RESEARCH INTO COOPERATIVE, COLLABORATIVE AND COLLECTIVE ART AND DESIGN PRACTICE
Assemble
The group won the Turner prize for their 2015 rejuvenation scheme in Toxteth, Liverpool. It was a simple concept but had such a large impact on the lives of the people inhabiting that area and the surrounding community greatly benefitted. Hopefully it will inspire others to aid those on their doorstep to ensure that all are entitled to live in the area they call home regardless of the property development prospect.
It was a contentious win for the group of 18 who never considered their practice was art but more a collective of people engaged in executing successful regeneration projects largely revolving around architecture. Together the group sets about researching and interviewing members of the communities they work with in order to ensure the projects are wholly humanitarian. Their work can include the development of services and schemes for the community and isn’t always defined by the material aspects created through their artistry: such as the final buildings.
The collective is purely based upon the discussion that takes place between a group of friends. They may not all share the same ideas or principles; however, through their unity they can have a conversation and decide whether or not to participate in a communal project. One member stated that, “Being part of Assemble has always felt like the best conversation you could possibly have.” I hope that during our Commune, my group and I will also have discussions that will be very beneficial to our development both in our respective projects and as practitioners too. The importance of conversation has been a key point of our proposal for the 3 days and we have factored in to our rules a designated time in each day to discuss ideas during a walk in a natural environment where we will have few distractions to take our focus off of the topic in hand.
Turner Prize:
"Assemble were given the award for their project in Liverpool’s Granby Four Streets. It revolved around the refurbishment of a group of houses in a community in Toxteth that had been ground down, ignored and disenfranchised over the years, with houses demolished or left to rot. The stalwart residents who remained refused to let others dictate how they should live, and began to clean up, planting gardens and painting murals on the wasted buildings around them. Assemble were brought in to help by the community land trust that now runs the neighbourhood. Aside from the refurbishment of 10 houses, Assemble worked with the community to establish – using the prize nomination as a launchpad – Granby Workshop, a social enterprise selling items for the home, some of them made from the rubble of demolished buildings (reconstituted into bookends, or fireplaces)."
Assemble's first project in 2008 which transformed a disused petrol station into a cinema names the 'Cineroleum' on Clerkenwell Road.
References: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/dec/08/assemble-turner-prize-architects-are-we-artists
The Play
“Current of Contemporary Art”
The Japanese art collective whose membership continuously changes, have created and carried out performative art since 1967. With over 100 artists and participants over the years, the collective now is comprised of only five members who have participated since the beginning. Their projects revolved around experiences and the members engaged in both mundane and more unusual tasks that took place outdoors. As there was no particular communicative agenda, the Play’s work never practically achieved results nor promoted any ideology. Instead their actions, which were defined only by a set of rules including a given time-frame and location often gave their work quite a humorous nature. Such activities involved casting a giant resin egg afloat to see how far it travelled on the Pacific Ocean (“Voyage: Happening in an Egg”, 1968) as well as living together on a Styrofoam raft in the shape of an arrow to travel down Japanese waterways in “Current of Contemporary Art” (1969). It is interesting to see how these performances have reoccured throughout the years with the artists continued dedication to the project enabling three reprisals of the voyage with the last occurring as recently as 2015. The Play’s ‘endurance art’ demonstrates how art collectives can attract interest through the simplicity of communally participating in actions and experimenting with collaborative practice.
Protest through collaboratives
Epoxy Art Group
As art collaboratives serve to inspire ideas and provoke others through working in solidarity as a collective body, some groups have unsurprisingly used this form of practice to make a political statement. Often associated with leftist beliefs and an ideology (similar to the former Soviet collectivism) surrounding communal activity to achieve goals, there has been a great deal of suspicion surrounding these groups especially in Western countries during the Cold War. One such collaborative is the Epoxy Art Group which was active in the decade from 1982 and spoke out for minorities suffering discrimination in the United States. Comprising of six Hong-Kong born artists, the collective functioned as a facilitator for artistic practice in a country where success in the Western dominated art-world would have been difficult on an individual basis. For the group, to collaborate was to allow their artistic voices to be heard and they used their collective voice as a vehicle for change. Engaging in medium including mixed-media, photocopied images and collage, sound installation and projection, the group aimed to create imagery that provoked debate surrounding political bodies, ideologies and leadership in both the USA and China.
“In 1987, at a show called Out of Context in Hong Kong, the Epoxy Group emphasized the cross cultural confusion between Eastern and Western societies by displaying a wall covered in photocopies of people while projecting the names of missiles in Chinese and English onto a backdrop. Another show in 1987 called, 36 Tactics, composed of a series of 36 xeroxed collages, used images appropriated and reworked from notable photographs from the media, such as pictures of former President Reagan and chairman Mao Zedong. The images were layered with text deriving from Sun Tzu's The Art of War written in both English and Chinese, which evoked issues related to political deception and military applications.” [1]
Guerrilla Girls
The Guerrilla Girls known for their infamous brightly coloured posters that make a mockery of traditional art with the slogan “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?”, protest against the lack of female representation in the art world. The group formed in New York City in 1985 aimed to bring gender and racial inequality to the fore in the art world. The groups’ anonymity enhances their message as although they are all female artists, the lack of individual identities allows the "focus to be on the issues, not on our personalities or our own work." Their work comes in the form of satirical posters and bold designs which expose the difficult realities for female artists. And despite the progress made in championing women’s rights and equality over the decades from the 80s, the group still maintains a presence today and aims to highlight corruption and scandal within the greater arts community.
References:
1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoxy_Art_Group
https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/9805/five-artist-collectives-on-the-art-of-collaboration
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/guerrilla-girls-6858
COMMUNE EXPERIENCE
Georgia's Day
Habits & Compulsions Photoshoot
My Day
'Play Well' Exhibition
Katie's Day
Drawing Activity
COMMUNE MANIFESTO POSTER
Commune Experience
Over the course of three days we each explored our ideas and conducted research into our projects through collaborating with each other and drawing from one another’s experiences.
17.02.20
On the first day, Georgia introduced us to her principal focus: habits and compulsions, and during the day we examined our own habits and went about recreating these actions through photography. The day commenced with a brainstorm about our own habits and compulsions, writing them down on cards. This culminated in categorising these into ‘habits’, ‘compulsions’ and a ‘grey area’ pile when we couldn’t quite decide whether the action could be defined so simply. These cards listing our habits and compulsions acted as a springboard for our final activity of the day: a photoshoot replicating these actions. Before lunch we walked for an hour around Hampstead Heath discussing the project and possible directions Georgia could explore regarding habits and compulsions. To end the day we went about visualising 3 of these habits through a photoshoot. Recreating and visualising the actions: ‘flicking hair excessively’, ‘drinking tea’ and ‘needing the bathroom as soon as I get in a car, train or bus’ we began to consider props and locations associated with these things in order to create a photographic series portraying our habits. Each habit was approached in a different way with the hair being represented through a portrait shoot, the tea shown as a series of still life arrangements and the need to use the bathroom shown through a documentation of the public toilets that were photographed throughout our commune project. I found the still life shoot at the end of the day to be particularly pertinent to my own project too. Through arranging and displaying tea cups in a variety of compositions and patterns we explored how to present and photograph a simple subject matter to communicate a message: here, the habit of drinking tea.
18.02.20
My day began with the ‘walk & talk’ in Regent’s Park where I discovered my group’s thoughts on the topic of memory and what can be used to trigger the recollection of events. In order to initially see how objects can be used to bring about memories surrounding early childhood we visited the ‘Play Well’ Exhibition at The Wellcome Collection which displayed a range of toys from the early 20th century to today.
The objects and toys on display was able to stimulate our thoughts regarding childhood and memories were cued by items as simple as a wooden stick and a Steiff bear. Finally we sat and discussed the objects I had asked my group to bring along with them in order to talk about their significance and the stories that they associate with these possessions. We spoke about a range of objects from early childhood and even items that were acquired and used only 4 years ago. Early memories included those cued by looking at photographs showing important people in their lives and experiences they had accompanied by that object, for instance, Katie recalled stories of times she took her soft toy Ruby out with her when she was young. After I interviewed Georgia and Katie, I took portraits of them with their object and then further shots of their possessions in space surrounded by additional props. In the instance of Katie’s teddy, the use of a wine glass place alongside allowed for this juxtaposition of subject matter that I had hoped for in my original plan for the day. I was able to present the treasured childhood toy in an adult environment to show how the teddy has travelled with her to London.
19.02.20
On the final day began by travelling to Camden Market to see an exhibition centred around feminism and the female body at the Vagina Museum for Katie’s project. The exhibition we visited spoke of the taboo subjects that are rarely spoken about with regard to the female body. It was interesting to see female hygiene items that are currently sold today that are unnecessary products which the intimate health industry is profiting from. The reading material in the gift shop which was centred around feminism and women’s health proved very useful for Katie’s project and from here we visited additional bookshops to relate to the other component part of her project, witches. At an occult bookstore in Fitzrovia we discovered a vast collection of books that were associated with witchcraft and the supernatural. To finish the day we discussed our perceptions of witches and filled out a questionnaire that asked of our thoughts regarding both topics. Finishing the sheet with a 10 minute drawing task where we were instructed to draw our perception of a witch. I decided upon a typical halloween depiction; however, it wasn’t that easy to decide upon a singular presentation of a witch as there are multiple images that come to mind ranging from those evocative of woodblock prints of witch trials and hunts in medieval times to the derogatory labelling of modern women as ‘witches’.
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THE EXPERIENCE AS A WHOLE AND HOW IT HAS INFORMED MY UNIT 4 PROJECT
The experience as a whole was both very enjoyable and beneficial for my progression at the start of unit 4. I learnt how vital it is to have additional input from others in order to give a different perspective on the topics I am exploring and also to push my ideas into areas I had not yet considered. One such extension I have taken away from my Commune day was the exploration of alternative memory prompts, chiefly the effectiveness of treasured photographic prints but also considering cues that aren’t purely visual, such as how people can recall things through more sensory experiences. My research has now widened to encompass a larger range of memory prompts and I will examine how I can portray memory cues that come in a variety of different media including more two-dimensional and auditory forms. I leant that I need to refine my visual language for this project and decide upon a more standardised manner for capturing the memory prompts and objects. I would like to begin creating a photographic series in which peoples’ objects sit in congruence beside one another in order to show the universality of recollection.
APPLICATION OF THE MANIFESTO AND SOCIAL EXPERIENCE
During our Commune experience we ensured that our manifesto was applied throughout, each day we adhered to the hour designated for a ‘walk & talk’ outdoors without any distractions, our phone use was kept to a minimum and we made sure that budget for activities was kept within our limit. I found the time spent outdoors together discussing our projects to be especially useful and it was during this time that we were able to talk the most about our projects’ direction. It was good that during this time there were no external distractions as we didn’t use our phones or actively record anything we discussed necessitating a great deal of attention in order to recall the information later. Our group got on really well and the working environment was always relaxed. Our rules which incorporated a designated time for both work and rest made the experience very enjoyable whilst visiting places in London that I don’t frequently go to made the three days interesting and exciting.