Case Study
Loraine
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 | Loraine Leeson and the Geezers | No Comments
The dynamics of difference
“In a situation where the creativity is coming out from putting people together, it’s a big trouble shooting exercise and as long as everyone’s feeling okay about it and you are still achieving the thing you need to achieve, it’s okay that it’s difficult. It’s never going to be easy.”
We caught up with Loraine immediately after she had facilitated a ‘Developing Work with Communities’ workshop at SPACE (in hackney, East London) for artists working in participatory settings. For The Not Quite Yet exhibition Loraine worked with the Geezers, a self-organising Older Men’s group based in the area. The resulting series of exhibits promoted ‘Geezer Power’ – proposals for harnessing the River Thames’ renewable tidal current to power London’s homes through environmentally friendly and educative means.
On
Monday, October 13th, 2008 | On the Margins of Technology | No Comments
On 29th February 2008 SPACE hosted a day of performance, presentations and debate around democracy and technology with a focus on older people.
Excerpts and thoughts from the day: › Continue reading
Media
Monday, October 13th, 2008 | Media and Methods | 1 Comment
Chris Dorley-Brown: rediscovering participants from ‘big media’
If I put myself in the position of someone approaches by an artist in the way that I approach people, I’d probably tell them – tell me – to get lost….”
Chris Dorley-Brown was on self-deprecating form as he let his slot on one of SPACE’s Artist Development Days, back in the spring. Perhaps it’s a matey, self-subverting style that’s served him well in his work: he seemed hesitant about making claims for the position of his practice within a wider tradition of socially engaged art. I recall more vividly the ease with which he made himself uncomfortable about his work’s implications – the cracks and inconsistencies, and the questions he has about his own motives: “I recognise that the work, at some level, is about me….’
› Continue reading
Conflict
Monday, October 13th, 2008 | Conflict Transformation | No Comments
The Conflict resolution workshop at SPACE this spring was led by Newham Conflict and Change, an organisation whose reputation preceded them. If you’re able to listen to Loraine Leeson’s podcast, she explains how attending one of their workshops completely transformed her artistic identity and approach. › Continue reading
About
Monday, October 13th, 2008 | About this Case Study | No Comments
The Not Quite Yet - On the Margins of Technology
The UK is a society increasingly pervaded by networked technologies, and, with a rapidly ageing population that will, more and more frequently, be the ‘end users’ of these innovations, what considerations should we be giving to the involvement of Older People in the design process around networked technologies?
Lois
Monday, October 13th, 2008 | Lois Weaver | No Comments
Lois weaver: seeking out connections
“We have a real understanding of what commitment means… and we have a lot of guilt associated with not fulfilling that commitment - that’s our connection to our own work, that kind of passion, that thing that holds you to the failures that you face on a day to day basis in your own studio, or at your own laptop… ”
As the primary investigator for DemTech (Democratising Technology), Lois Weaver worked differently from the other artists engaged in The Not Quite Yet - she suggested other artists to the project, and worked across the whole initiative. Her contribution to the exhibition at SPACE was an evocative installation touching on some of the explorations she and participants had undertaken - time lines, memories and evocative objects.
Stacy
Monday, October 13th, 2008 | Stacy Makishi and AGLOW | No Comments
Stacy Makishi and AGLOW – aiming at failure, and exploring its consequences
“the first day is usually about trust – about why you’re there, your intentions; making sure you’re not exploiting them, using them as materials….”
We recorded an interview with Stacy about her experiences as an artist commissioned by SPACE Media Arts to contribute to The Not Quite Yet. Stacy’s exhibits, developed in collaboration with AGLOW, a Hackney-based Older People’s group (and with additional input from others from Stacy’s network), took the form of Japanese Chindogu, or “invention dropouts” - click here for exhibition text.
Consumer
Sunday, October 5th, 2008 | Consumer Futures | No Comments
As I hope is strongly conveyed elsewhere in this ‘case study’ section of co-pilot, the artists who were commissioned in spring 2008 to work with groups of Older People as part of The Not Quite Yet, share a drive to engage people with their creativity - in order to draw attention to perceived injustices, or positive potentialities in the social fabric - and through doing so, perhaps take us all a step closer to addressing or embracing these. With this in mind, it doesn’t feel inappropriate to consider some points of reference from outside the world of contemporary arts (which can often feel hermetically sealed to the wider public) that caught my attention over the period that I was hearing about the results of these unique, multi-generational collaborations.
On 6 Jan 2008 a headline in the UK’s Observer newspaper ran: “Digital World Creates a new underclass: modern shopping and banking frustrate those who can’t log on or want to speak face to face.” The piece picked up on ‘Consumer Futures’ on a new report by the National Consumer Council (NCC) which highlighted the growing divide between those who have the resources and skills to play the market and those – largely the elderly and poor – who are increasingly being left behind. › Continue reading
Developing
Sunday, October 5th, 2008 | Developing Projects with Communities | No Comments
Have you ever wondered if there are exciting pools of knowledge out there, that you’ve spent idle time wondering about, vaguely searching for….but then, over years, began to conclude that perhaps they don’t exist - at least not in a way you will encounter? I have. And: isn’t it great when someone whose intellect you admire recommends a book you should read? It’s bound to be useful to chew on under any circumstances - but what if this book allows you access to that world of ideas you’ve been half-imagining and which you realise, now the book is in your lap, that you’ve been yearning for?
Ownership
Sunday, October 5th, 2008 | Ownership & Ethics | No Comments
The Thorncliffe is a drab, 1970s-built hotel, set back from the Great West Road, which was once the main traffic artery connecting Heathrow to the centre of London. The hotel is small in comparison to the Marriott and other testaments to London’s “world city” that have more recently spring up around it. It’s now used as emergency accommodation for people seeking asylum in the UK, who have claimed asylum at one of the three BAA-run airports orbiting London: Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. In 2000 I produced a photography project involving a contracted artistic team and the hotel’s residents, who were very temporary, and likely to be put onto coaches and ‘dispersed’ to other parts of the UK at any moment, which compounded the collective sense of high anxiety. The workshop programme was chaotic. We were over-run by enthusiastic participants, particularly young children, who we never pitched the project to, but had to accommodate somehow. The core artistic team tightroped their way through workshops they led with groups containing over different 20 languages each time. They were supported by (largely voluntary) translators - though because we never knew who would be able to attend, we couldn’t book the right translators in advance. I remember, vividly, a heady mixture of gesticulation, repetition, spontaneous improvisation and resilient friendliness.
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