Horses Horses Everywhere

by Ruth Barker, 28 Sep 2010

Hello,

I’ve been adding some information to the site today about Shelly Nadashi’s work Two Horses’ Scarecrow and I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to become acquainted with the work again. You can check out the new articles here and here.

The piece was commissioned back in Spring 2010, and as the first commission PAR+RS had tried to do, it was a great experience for me to write a brief, identify an artist, and talk through the work’s development. Being able to launch the work now at Mapping the Future feels like the conclusion to a really worthwhile project.

Nadashi at Schloss Brollin

I’ve been thinking a lot about the worth of PAR+RS’ venture into commissioning though – especially as we’ve recently been working with artist and designer Sarah Tripp on another commissioned work that will also be revealed at Mapping the Future. What does it mean for Public Art Scotland to be producing work as well as commenting on what others are doing? Is there a conflict of interest there? Is it a problem for PAR+RS to commission?

I realise that I’m probably not the right person to answer that, but I’m going to at least try and put some of my own thoughts on paper (or should that read ‘on screen’?)

For me, I think I see our forays into commissioning as a series of experiments, where we can try and learn from the discussions that happen on the site. At the same time of course, we’re continuing to further those discussions by feeding the completed work (and its production process) back into the mix.

I hope that there’s a generosity and a public benefit to doing that, but perhaps that’s only something that we can read retrospectively. PAR+RS is an online resource, and that identification is important. But we also have to remember that divisions between what’s online and what’s offline become increasingly artificial as online platforms inform and influence offline actions; and offline developments challenge and lead online developments. For PAR+RS to be meaningful, useful, and above all for it to remain a genuine part of the contemporary public art sector, I feel that the relationship between our online core and our offline moments has to be symbiotic. And one of the most fruitful ways I see that symbiosis working is when our online structure can generate new knowledge that transcends the context of the screen.

I think Two Horses’ Scarecrow does do that, and Mapping the Future is also part of that ongoing endeavour. I’m looking forward to the symposia, when people will be able to encounter this new work of Nadashi’s for the first time. But the piece will also exist here, on the site – which was part of the artist’s brief, after all – for the duration of the symposia (6th – 20th October).
As ever, let me know what you think,

More later,
R.