PAR+RS Blogs

The Goodman's Croft

Rocca Gutteridge — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:33:21 GMT

“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!

Let's Get Together- Write Up

Rocca Gutteridge — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:36:33 GMT

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.

Goodman's Croft- Radio Lumsden.

Rocca Gutteridge — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 12:04:43 GMT

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.

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.

Why Is Britain Treating Artists Like Criminals?

Rocca Gutteridge — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 17:21:16 GMT

- 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.

web link

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:

http://www.manifestoclub.com/visitingartists

UK Border Walk- New Podcast

Rocca Gutteridge — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:30:17 GMT

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:

web link

Goodbye!

Ruth Barker — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:51:17 GMT

Hello,

It does feel quite strange to be doing this for the last time. Yesterday I added my last Reflections article (it’s a good one, too – by Mark Chalmers from Sustrans) and today it’s time for the last post, as it were.

What to say? Well Goodbye I guess! I am quite sad though as I’ve really enjoyed my time on the site and I think I’ve worked hard to try and make PAR+RS as relevant, honest, and engaging as possible. I’ve been very lucky to have worked with so many brilliant contributors to do that though: each and every person who submits an article, or sends us information for our listings, or keeps a blog, becomes part of an amorphous PAR+RS community. It’s you guys who have really made the site, not me. And if PAR+RS is successful – as I think it certainly is – then it’s you who should get the credit for that success. So well done all, and thankyou. You’ve made my job a pleasure, and I’ve learned a lot from you!

I still have some tidying up to do around the site, but I’ll clock off for the last time at 5pm today. The email address will stay the same and will be inherited by the new Producer. So keep making PAR+RS great by sending in your work, your ideas, and your comments. I’m looking forward to being a reader rather than a writer, so I’ll certainly be using the site to find out what you’re all up to.

OK, well that’s it from me I guess. Take care everyone – it’s been a blast.

Au revoir, (couldn’t quite do the Goodbye thing after all)

XRuth.

Thanks to David Harding for the image.

Timespan

Ruth Barker — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:14:46 GMT

Hello,

over the weekend I was away on my very last PAR+RS assignment, this time to visit Timespan in the village of Helmsdale. I had such a great time that I didn’t want to leave! I’m not sure if it was the timing, so close to the end of my time here at PAR+RS, but I have to say that I think this has been my favourite of all the PAR+RS trips I’ve made.

I got a grotesquely early train on Friday morning and arrived in Helmsdale for a meeting with Timespan’s director Nicola Henderson, who gave me some background on the organisation, how it functions, and how it has developed. Timespan has a really interesting history as it was initiated by the community themselves as a heritage centre. From very grassroots beginnings the organisation seems to have grown from strength to strength, with a paid Director, Archivist, and Front of House Manager (apologies if I’ve missed anyone!) in addition to a brilliant and formidable army of volunteers. These volunteers seem to be at the heart of Timespan’s operation and its success, as they bind the organisation within the existing structures of community. This certainly isn’t to belittle the work done by the paid members of staff: Nicola in particular seems to be tireless in her energy and commitment to developing a programme of truly national stature and significance.

Nicola giving a tour of the museum

A phrase that appears often in Timespan’s branding and publicity is ‘A meeting place between our past and our future’. This is a big statement, defining as it does a moment of the present, with all it’s contradictions and compromises and complexity. And yet having spent some time with the organisation I do think that it makes a lot of sense. The core of the building is the museum, housing a fantastic collection of local artefacts which, luckily for me as I didn’t get nearly enough time over the weekend, you can explore online. Orbitting around this solid centre are the various events, exhibitions, and residencies that extend to include the work of contemporary artists, alongside heritage initiatives and explicitly community focused projects. It certainly worked in the sense of getting me, an outsider, interested and enthusiastic about the village, the wider landscape, and the experiences of the people who live and work there. Obviously I can’t give the perspective of a local resident, but I hope that we at PAR+RS can encourage Timespan to develop an article for us that might be able to explore those particular relationships a little more.

As a result of guest curator Kirsteen Macdonald, there are two residencies taking place at Timespan at the moment, one of which, by Graham Fagen, is coming to a close; and the other, by Corin Sworn, is due to finish with an exhibition in October. This weekend a programme of events had been co-ordinated by Timespan together with Kirsteen, and so I had a chance to see Graham’s film Baile An Or on Friday night, and also to watch a series of short film works that were developed by local community members as a kind of parallel to Graham’s work. Saturday was packed with a full and hugely interesting programme with highlights including Corin’s conversation with Timespan’s archivist Jacquie Aitken; a screening of Timothy Neat and Hamish Henderson’s 1976 documentary The Summer Walkers; and Drew Wright (aka Wounded Knee)’s incredible vocal performance in the ice house. Not withstanding of course the wonderful food and conversation that was shared throughout.

Corin introducing her work, and talking about her time in Helmsdale

Slide from Graham’s presentation

On Sunday I had a real treat as Jean Sargent, chair of Timespan’s board took us on a walk in the glorious sunshine to get a sense of the landscape and get a feel for Timespan – and Helmsdale’s – broader context. This was such a pleasure, and a real highpoint of my visit. Thanks Jean, for being so generous!

Enjoying the views

Thanks are also due to Kirsteen – not just for all her hard work and organisation that enabled the whole weekend to happen, but also (most importantly) for giving me a lift back to Glasgow in time to catch PJ Harvey’s amazing performance at the Royal Concert Hall. It was BRILLIANT. Jaw droppingly so. Thanks Kirsteen!

So, all in all, a pretty knackering but pretty great weekend, so I feel that I’m really leaving on a high. This Wednesday is my last ever PAR+RS day, so I’m spending this week just finishing things off really. Gosh, it’ll be quite strange to sign off for the last time… Gulp!

Work in Timespan’s garden

More later,

Listed

Ruth Barker — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:05:08 GMT

Deary me,

I nearly forgot – while I was waiting at Reception at the Creative Scotland offices (see below for an account of my meeting with Ian Smith), I spotted this in the Herald:

Seems like David has finally been recognised as a work of art in his own right.

more later,

Copyright

Ruth Barker — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:50:46 GMT

Hello,

I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with Ian Smith, Portfolio Manager for Music and IP Development at Creative Scotland.

I first came into contact with Ian a few weeks ago as a result of some conversations in relation to the Martin Creed’s new Scotsman Steps commission in Edinburgh (see the images in my previous post, below). It seems that once the work was complete, there was a question of possible copyright infringement that arose when a local business tried to use photographs of the work in their own publicity material. Ian was called upon to give advice – what are the rules in that case? The steps are located in the public sphere, so how much right does the artist retain to control how others can use the work?

It’s just one example, but sheds some light on a really complex topic of how public works exist in relation to copyright law, which is, after all, there to protect artists. So I decided to meet with Ian in order to continue the conversation and get more of a sense of how artists are affected by (and might be protected by) copyright as a field.

The first thing Ian stressed to me was that there are two really great resources that should be a first port of call to anyone trying to figure out a copyright question: The Intellectual Assets Centre and the Intellectual Property Office (both of which you can also find on PAR+RS’ links page).

I told Ian (though he probably knew already) that for artists the question of copyright pulls in two directions: we want to know how we an protect our work from others’ exploitation; but we also want to know what we are allowed to do in respect to referencing, sampling, or reproducing the works of others (how does Richard Prince for example, get away with his rephotographs?) ¹

Ian was clear in his repeated confirmation that the copyright of an image (or an object) always resides with its creator². So I guess when working with re-appropriation or collage the artist needs to be mindful of the rights of the original creator of the material they are using as source. Exactly where the lines are drawn on this, as we can see from the Richard Prince example, is still a matter that may be challenged.

I threw lots of examples at Ian (What if this? What if that?) ³ who patiently answered the questions that it was possible to answer, and didn’t make me feel a fool for asking them. It was a very useful conversation, and what really came across was just how passionate Ian is about letting artists know that they have rights in this field, and that they should take responsibility for those rights. Artists, he told me, very often don’t know what their rights are and so they can’t insist on them. Worse, they often don’t bother to know what their rights are – even though their work is often their livelihood! I could tell that this is an issue he feels strongly about.

As I was leaving, Ian said something that really stuck with me for the rest of the day. I won’t be able to phrase it as eloquently as he did, but essentially he was describing the need for all of us to foster a culture of professional respect within the creative sphere, where artists are respected for their skills. That respect, he feels, comes partly from understanding – and respecting – our professional rights.

Food for thought. If anyone does have particular copyright issues that can’t easily be solved through the links above to the IA Centre or the Intellectual Property Office, Ian said that he’d be happy to hear from you. Just contact him via Creative Scotland.

More later,

¹ Except of course, that he doesn’t always get away with it

² Unless of course that creator has signed away their rights to a third party, like an agent or gallerist. But even in that case, it was within the artist’s rights to sign those rights away, if you see what I mean.

³ “What about if I make a sculpture, and you take a photograph of that sculpture? Who has copyright of the photograph?” The answer is that the photographer probably owns the copyright of the photograph, but that they would have had to acquire permission from the sculptor, or the sculptor’s representative, to take it.

My 'The indirect exchange of uncertain value"

Geraldine Heaney — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 09:33:25 GMT

This will be my final post on the blog as the project came to a close yesterday. I would have liked to have more regularly given updates but there was so much else to organise and keep up with that this blog often had to sit on the back burner.

So much as happened in the last month that I don’t really even know where to start. Picking up Vito Acconci from the airport? Spending an afternoon drenched in sunshine at Little Sparta? Handing out Whisky at the back leg of a giant cat? Marching a team of blue stickered, umbrella wielding art fans through the bucketing rain only to recite the words “alas the Callover Hall of Fettes College Edinburgh is not open to the public, so I shall describe the work for you…”

The last month has seen a broad array of characters pass through the Carrington Road gates of Fettes College Edinburgh.

“Welcome to The indirect exchange of uncertain value, your visit should last approximately 45 minutes and will include a short tour of the grounds of Fettes and an opportunity to experience the artworks currently sited here.”

And so began, just over 3 weeks ago, the first tour of The indirect exchange of uncertain value. We ran tours every hour on the hour from 11am till 5pm every day from the 7th of August to the 28th.
I had the pleasure of working of an incredible team of Tour guides who faced even the rainiest days with an enthusiasm that seemed to be fuelled by biscuits and a hunger for more facts. We spent our days in an elegantly constructed shed surrounded by bold coloured posters created as part of the project by The Artists involved and participants in our schools workshops at Broughton High School and Fettes College.

The response to the work was excellent a real range of people visited, local residents interested in just getting a wee bit closer to the School Building, long distance travellers who came through from Glasgow who are already interested in the work of the displaying artists or confused tourists who think Fettes is Hogwarts and were cajoled by a tour guide to take part in the whole tour.

I feel really proud to have been part of this project and can’t really take in the abundance of brilliant experiences I’ve had as part of it. The people I have met, the places I have visited and the discussions I will continue to have.

I’m not sure what else to say except from Thank You, Collective, for everything.

Geraldine

Stepping

Ruth Barker — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 09:08:40 GMT

Hello,

thought you might like to see these pics of Martin Creed’s Scotman Steps. David Harding was, by chance, on the same train as me so we went to see the work together.

I really loved this new work. I think it’s a really good example of a permanent public commission. Walking up the steps felt a lot like a gift.

More later,

Return of the Big Ladies

Ruth Barker — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:58:07 GMT

Hello,

Following my earlier posts on the subject, I noticed that the Guardian newspaper have also been doing a round-up of Big Ladies – in their Lifestyle section, for some reason. Click the link at the top of the article to see images of the works.

Are there really more of them about at the moment? Most of them smack of a real conservatism to me. It’s something that frustrates me I’m afraid: We have very little permanent civic statuary in this country to commemorate individual women’s contributions to history, society, or ideas, even though our streets are filled with memorials to men on horses. And yet generalised women are present, not memorialising or commemorating, but often just decorating or embellishing: just, it seems, “to be admired”.

Enough already!

400 Women

Ruth Barker — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 10:57:56 GMT

Hello,

I spent the day in Edinburgh yesterday, checking out the Art Festival. I intended to write up a wee report for you today, letting you know my highlights and disappointments but in the end I’m just going to write about one work that I thought really had an impact. Apologies to all the projects that I’m not going to mention. Apologies also for the squinty pictures from my phone.

Near the end of my day, I strolled down New Street and popped into 400 Women, at Canongate Venture. I’m going to just reprint an extract from the exhibition info sheet (by Gemma Rolls-Bentley), rather than trying to paraphrase;

“400 Women is a direct response to the abduction, rape and murder of hundreds of women in the Mexican border region of Cuidad Juarez since 1993 […]
“In early 2006 Tamsyn Challenger traveled to Mexico where she met with some of the families of murdered and missing women. She was particularly marked by meeting Consuelo Valenzuela whose daughter Julieta went missing in 2001, at the age of 17. As Challenger said goodbye, the desperate mother frantically pressed postcards into her hands. […]
“To create the body of work that comprises the installation 400 Women, Tamsyn Challenger enlisted the help of nearly 200 fellow artists over a five-year period, inviting each to produce a portrait of one of the missing or murdered girls. […] Along with the photograph that she chose for each artist she sent out a short description, often in the form of a forensic report, of each case; this contained information such as what the girl was last seen wearing or details of ho and where the murders occurred."

The effect is quite startling. Entering this temporary exhibition venue you find three floors of dilapidated rooms with paint peeling from the walls and detritus, in some cases, scattered on the floor. In these unloved spaces is painting and after painting, of uniform size and regular theme. Face after face looks out, in a wide range of style and medium, but the subjects are all young, and all female. Occasionally the lines of variously rendered eyes are interrupted by a work that shows only a name (these are ‘name portraits’ for women for whom no photograph could be found), or by a work that portrays its subject in a non-figurative way. But it is the conventional portraits that stay with you, giving faces as they do to women who have been rendered faceless by their real life obliteration.

I have to confess that I didn’t expect to like this exhibition. I thought that it seemed very literal – or even simplistic. And yet I found myself unexpectedly moved, perhaps by that very linear simplicity. The act of depiction has real significance. The care that was present in those depictions had resonance. I felt that there was something ritual here; in facemaking, in remembering, in portraying. The act became sincere, for me. And because of that I felt that it had meaning.

There were some problems with it as art, I felt. I didn’t like the venue because the impersonal, institutional nature of the architecture didn’t seem appropriate. The unloved state of the building and the lack of care that had been invested in the presentation seemed at odds with the gentleness of the gesture it contained. I didn’t like that fallen plaster hadn’t been swept up, or that paint flecks were allowed to drop to the floor. This didn’t feel like a shrine – it felt like temporary storage. Or perhaps it felt as though I was being asked to make too clunky a link: this is a disused school, now falling apart; many of the 400 Women were not women at all, but school-aged girls… Or – worse – it felt that it could be ironic somehow, like it was intended as some kind of casual ‘comment’ – this would be a real pulled punch, as the viewer needs to know that this work is being produced and presented with the care and sincerity that it deserves.
There was also a question raised in that some portraits were clearly a lot ‘better’ than others – more skilled, more powerful, more evocative. This in itself not surprising: Paula Rego is one of the contributing artists, as are Maggi Hambling and Miranda Whall – other contributors are less well known, and some are also considerably less skilled. What do we do as viewers with this inequality? This isn’t competition, but I have to be honest and say that I looked at some images for a lot longer than I looked at others (without knowing the artist’s name by the way – the individual works aren’t visibly credited on the wall).
I wasn’t keen also on the hanging of the portraits – again it felt provisional, or compromised. Overall I didn’t feel that the care of the original invitation by Challenger, or the care and deliberation of her artist-participants, was mirrored by adequate thoughtfulness and care in portrait’s works’ curation. This was a shame, as I do think that that moment of interface or encounter (effectively between the viewer and the idea) is a critical one.

But, having said that, I did find that this – problematic as aspects may be – was the stand-out work for me at this year’s Festival. Maybe it just caught me at a thoughtful moment? Hard to say, but it’s certainly the project that gave me most to think about, and has left me with the most vivid impression. Elsewhere, there was a lot of art about art. This at least was art about something.

More later,

Public Art Summer School - Guest Blog by Shona MacNaughton

Geraldine Heaney — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:29:09 GMT

On the first day of the Public Art Summer School we learned about the most traditional of public art forms – the commemorative monument.

Meeting in the Broughton High School art department, the base of the Public Art Summer School, surrounded by the remnants of secondary education, mood boards and still life parts, unit indicators and disembodied dolls, the participants met each other and were introduced to the project. Likes and dislikes of public art were shared; figures standing in water, giraffes, defunct funnels, marble steps and shopping mall turds. Issues of participation, popularity and the successful life of a public art work were raised.

Then Ray McKenzie gave a brief overview of his research in public art before taking us on a tour of Edinburgh’s New Town examples. He laid down the facets of narrative context making for a cultural object; the urban, the political and the visual, making the point that their existence was never neutral, it was always a political act. Idealogically driven, the end result is an outcome of power struggles and subject to competing factors. And as was actually emphasised by the bank removing us from this grating, “public” art is forever entwined and restricted by private ownership.

The case of Sandy Stoddart ‘s statue (2008) of physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) seemed to encapsulate several ideas surrounding the manipulation of history and the responsibility that inccurs. There seemed to be a number of contradictions in the commemoration of someone from a certain time who was not formerly commemorated, in the style of that time as if they were commemorated. So essentially this could be seen as a fake monument which seeks to fool the public, by re-writing history as it should have been. Is it then by that logic a thoroughly accidental post-modern act? In seeking to be anti-gaudy does Stoddart in fact create something which has more in common with the replications of antiquity available in Las Vegas, adding a pretender to Edinburgh’s historical theme park. In the context of the frequently corrupt history of these statues does it not, instead of elevating that figure to its rightful place, situate it within those values of power, and therein position itself in the defiance of a craft, with the emulation of the values it represents. As one of us asked when contemplating the immortalised swaggering playboy himself George IV, “why are they still here?” Perhaps because as markers of history, a fascinating history as told by an eloquent enthusiast such as McKenzie which cannot be reset lest it be forgotten, they are the result of a specific set of circumstances which tell of that time. Messing with the timeline of these markers either adds a new post-modern layer of reality or is an arrogant act in line with the dominant power elite which righteously plonked in the first place.

*For Full Week’s Blog please see Collective Blog site

Let's Get Together

Rocca Gutteridge — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:58:53 GMT

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.uk

After 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?”