Public Art Resource+Research Scotland (PAR+RS)
Oct 13, 10:08 AM
From 2005 to November 2007 fugitivespaces was lead researcher for the development of the Public Art Resource+Research Scotland (PAR+RS), a public art initiative developed by The Scottish Arts Council. The work focused on defining and developing the key areas of the initiative, in particular its operational means of delivery, which became refined to 3 areas: a database of Capital Lottery funded public art projects; methods of learning and dissemination, through support of the Working in public: art, practice and policy seminars; and a dedicated PAR+RS website with news, in-progress weblogs, reflections and archived projects. As well as consultation with a range of parties, including artists, organisations and higher education centres on progress of ideas, fugitivespaces liaised closely with Minimetre in the implementation and testing of content and functionality of the PAR+RS website prior to its public launch and appointment of a dedicated PAR+RS editor.
To visit the PAR+RS site, click here
Respect, mutual connections and trust: The Resume artists' residencies
May 2, 12:00 PM
fugitivespaces has just completed an initial study into the Resume/Changing Places artist residency programme. Part funded by partners, South Lanarkshire’s Resume artist residency project, was in action during May – October 2006, and was operated in partnership within the Changing Places network of Hamilton/Blantyre, Cambuslang/Rutherglen, and Larkhall/Stonehouse. Although the brief for the artist residencies remained relatively open, the three artists appointed were asked to address broad themes of research, community/education and exhibition, as well as engage with Changing Places’ concerns to “tackle the needs of its most deprived communities” and “progress actions to help meet the Closing the Opportunity Gap targets for South Lanarkshire” (ROA, 2005:1).
The appointed artists, Belinda Guidi, Alison Philp and Rachel Thibbotumunuwe, all worked in a range of regeneration contexts and with hard to reach groups. The arising projects are summarised as follows:
Gypsy girls’ beauty salon, 2006
• Gypsy girls’ beauty salon, Belinda Guidi: working with a group of young Gypsy/Travellers, the arising work took the form of a caravan or trailer, adorned with the specially formed, glowing red neon title, Gypsy girls’ beauty salon. Sited on Larkhall Main Street, and towed onto a local Gypsy/Traveller site, the trailer became an informal space for the artist and young Gypsy/Travellers, from within which, social exchanges took place as the trailer metamorphosed into a makeshift beauty salon, reflecting the interests of the young girls. A series of photographic portraits of the girls was also produced.
• Floating View-points, Alison Philp: in response to more fleeting forms of engagement with changing groups, Floating View-points acknowledged this context of change and developed a process that could work for different ages in terms of means of engagement. Large green, red, blue and yellow, helium filled balloons, equipped with a remote controlled video camera, jostled upwards through the urban surroundings, enabling participants to gain another view of themselves and the landscape. These other views became the palette for further workshops with individuals/groups and led to an interactive DVD work, which invites the viewer to click on a map of the local area and open up a series of edited videos by some of the young people involved in the project.
• What’s in a name, Rachel Thibbotumunuwe: working with a number of diverse but mostly fixed groups of people, from the regulars in the Wallace bar, to the Knitting bees and Adult learners, What’s in a name offered up an idea that a number of groups and individuals – in Rutherglen, Scotland and Rutherglen Australia – latched on to and developed in diverse directions. Through a series of interviews, films and recordings, the final work offered up audio podcasts of in-depth and insightful discussions with a range of people about place and identity. The work also became more widely disseminated via the What’s in name website.
The broad aims of the research were to:
• Consider artists, local networks and orgnanisers’ perceptions and experiences of the project, in particular, whether the artists’ approaches brought anything new/different to the context in which they were working
• Better understand the artists’ methods of working, in particular, how they engaged with people as part of their own developing and evolving practice and who benefited, in what ways
• Identify how Visual Arts and Changing places might build upon and extend the learning from these processes and forms of production
The research followed the artists’ progress as they moved through the various stages of the residency. The process of researching with and alongside aimed to add to understanding by offering different points of engagement, potentially raising issues as they emerged from within practice as well as through reflection on practice. The findings raise important ideas about the value of openness in how residencies are structured as well as trust and self-trust required to make such opportunities work. As artists struggle to put their practice into the worlds they are put in or position themselves within, residency experiences such as Resume can create important opportunities to extend how art and artists might function in such different contexts and communities. The research into Resume helps makes visible how artists negotiate these important but “fraught arenas” (Roth, 2001:61) of policy objectives, community engagement and participation, as part of their own developing and evolving practice; it helps consider how programmes such as partners, aligned with other agencies might address the critical needs of identified groups and communities, while supporting and encouraging new forms of practice amongst artists.
References
ROA. (2005). South Lanarkshire Regeneration Outcome Agreement, December 2004 (Amended March 2005).
Roth, M. (2001). Making and performing Code 33: a public art project with Suzanne Lacy, Julio Morales and Unique Holland. Journal of Performance and Art (PAJ). 23:3.