Hurrah for the return of the blogs!

by Rocca Gutteridge, 16 Mar 2011

In the last year Artachat has kept on going, running crits and artists talks around the area of community arts and socially engaged practices.

We’ve held:

“Mapping Communities” with the formidable Lucy Lippard and David Harding. An “Art and Sustainability” short film session at Edinburgh’s Royal Botanical Gardens with the Guerrilla cinema project. An Edinburgh festival discussion “Where is Public Art Today?” with Big Things on the Beach in Portobello and an Annuale discussion on “Professionalism within the Art World” with Leeds based artist collective Black Dogs.

Nuno Sacramento has been to Edinburgh Sculpture Workshops to discuss further his new plans for the hardware and software of the Scottish Sculputre Workshops and we’ve also launched “Walkachat” a new arts and walking collaboration between Artachat and Deveron Arts.

As well as Artachat I’ve now been lucky enough to start working as artist in residence for the Mela Festival. It’s a Partners Residency, called Shared Territories, between the Mela and Scottish Natural Heritage and Forestry Commission.

I’d therefore now like to use this blog to continue the debate and discussion around the perception of community arts and socially engaged practices as well as extend it’s remit to include the work that we execute over the next year for the Mela.

I hope for this to include: updates and documentation of Artachat sessions (the next of which is due to take place on Tuesday in Aberdeenshire, I’ll post up more details tomorrow) contributions from participants on the Shared Territories residency programme and general information, links and research around the area of public/socially engaged/community/participatory arts practices.

There’s a lot to fit in so I look forward to future bloggings and would like to thank Public Art Scotland once again for giving me the opportunity to extend the discussion around my ever evolving research interests.

Rocca
www.artachat.co.uk