Thursday 22 December 2011

SAF: Creative Solidarity

                   
Southwark Art's Forum Presents: Creative Solidarity - a series of networking events.

"Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground." 
Sara Ahmed, 2004 - The Cultural Politics of Emotion

Creative solidarity is a series of networking events that will bring people from different areas of the creative sector together to discuss developments in the Art World, to understand what and how others are practicing, and to discover new opportunities whilst learning from your peers.

In these turbulent times we need to come together to support each other. Through creative solidarity we hope to connect members of the community together to form a support network for creatives, by creatives. By establishing a dialogue with your contemporaries it will strengthen your own practice.

This is about strength in numbers, we need to pull together, to share our knowledge and to support each other. Creative Solidarity will connect you with like minded creative types, leading you to discover new opportunities and to get advice, as well as learning about new models of practices.

By connecting people across creative fields we will learn how others have dealt with particular situations and issues, and how that might inform your own practice. Or hearing about an aspect of someone's practice, different to your own, could inspire new developments and ideas, leading onto completely different things.

It is all yet to be discovered, but available through just a conversation. There is an abundance of creative activity going on that the majority of us are so unaware of, and unsure of how to access, or what it can do for you. These sessions are about sharing and revelling in one's creativity and the opportunities available.

Also from these discursive sessions SAF will be able to gain feedback on what people want and need, to further develop events and projects that will support and aid  individuals in their creative endeavours.

So, come along and join us!!


Launch Night -
Session 1, Departure Point: Forming a community
Thursday 16 February 2012, 6 - 9pm

Due to limited capacity please RSVP from this website

http://safcreativesolidarity-autohome.eventbrite.co.uk/?ebtv=C


And join the group online at  https://www.facebook.com/groups/146124305502166/

If you would like to know any further details please contact me at
arts.volunteer@southwarkartsforum.org





Kindly supported by:


New Gallery http://www.newgallerylondon.co.uk/new_gallery_london/newgallerylondon.html

Southwarks Art Forum  http://www.southwarkartsforum.org/

Friday 2 December 2011

Offret - Documentation of the Intervention

Offret, a project initiated by 6th Hour Productions, culminated in an artist urban intervention, on the 11/11/11.  It sought to address issues that surround the widespread rioting that took place in England in August 2011.  It was part of the European festival, Exchange Radical Moments, which connected live art projects that "meet us in the middle of everyday life, which interrupts the usual routine and unbalances us, hold, pause." 


The intervention involved a video-collage projection onto a building that was affected by arson from the riots. This was accompanied by a sound piece that boomed out across the streets. During this time the The Junction, a community written newspaper was distributed. The content came from a series of community workshops that I facilitated, for more detail see the post below.   




 Click here to read an online version of the paper.


Documentation of the intervention. 
I am in the process of sorting the material, an edited version will be uploaded soon. 


Footage of the projection


                                                




Interview with Sofia Dawe, 6th Hour Production





Wednesday 30 November 2011

Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from the Last 20 Years

A film made by Living as Form that provides a look at a vast array of innovational socially engaged art practices which ignite the imagination of others and explore ideas that shape our society.




 "I don't want an art that points at a thing, I want art that is the thing"  
                                                                           Tania Bruguera
  


                                                can also be viewed at - http://vimeo.com/28065306

Friday 11 November 2011

Offret, The Intervention

Part of the Exchange Radical Moments! Live Art Festival


TODAY 11.11.11, 6:00 – 8:00PM (GMT)
London (UK) – Clapham Junction / 268 Lavender Hill SW11 1LJ
free of charge


Come and join us today for our upcoming project: Offret is an urban intervention about the London riots of August 2011. A large-scale outdoor projection will be presented on a building that has been badly affected by arson during the unrest in Clapham Junction.


Watch the live stream here


          

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Are people afraid of creativity?

What place does creativity have in education?


"Almost every education related TED video available states or implies that creative thinking is at the center of the learning process and at the root of every breakthrough. 
What place do we give creative thinking, free exploration, uncharted discovery in our current educational models?
Are the prevalent public education systems becoming a means to program the masses rather than a way to facilitate discovery, growth and self realization? Are students truly turned into useful citizens, or rather adults trained to respond to induced stimulus in predetermined ways, much like rats in the lab?
Are we afraid of where original thinking can bring us? Are we afraid of change? Are we afraid of losing control? How far are we ready to go to keep it? And do we really think creativity can be killed?" 

What are we worth? Artists and the Economic Crisis Seminar

Zineb Sedira, Shipwrecks: the Death of a Journey V, 2008
© Zineb Sedira 2011
Last week I attended 'What are we worth?' a seminar that is part of The New Economy of Art – a series of open discussions, ran by DACS, throughout 2011-12. Its focus was on the economic developments and opportunities in the cultural sector that impact on artists, from the perspective of artists. The seminar shared knowledge to provoke action to enable artists to influence the future ecologies and economies in which they operate."




The event hosted three speakers, John Kieffer, Zineb Sedira and Bob and Roberta Smith . Despite the general depressive content of the seminar in regards to the decline of art in education, and the prospect of survinging as an artist in our current climate being majorly under threat, it was motivational as inspiring.
I left with a deeper understanding of these turbulent times which has fueled my drive and passion to push on and to succeed. For me the most resonating point was that we need to come together. We need to move away from the isolated autonomous self, which has been a movement in art that well surpasses this comment, but one that still obviously needs to be repeated. 


John Kieffer particularly advocated the advice of "strength in numbers", to collaboratively pull together, not just for comparing ideas or advising each other but to find new models for working. This is an opportunity to start something new, perhaps the growth of a new sub culture. It is infact an exciting time, artists have never stopped making art, nor will they. I feel we are on the brink of something new, a movement into the unknown, but one we must do together, supporting each other through solidarity in these difficult and challenging times.


The next talk is in March 2011 . To listen to the discussion follow this link for the PDF downloads

'Offret', Headlines of the Future.



















“Offret” is a process-based, community-focused project that will be part of the Exchange Radical Moments! Live Art Festival, which will take place simultaneously in several European cities on the 11th of November 2011.

In collaboration with the art collective 6th Hour Productions, and journalist Glenn Mcmahon, I co-facilitated a series workshops to provide the content for a community newspaper. The idea was to employ creative thinking to facilitate a reflection on what the community is now, and what it aspires to be. 










The material from our discursive sessions informed stories that the participants wrote into articles, to produce a newspaper that represents their voice, the Headlines of the Future.







Copies will be distributed in Clapham/Battersea on the 11/11/11/, in correlation with a live video projection, onto a building that was badly affected by arson during the riots. Thus forming the final stage of 'Offret', the intervention.


                   






Wednesday 28 September 2011

Geodesic Dome, Buckminster Fuller Workshop, in association with STEMnet

                             
Here, with Jennifer Crouch , I supported an engineering and maths workshop organised by STEMnet. We constructed a geodesic dome which will be used as an outside classroom. The workshop was for a group of year 10 math students. The programme began with a presentation discussing the mathematical principles behind the construction, with activities leading the students through different 3D structures that they assembled with toothpicks and marshmallows. 

     




With our guidance the students discovered that the tetrahedron is the most structurally sound shape hence why it is often used in architecture. Following this, I lead a presentation on Buckminster Fuller, who pioneered these concepts in architecture and designed the geodesic dome. The remaining time was spent building the dome.



Net plan




First we had to assemble all the pieces


 The cement base had already been layed
















I used this as an opportunity to discuss with the students 
how art it applicable across many disciplines and its
relevance to what we were doing. I will be returning to 
the school next month to run workshops that 
combine art, maths and science.