“It isn’t what you see that is important, but what takes place between people. - Rirkrit Tiravanija”

[1] Paris, December l993

Hans Ulrich Obrist:
You said, "Basically I started to make things so that people would have to use them, which means if you want to buy something then you have to use it... It's not meant to be put out with other sculpture or like another relic and looked at, but you have to use it.  I found that was the best solution to my contradiction in terms of making things and not making things.  Or trying to make less things, but more useful things or more useful relationships."  In terms of your idea that "it is not what you see that is important but what takes place between people," when was the first time you set up a temporary kitchen and cooked curry in a museum or gallery setting?

Rirkrit Tiravanija:
It was called [Untitled 1989] (...). The first food piece was displayed in a group exhibition at the Scott Hanson Gallery, which no longer exists ("Outside the Clock: Beyond Good & Elvis," Scott Hanson Gallery, New York, 1989). Four pedestals were blocking the passage between the entry way and the exhibition space. On these pedestals were displayed various processes of a curry being cooked, i.e., a pedestal for ingredients, a pedestal with curry cooking on a burner, a pedestal with waste products. The visitors could smell the cooking curry as they entered the space; the smell permeated through the gallery. A new pot of curry was cooked once a week. But the curry was not to be eaten.

HUO:
And when was the first time that you invited the "viewers" to share and taste the curry?

Continue reading 

“Let’s Do It T-o-g-e-t-h-e-r”, an article that took me to Liverpool

Publication: Tate Etc.

Author: Helguera, Pablo
Date published: October 1, 2012

More and more often, visitors to international biennials and similar exhibitions may be perplexed by works that cannot be experienced inside a gallery space. They exist in the public realm, but are in sharp contrast to traditional public art. They involve the participation of the public, but with rules of engagementthat demand a substantial degree of investment by the participant in order to get the actual experience in return. At times this kind of art may appear to be more like activism or urban planning than performance art. It may not leave a material trace that is collectable or even preservable. And it may take years or even a decade to develop. These works are continually redefining what art is, and have been grouped underthe gradually more accepted, but somewhat vague label of socially engaged art, or social practice.

The impulse for making interactive or participatory works in the visual arts is certainly nothing new: artists throughoutthe twentieth century, starting with Marcel Duchamp, conceived of pieces that required the participation of the viewer in order to be completed. Particularly in the post-war era, with the emergence of artists such as Yves Klein and Allan Kaprow, the process of making the work started to displace the final product itself. While for Fluxus artists in the 1960s, the artwork began to become inextricable from the experience of making it.

Socially engaged art draws inspiration from some of these historical precedents, but may take its more immediate influences from the politicised art making of the institutional critique generation, including Hans Haacke and Andrea Fraser, as well as from those artists that critic Nicolas Bourriaud grouped under the relational aesthetics label, such as Rirkrit Tiravanija with his famous cooking events. When one looks at the projects being produced today, however, there is a very different kind of participation taking place from that of the political works of the 1980s or the relational art of the 1990s.

A number of great examples of this emerging strand of participatory art will be present in the Liverpool Biennial. E verton People’s Park: Foraging Spiral and Basecamp by American artist Fritz Haeg is a long-term project designed to reanimate a languishing piece of public space in the city. Haeg has gained notoriety by developing private and public sustainable gardens around the world, working with residents to plant native vegetables and herbs and encouraging the formation of community environments that would complementthe natural sustainability with a strong social foundation.

Another artist, Jeanne van Heeswijk, has been developing a project entitled 2Up 2Down in a terraced Victorian housing complex near the football stadium in Anfield. Using the site of a former bakery, she is involving local people in a bid to revitalise the area through a variety of activities encompassing conversations, workshops (yes, including baking) and even a collaboration with a Liverpool scriptwriter to produce a performance that will communicate the aims of the project to biennial visitors.

As different as the themes and means of these works are, Haeg and van Heeswijk exemplify some of the values that are common in socially engaged art: they both work with a number of collaborators, ranging from non-profit organisations to individuals, in a dialogue that actively involves them in gaining ownership of the project. While the artist is most definitely the instigator and architect, the projects are doomed without the sincere and dedicated participation of local people.

Socially engaged art provokes many questions aboutthe role of art in today’s world. Seen sometimes as an overly idealistic practice, at its best it allows communities to envision the potential of their natural and social environments. It poses great challenges to art institutions, going as it does against the grain of collecting. Its legacy may eventually reside not in museums, but in the human capital into which it invests its energies.

Read more: http://www.readperiodicals.com/201210/2768130731.html#b#ixzz29ZfabYUh

The importance of making and everyday acts of social creativity

"We should remember the importance of everyday acts of social creativitiy, how ever small. 

What makes these things important, is not so much that they are useful but they are joyful. 

As people are increasingly starting to notice, life is just more vibrant and interesting when you make a change for yourself."

David Gauntlett

http://www.makingisconnecting.org/

Exploitation in the Arts - W.A.G.E (Working Artists and the Greater Economy) Stands Up For Our Rights.

Watch these inspiring speeches here http://www.wageforwork.com/wage_video.html.

We need to come together and advocate for change. 

W.A.G.E made three speeches at Creative Times Democracy Convergence Centre.

W.A.G.E spoke about artists rights; that their work, time, talents and contributions to society be recognised and that they must be paid for this.  Artists are drastically exploited by the system but we are not fighting against it.


A.K. BURNS states -

"People we exist in and play willing into an exploitive system, that other people recognized and began changing 40 years ago. we can all just sit and bitch about it, but I say, I can’t SURVIVE any longer, YOU can’t survive any longer, by being complaisant. We are here today to begin to gather momentum, to gather you, to create collective agency, to provide us with what we NEED and DESERVE."


In her speech K8 HARDY continues "THIS CITY (New York) AND ITS ART INSTITUTIONS ARE KILLING ITS ARTISTS. WE CAN’T EVEN SURVIVE. THE SITUATION IS DIRE. THIS IS A CRISIS. WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS CITY WOULD BE LIKE WITHOUT ARTISTS? WE MADE NEW YORK CITY,  . . . . . . .

CORPORATE CULTURE WILL STAGNATE YOUR LIFE. BUSINESSES THINK THEY CAN CREATE CULTURE NOW BUT THEY ARE WRONG . . . . . .



The degradation and exploitation continues right into the institutions where you are supposed to want to have an exhibition. . . . . .  The only way right now to exist as an artist in this city is to be a slut and let everyone fuck you over." 

Art institutions get away with not paying artist because they state they are giving them exposure, "they are providing an allegedly liveable, eatable, drinkable product they like to call exposure." A.L. STEINER. 

Steiner fights against free work, urging artists to unite;

"ARTISTS MUST REALIZE THE IMPORTANCE, TOGETHER, OF REFUSING TO WORK WITHOUT A FEE SCHEDULE. 

An artist can choose to donate their work or services to an institution, BUT THERE SHOULD NOT BE ONE INSTANCE OF AN ARTIST, PEFORMER OR INDEPENDENT CURATOR WHO IS COERCED TO WORK, PERFORM, EXHIBIT OR SCREEN THEIR WORK FOR FREE. 

The money within the art world and it’s market system is being distributed UNETHICALLY, INCORRECTLY, UNEVENLY AND UNFAIRLY, like the rest of our economy, and it MUST END NOW.
WE SHALL NOT be put in a position where we are FORCED to work solely for exposure’s sake. It is unethical and, worse, ILLEGAL to refuse to compensate us for our CULTURAL WORK that we make and are asked to present at your institutions. . . . .


ALL WORKERS, INCLUDING ARTISTS, PERFORMERS AND INDEPENDENT CURATORS MUST BE PAID FEES FOR THEIR WORK. . . . .


AND MONEY FOR OUR EXPENSES IS NOT AN ARTIST FEE  . . . . 


Artists- you must be brave advocates for our trade and opt out of the illegal, unethical schemes being forced upon us."

http://www.wageforwork.com/index.html

"Where is the place for art?"

''Susan Jones asks the question: are traditional arts organisations the best vehicles for meaningful participation or should we be looking elsewhere?'

Guardian's Culture Professional Network blog, see here for the full article Pitching up: where is the place for art? 

                                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                                  

                                                           

                                                                               

"These are dangerous times for people and for our world of arts values. . . Uncertainty can cause us to be safe, edit complexity, be secretive, conservative' says Susan Jones in her provocation 'Where is the place for arts?' Commissioned for the Engage/ Enquire International Conference ( November 2011) with an extract published on the Guardian's Culture Professional Network blog. 


She questions whether traditional arts organisations will in future be the best vehicles for meaningful participation, or should we be looking elsewhere for alternatives to art world institutional models. Drawing on Conrad Atkinson's Critical Mats,  Arts Council England policy statements, declining gallery visitor numbers, the Centro Niemeyer in Spain and the 
Citizen Power programme in Peterborough and other projects that have responded to the challenges of our fast-changing world, she suggest the place for art might be 'in temporary institutions that can quickly foster meaningful, timely participation and create a bigger bounce".
Cited in A-N Magazine NEWS, February 2012. A place for art at www.a-n.co.uk/place_for_art


The full version of her discussion can be read here or viewed via http://vimeo.com/35635192


'Susan Jones is an activist, writer and researcher in the visual arts and director of a-n The Artists Information Company, a non-profit arts enterprise whose mission is to stimulate and support contemporary visual arts practice and affirm the value of artists in society.' Guardian. 

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

New Gallery, 92 Peckham Road

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/

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