ARTISTS TALKING
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Project blogs
Dialogues
By: Rebecca Strain
I am using this blog to reflect on a new long term project where a group of five artists get together regularly to discuss their practice and create a platform for critical debate about contemporary art practice. After every meeting we have agreed to reflect on the meeting and record this so that we can evaluate the process and it's affect on our practice.
Rebecca Strain
I'm an artist based in Leeds, UK. My work is mainly concerned with collaboration and accumulation, defabrication and then refabrication, and circumstantial connections. I am interested in place, ownership and value. I explore this in my work which embraces and challenges creative processes.
# 1 [2 March 2010]
We had the first meeting on Thursday last week which seems so long ago now and the point of reflection is to do it pretty soon after the event so maybe better luck next time. Or maybe it's not a matter of luck, maybe it is planning? Looking at my diary there's not much room in there for quite some time.Maybe I need to do a time management course but I've just never got a spare moment - that's why I'm writing this at 1am after a busy day installing work, editing video's promoting work, editing text for the show...
Anyway back to the meeting. I did make time for that but I was half an hour late because I was on my way back from a field trip to Hull and the bus took ages. I'm learning to drive but the sooner the better. So when I arrived all huffing and puffing and gasping for a cuppa tea the rest of the group had started a discussion and then had to break the news to me that actually we are not sure what the vision is for the group.
Aims were called for! And we got stuck right in. There was a good mix of people - Larna, Phil, Paul and myself. Loubie was ill so couldn't make it. We're a deliberately small group so we can have a chat and everyone can have their say. I should also say some of us have worked together before in separate sub sets of the group and we all know of each. The aims we came up with were
To meet on a regular basis (monthly)
To discuss and reflect on our work and create a space where we can critically appraise our practice.
To have the opportunity to share practical tips for being a professional artist
To initiate dialogues with artists whose work we admire
In between coming up with the aims there was conversations about tax VAT, invoices, mentoring, artists, videos on you-tube...
I think these are important too. I mean part of this project will also be to establish a good working relationship with other artists so sharing tips and interesting finds and opinions will help build that relationship?
So that was that and now to plan our first real meeting. This was a planning to have a meeting meeting. We came up with a two hour format with each of the five artists having 5mins to do a presentation on a subject of their choice and the rest of the time will be discussion. The plan is to meet at each others studios so we get a feel for our working environments.
And hey presto we have begun!
Next meeting is end of March cos our diaries are all chocca block (where does that phrase come from?)