The Old Man

 

Spent the weekend at the Edinburgh Printmakers, making the first of my six screenprints resulting from the research.  Great clockwork, physical, logical process, similiar to the darkroom, and very happy with the results...  The image was drawn from my research trip to Orkney/Shetland.  Will be spending a couple of days over the next fortnight producing the remaining five, including the lifecycle...Our proposal can be found by following the same link...

The AirSpace development session

I have written up what happened with my three questions: and how that led me to plan an activity with the other 2 AirSpace directors.
The three questions that I was given were:
Which direction do you want to face?

How do you make the gallery relevant to the community in which its in?

What are the connections between everything that you are doing and how do they work for you?

Originally this was meant to help move on our group project, but has a much greater reach than we thought - something which was quickly realised.

I realised that attempting to answer these questions could help greatly in planning for the coming two years at AirSpace Gallery, and if the questions could be explored with Andy and Glen (co-directors at AirSpace Gallery) we could figure out what each of us wants to do, and build this in. 

What I realised was that though I am a named Director at AirSpace, I am not able to invest as much time as other Directors (as I work 4 days a week - and need time for my own practice as well.) For this reason, I need to make any involvement really work for me. 

I feel that with a small artist led organisation like ours, it is important to keep in mind the individual career aspirations of those involved, and ensure that time give (often voluntarily) has some kind of alternative benefit. For this reason I planned a facilitated activity to work with Andy and Glen, in order to try to understand our individual career aspirations for the next two years, and to look at those alongside our plans for the direction of the gallery for two years, and to see how these relate to each other.

Keeping the original 3 questions very much in mind, the activity was structured like this:

Activity:

1. Each participant has 5 minutes to write down all the things they do for the gallery.

- then sort into: things you still want to do, things you would like support to do and things you no longer want to do.

Each participant then shares these, and a discussion around identifying gaps, and possible solutions for shifting roles/responsibilities takes place.

 2. Each participant has 3 minutes to note down goals and ambitions for the next 2 years.

3. Each participant has 3 minutes to note down all the things they would like to see the gallery doing over the next two years.

Then participants present their goals and ambitions, and then what they would like to see the gallery doing - and links between own goals and gallery goals are explored as well as links between participants.

(This helps us to understand what informs each of our approaches.) Very helpful! 

4. Participants note down 5 points in relation to what they feel AirSpace is and should be, with a view to write a new/relevant mission statement. These are looked at and discussed, and links/crossovers explored.

5. We discuss the original 3 questions set out at the beginning to see if we have answers yet.

A new mission statement is written in the subsequent weeks, plus a timeplan set out, and an arts council bid completed (almost).
The process was really helpful, and actually showed each of us what our individual approach is to the gallery, what we need at this point in time, and what we can offer.
We have a board meeting next week (for our newly structured board) and we can present what we did, and how it has been developmental for us.
And Yes we have written a new mission statement: Here is the old one:

AirSpace Gallery aims  to be the centre for the Visual Arts in Stoke-on-Trent and the region, providing gallery, studio, educational and meeting spaces.

And the new one:

AirSpace is a collaborative, artist led project in Stoke-on-Trent, providing professional development opportunities, studio and exhibiting space and support for artists. Through a dynamic programme of exhibitions, events and activities AirSpace gallery brings critical, high quality conceptual art to the region.

(Though we are just living with it for a few days before the board meeting and might change it.)

image + text

Its universal and that makes it interesting for me; I don’t want to be an intellectual ingrown toe nail. For me, I’ve had worthwhile, interesting, engaging experiences that have made me stop and think. It has made me contribute thoughtfully. The key learning things came from the fact that we were focussed and there to make a contribution. As soon as you give purpose it tweaks your interest.

It’s not only stimulating; it’s satisfying its both. It keeps you intellectually engaged and it gives you a sense of wanting more.

One of the important parts of the project has been the involvement, that’s very important.  When its relaxed like that, people are not intimidated from putting forward.  It was the listening that was afforded everyone that I got a lot out of.  To me it was what the various people came back with that was important, some of the things were surprising, gave things that hadn’t occurred to me.  I enjoyed it. 

The listening, not just my listening, listening, was important to the whole thing.  We had to listen to one another, we learnt from one another and that opened doors.  It wasn’t idly sitting and taking in but it was being involved.

I came on board with an approach relating to my own practise....those ideas were blown out of the water in the consultation process.  Artlink’s process leaves time and space for you to be reflective and actually respond to workshops.  It means you can have a genuine collaboration and you can end up making an object which feels quite removed from my practice.  In many ways I’m surprised about what’s been made, that’s really exciting for me.  

 In the workshops it was my aim to involve everyone, yes to bring my expertise but to involve everyone so I can learn from them as well.  What’s interesting is the difference in response, that’s where I learn and everyone in the group learns from it.  

When having to complete a creative task set for you by someone else perhaps it is best to be taken by surprise. The organisation Artlink is very good at producing ‘Oh!’ and ‘Ah!’ moments. I have had many over my time as a volunteer. As it brings together diverse collections of people and places to find creative ways for individuals to be involved in their communities, Artlink seems to value the generative, restorative element of surprise.

six questions

 An interesting catch up on Skype for us - I had hoped that the presentation in Leeds would solidfy whst we are doing but unfortunately seems to have dislodged things a bit... In terms of our conversation we discussed publishing online rather than in a publication - better reach and potentially more useful.  We also discussed the possibility of an event as a manifestation - something I hadn't thought of...  It would be interesting but I feel that we need to put a line in the sand, a marker down here, ...  (and then have the possibility of an event)  otherwise things can rumble on...

It seems to me that our six questions are key again - maybe these should be the answerables that we build our manifestation on...  I certainly feel that me and Susan's work try to answer ours - Emily and Anna are less fixed on their outcome at the moment - is it helpful to try to answer your question/s guys?

By having the questions on the homepage, these could introduce  our research for the viewer, aiding their navigation- we could then introduce a bit of context as to why we wish to answer this question... I think this could work...

How do you make the gallery relevant to the community in which its in?

How to build trust into the commissioning process?

What are the connections between what you are doing and how do they work for you?

How to put art in the centre rather than access?

Which direction do you want to face?

How to build a structure that has room for change or  failure?

Mix Tape

We are thinking about a manifestation in the form of a website mix tape: Emily's image of Mixtape from our presentation above.
We just agreed in our skype meeting to share other sites we like for different reasons.
I like soanyway.org.uk as I like how it's quite random.
I really like the Miranda July website because I love the first page.
I quite like the idea of it being a repository for all things participation, but realise that might be too unmanageable, and our conversations seem to suggest it is purely a repository for the content we already have. I will have a think about others that might be good to look at.

Thinking...

What became clear to me through doing our presentation was a need for me to try to draw together the research activity that I engaged in, and the practical changes that have been happening at AirSpace, in relation to the learning from our group project.
Johnny, you have mentioned a few times that the research transcripts may not be where it's at, but for some reason I am still really keen to see them finished, and to write up a paper or something on them.
I do see what you mean though, and in relation to the Common Practice text (thanks for that by the way - still reading it) It would be a good idea to try to think about AirSpace and its value as a small arts organisation, and in particular in relation to the cuts. This idea of needing to adapt to become either more corporate or more philanthropic definitely seems to need to be looked at in more detail. I think we have recognised that we need to almost become more strategically self-serving, which seems the opposite of philanthropy, in order to ensure sustainability (of our own interest in giving so much to the project, without monetary reward.) Maybe this could be an angle for me to look at.
I am trying to pull things together, and think about what to do with the content gathered. I am hoping the conversation we have this afternoon might help with that.
In the mean time, I have added our 4 leadership badges to my collection of small things.

Leeds

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