 1993 began as a defence.
The Art scene in the early 90s were not open to our work. People were upset that a group can get money from art institutions just to do social work…
We wanted to remind them that the Art concept has always changed through history… movements have always had to define themselves in the more traditional Art scene.We had to explain why we have the right to do what we do as art.
We used the Freedom of Art constitution… an Austrian constitution allowing the freedom of opinion and speech to do nearly everything and call it art.We still have to explain the differences between what we do and what a social worker does… what we do is art and that’s very important.
A social worker would definitely not do what we do and we would definitely not do what social workers do.
Art theorists use a certain language. If there is nothing left to judge aesthetically, they don’t know how to cope.
It’s a problem with Art history… art is a concept of agreement, it needs a ‘community’ which reaches an agreement on whether a work is Art.
It is not something that is absolute…It is also about knowledge and power… not every part of society has entrance to the art scene…
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Artachat 7th December session. Podcast Online
by Rocca Gutteridge 14 Dec 2009
A podcast from last Mondays session with Tessa Lynch can now be heard at www.artachat.co.uk
Please allow a few minutes for the podcast to upload.
There are a couple of disclaimers that need to go with the podcast: firstly apologies for some of the loud cafe noises in the background, perhaps however this makes the relaxed cafe environment more authentic!
Due to date saving issues this podcast is of the first 15mins of the session, if you would like any further information on the session I am more than happy to email you information.
Many thanks and I look forward to receiving your feedback,
Rocca
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Last night...
by Rocca Gutteridge 8 Dec 2009
Alexandrite
Tessa LynchThank you for all the valued contributions at Artachat last night. I gained an enormous amount of research and learning from both Tessa and all the contributors. Tessa admitted that the event was both challenging and incredibly useful for her practice and forthcoming project at Ratho climbing centre for the Collective Gallery. Please do check out further information of Tessa’s work at www.tessalynch.com
I am now going to spend the next few days editing notes and audio for a podcast and review of the event to be put on the Artachat website for Monday!
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Artachat Session. The Artist Workshop. Tessa Lynch
by Rocca Gutteridge 7 Dec 2009
The Artist Workshop. An exploration into the Artist Led Workshop and the Workshop as Artwork
Monday December 7th. 7pm
The Word of Mouth Cafe, 3a Albert Street, just off Leith WalkI will lead the session In conversation with Edinburgh based artist Tessa Lynch www.tessalynch.co.uk and hope to cover the following points:
i) The definition of the term Artist Workshop and the development of this term since 1960s
ii) What is the need for community and educational workshops?
iii) How successful has the Artist workshop been at achieving these goals?
iv) An exploration into the workshop as an art mediumAs ever the discussion will be an open forum throughout. Please note that the event will be recorded and edited to form a podcast to go on the www.artachat.co.uk website.
Word of Mouth have kindly offered half price cakes for anyone who buys tea or coffee or vice versa!
Look forward to seeing people there!
Rocca
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Delicious
by Rocca Gutteridge 1 Dec 2009
The site www.delicious.com was suggested to me as a really good way of storing useful websites for future reading and as a way to organise all those bookmarks that get lost.
I am building up a good base of community and socially engaged art research sites which may be able to be seen at:
http://delicious.com/RoccaGutteridge/community
If not you will have to sign up to the site and ‘add me’ then get the resources that way!
I’d like to improve the www.artachat.co.uk website to create a way for users of the site to access my resource links, any suggestions much appreciated!
All the best,
Rocca
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Welcome to Artachat!
by Rocca Gutteridge 25 Nov 2009
Thank you very much to PAR +RS for hosting this blog and allowing me to further open up my Artachat discussions.
After leaving Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) in 2007 I felt a great need to reinstate the collective group crit environment.
I decided to create an atmosphere where artists can present their work and directly question, inquire and affirm ideas and working processes to a live audience. Furthermore I wanted to create a space where artists and ‘non artists’ could interact, challenge each other and form new and future conversations and possible collaborations.
I’ll also have to admit that that I was (and still am) keen to create an environment that has both the criticality of an intense college session and the hospitality of an openhearted and energising show such as Artattack!
I have held three previous sessions at the Word of Mouth café on Leith walk. (I used to work at this café and can therefore get half price cakes for anyone who buys tea or coffee!) Artists or artist groups are invited to either present their work or a subject concerning their practice in such a way that opens up a dialogue between themselves and the audience attending.
Topics raised from these sessions have ranged from one artists ongoing questioning about the de materialisation of the art-object to a discussion into the relevance of the fanzine format as an exhibition space by two artist run magazines.
Now enrolled back at the ECA in an Art Theory masters I have decided to direct the focus of these sessions into my current research interests: exploring the perceptions of community art in Scotland.
I launched the website www.artachat.co.uk this weekend and intend to use this site along with the PARS +RS blog and a facebook group (love it or loath it) to advertise the events, broaden the debate and share outcomes from both the discussion sessions and my masters course.
Furthermore I’m very much open to suggestions and proposals for further discussion topics so feel free to post on up…
I look forward to the possibility of seeing people at the sessions and posting updates on Artachat as the project unravels.
Many thanks!
Rocca