Sunday, 9 October 2011
Greetings from The Collective
Hi Gals,
Have made a blog, I think, that I hope we can use for the group. It is called The Collective, for want of a better inspirational title! If anyone has a better idea, then you are welcome to change it. The way to get into the blog is via: groupwork-profprac.blogspot.com Hope that works and I will send it on to you. I am happy that we are going to somehow comment on how Professional Practice can work for us, and to use the ideas of working both collectively and in a political context. Kate, please write something to elaborate on the original idea, good to get it down in words and let things evolve. In the absence of any other visual stimulus, I am going to give you an image of the Barbie dolls that I added to the Venice Biennale collage in Reception, as this is an instance of responding to a larger group experience by making some collaborative work. Coral
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Thanks Coral-that's great. I will try and get some words down but I don't think we have decided on any definite ideas/ themes for the show yet? ie. collective/political? It's one way we could go but let's talk tmrw.Kate
ReplyDeleteHey Guys
ReplyDeleteI have downloaded the arts council form and printed it out so you don't need to-it's quite a lengthy process...
Fabulous Kate, I know we are going to be a hot team! The Collective gets busy....
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking about the show and how we could make it inclusive but not directly political. The more I think about this idea of 'collections' of things, the more I get enthused about it. Maybe we could ask artists who either deal with collections in their work directly to bring a collection of private objects into a public project space and we make the show out of the collections. We could make a theme/ or could invite public to bring their objects. Need to think more how this could work. Just Stormin' Normin'. x
ReplyDeleteGreat blog, Coral, Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the ideas Kate, and well done for downloading the form. I find the collective as a concept for a show too vague to get my head around. We are a collective but I don't see how a show can be in any distinctive sense. In any case there are so many groups around these days calling themselves collectives I don't see how we can come up with anything original. Of course I'm open to persuasion.
Collections is at least something concrete we can apply our 'collective'brains to. But we need to find a twist. Thinking caps gals.
Hi Gals,
ReplyDeleteI was interested to find that Channel 4 tonight were highlighting Freize and in particular two 'Collectives' as something different to the individual artist, yes I know they have to catch up now! and they looked at one called Peles Empire, a kind of bar, weekly meeting place where people could show their work (two women from Eastern Europe) and LuckyPDF, a Peckham group of lads (there is life in south London), who seem to be working collaboratively in video, TV, film, and music. I particularly liked what the gals were doing, in terms of participation and potential for inclusion.
So Kate, why not bring your Spinoza catalogue tomorrow or do a short summary of some of the introductory ideas and the critique we discussed, add an image around participation from the book perhaps? Not opposing the discussion on 'collections', just sticking with exploring some further ideas about collectives for a bit longer. No doubt you would all love to have a collection of Barbies! Coral
OK I will bring the book-the thing about getting into the 'inclusion' arena is that it is a bit philosophy heavy..I will bring my essay which condenses down the whole relational aesthetics thing and makes it a lot easier to understand...See you y'all soon.
ReplyDeleteGood meeting today I think. I'd like to start a new string to begin recording our meetings but can't find a way to do it so will just add a comment here:
ReplyDeleteWe seem to have settled upon a promising proposal relating to Collections. Not clear yet what the theme will be - the hook if you prefer - but definitely nearly there.
Ideas (semi)agreed so far:
1. We will use archive/s as our source material.
2. We will invite artists to trawl said archive/s and use the material they find to create an art work for our project
3. The collection of items chosen by each artist would ideally also be exhibited alongside
4. Artists probably would be MA students. Possible including ones from European partner universities but maybe just from London Met.
5. We will draw up a manifesto or a list of rules for each artist once we have identified the archive and agreed an aim/theme
Things we will do before meeting next week:
1. Research potential archives. Suggestions so far include London Metropolitan ; Guildhall; Museum of Childhood; Horniman Museum; medical or scientific archives
2. Think about sort of artists we might want to invite and potential manifesto points.
3. Think about appropriate themes for each archive we research as this might help us formulate our manifesto and develop our vision.
Happy researching.
Thanks Virginia. That's great.
ReplyDeleteJust a further thought but I think it could be -not a manifesto-but perhaps a set of instructions for the artists, once they get to the archive, and that is what makes up the show...or something !
ReplyDeleteSo the idea being that they collect things from a collection- the show itself being a collection of items: be it- letters, photographs, etc.
I think this scheme would be for any artist who has completed MA Fine Art and beyond
xx
Great, but I think we have also got the cart and have not pinned down the horse! What for and why are we asking this group of artists to go into an institution and look at the archives? What will they be looking for? Is it around what is hidden, increasing information or access, forgotten history or a non specific exercise in artistic curiosity? I am puzzled. Also I thought we could increase public participation/involvement by asking the artists to create an artwork in a public space within the institution, so that others who are interested or use that institution can see, use, or comment on the work.
ReplyDeletee.g. the artist who did face pictures of some of the dolls in storage at the BGMC had his work shown in the entrance foyer. Coral
Pics
ReplyDeleteCoral, you are right. We are still looking for the horse. It might help if we can identify the archive - assuming we are going for one only - and then build the horse around what might come out of it. The Horniman could be interesting for that. It's so full of curiosities but what lies hidden? I've got some rather dark, indistinct photos of the museum collection and that ship installation that I took three years ago which I'll bring in to show Kate and Neda.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to The National Archives in Kew
ReplyDeleteHave a look because the subjects are very interesting indeed
mostly about wars but also the largest photographic archive
( apparently ) in the country
also- this the biggest archive in the country
but you have to have an idea with these places what you are looking for before you go in
ie. somebody gets the info/ source material for you
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-subject/default.htm
I thought of a possible title for our show
ReplyDelete'The Cult of Fact'
xx
will explain more why this title on Thurs when we meet up
ReplyDeleteHere's the link for the book with the extract with the kid who wants to see the Shrunken Heads:
ReplyDeleteIt's from a book called Making Representations: Museums in the Post Colonial Era by Moira G. Simpson
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MLN0IUGzUjQC&pg=PA174&lpg=PA174&dq=Shrunken+Heads+Horniman+Museum&source=bl&ots=tHA840orb7&sig=LlUgp631BHVBe_YX3uokpoUpQ1I&hl=en&ei=LeOjTqPrGYq28QOx3-DnBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/shrunkenheads.html
ReplyDeleteFurther reading
Descola, Phillipe, The Spears of Twilight: Life and Death in the Amazon jungle. Translated from the French by Janet Lloyd. London: HarperCollins (1996).
Rubenstein, Steven L., ‘Shuar Migrants and Shrunken Heads Face to Face in a New York Museum.’ Anthropology Today, Vol. 20, no. 3 (June 2004), pp. 15-19.
Available from the Museum shop:
Peers, Laura, Shrunken Heads. Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum (2011).
The tsantsas can be found at the following location:
Court (ground floor)
Case 131A - Treatment of Dead Enemies
Compiled by:
Laura Peers, Lecturer/Curator, 2010
Interesting quote:
ReplyDeleteMuseums today are developing new relationships with the communities from which collections were acquired historically, and are working with members of those communities to consider the meanings that objects have today. Much thought has also been given by museums to the ethics of displaying human remains. The Pitt Rivers Museum periodically reviews sensitive displays such as that of the tsantsas to consider whether the way in which the objects are displayed is respectful and to ensure that the information about the objects is appropriate and clearly communicated. We learn many things from the tsantsas, including the rich variety of ways of being human.