Students

Richard Taylor talks to an artist with added arts professional experience about the role of the studio in research-led practice and the importance of cultural discourse.

Amy is a member of Elephant in the Corner, an arts collective grown from the roots of a shared studio at Wimbledon School of Art. Roots are now branches reaching as far as Scotland and Vienna, so how does the collective keep in touch and still make work together? With thanks to online discourse and a shared interface that's how. The network has fuelled Amy's hunger for an international approach to her practice and now she's in all manner of places and cultures at once.

People met and experiences shared

After graduating in 2006 Amy was invited to participate in the Triangle Arts Association's two-week workshop in New York, building on a thirst for varied city life and diverse cultural experience first developed on an ERASMUS exchange in 2005. Returning to London she started work at the arts organisation Gasworks as their Audience Development Coordinator. Here she was set for a steep learning curve, dealing with international residency artists and marketing programmes.

Almost two years after graduating Amy took a small basement studio in Dalston, London and tested the pressures of balancing studio activities with working as an arts professional. Exposure to the International Residency Programme at Gasworks was a valuable asset when she began applying for residencies herself. After the typical flurry of rejection letters she was invited to participate in a three-month residency in Graz, Austria in March 2009.

Since November 2009 Amy has been studying in the class of Professor Monica Bonvicini at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna where she navigates her way around a very different education system and grapples with learning German.

Amy in her own words

"Through sculpture, installation, collage and drawing I look to consider in my work the physical, psychological and political effects spaces can have on their users, as well as our changing conceptions and definitions of place and space. While exploring this, I look to reconsider specific moments of social or political debate that have developed in parallel, responded to or intervened in these changing attitudes...

"My practice has developed from an interest in site specificity: more recent concerns have emerged around the artistic ability to relate to 'place', owing to the increased expectation of artists to travel internationally and work in numerous cities for shorter periods of time. Such a focus conceptually thrusts the role of the artist as producer onto centre stage and implies a performative aspect to the process of making art." Amy Croft, 2009.

In conversation the interviewer gets asked questions too

Richard Taylor: Hello Amy, well virtual met that we are! The aspect of non-geography that the internet provides is something of a space to focus, especially as your work is so concerned with the actuality and insistent changeability of place, architecture and the physicality of travel. Would you agree?

Amy Croft: Yes, I would say as a result of my interest in living and working in different places that the internet and the format it provides, is a tool which influences my practice. The Elephant in the Corner collective, who are predominantly based in London and Glasgow, use an online wikispace as a virtual meeting place - it could be considered our seminar room or our kitchen table - where thoughts and ideas are tossed into the middle to be discussed. In this way, we have collectively identified even this virtual place, with specificity comparable to physical space, overcoming geographical displacement and a sense of estrangement from one another's studios.

In this instance (or that of an email interview) I would propose we are from the outset in a non-geography, which can only be claimed as a place through our mutual and coherent use of the medium. However, perhaps by the end of our to-ing and fro-ing of emails we will have established for ourselves, a context to reside in.

RT: Did your year in scholarship back in 2005 spark an enthusiasm to delve in to such a rich conceptual palette of ideas? Tell me about how you came to be involved in this. Do you think studying abroad is an element of BA study that all students should consider?

AC: The first time I really tried to live in another city was during my Erasmus scholarship to Berlin in 2005: I would definitely recommend taking this opportunity.

This is what began my interest in experiencing different cities through the focus of my art practice. A specific method of travelling and residing in given places for periods of time helped to heighten my senses to the ways in which place, space or architecture can condition and influence the inhabitants' behaviour, their psychology, or their politics collectively or individually.

After graduating in 2006, I was keen to find more opportunities to work abroad so began applying to residencies and places of interest. From March to June 2009, I was invited by Pépinières européennes pour jeunes to participate in a three-month residency in Graz, Austria. I proposed a specific project called 'My Home is Our Chaos', which involved research around two social housing estates designed by Graz-based architect Eilfried Huth. It was here when more ethical concerns I hold in relation to artists' travel were brought into practice: I spent a lot of time grappling with what my social responsibility in that situation involved.

RT: "a context to reside in..." this is an interesting idea. After looking at your website, I went ahead and used the same third party software to start re-building my own. I also noticed through looking at your photo-documentation and installation shots that your making of objects and use of material is just as prominent as the internet presence that you so widely distribute.

Do you think that 'residing' then is perhaps to fragment your practice and keep check of being in many places at once? The physical experience you have within an architectural locale is matched by the virtual space you make for yourself. Do you see this as an important form of practice that students can make expert use of after graduating?

AC: Web-building applications like Indexhibit, which are open source and aspire to be 'invisible' with regards to the authors design style, are an exciting development for artists. We no longer need to be web designers to compile a site that successfully compliments the work it hosts: the creativity involved and final authorship is returned to the artist.

I am interested that you have compared my use of Indexhibit to the way I choose materials in my work. The materials I choose are very specific and conceptually predetermined. For instance, 'Wohnmodell: Maßstab 10:1' (2009) is a sculpture made in response to the Graz housing estates and how the architect empowered future residents of the estate, by educating them and facilitating them to design and build their own homes.

I agree that the idea of me building and hosting my own website online is akin to establishing a sense of place: my own gallery to collect and present my work on my own terms. An ongoing investigation is to look at the personal actions or social scenarios used to facilitate a sense self-expression within one's environment, especially in facing an endless turn over of consumer products and services. But, to be honest I have never considered web design as one of these - so thanks for the pointer!

You sent me the different web spaces you host and I wondered how you feel about representing yourself as both an artist and arts professional? Whilst working at Gasworks, I became very aware of the dual roles I had to take on and found it more and more difficult to maintain my practice...

RT: I do find it increasingly difficult to maintain my practice, but as much as this is problematic it is not counter productive. I am more interested in the notion of an 'exhibition' this is why I too find Indexhibit such a great tool for this 'self-expression' that you talk of.

Do you think that the duality of being an arts professional and an artist is essential for students to consider in forwarding their practice?

AC: I would not say that working as an arts professional alongside being an artist is essential, for some artists I know it has completely turned them against making art.

In my case it was a challenging but rewarding experience that had a positive influence on my art practice. From my experience of working within a small team to develop Gasworks' programmes, discussion and collaboration has gained more importance in my practice. In turn, the role of the studio came into question as I became increasingly aware that it is not always the most appropriate place to be making work and spend time. (For me this was a real shift in perspective from being at art school where I was led to believe that spending endless amounts of hours in the studio was the essence of 'good' artistic practice).

I found that once you are outside of an arts institution, regardless of the numerous exhibition openings you attend and online social networking you may subscribe to, it is still difficult to meet other artists and sustain an interesting dialogue with them. Through working at Gasworks I was fortunate to meet international artists on a professional level and gained a rich insight into their working methods as well as striking up lasting friendships.

RT: How do you think this dual experience lies in between the definitions of online exposition/working portfolios and the actual documenting/exhibiting of a working artist?

AC: I would like to combine the practices of self-expression/representation and exhibition making, which we mentioned earlier, and consider them together as a practice of display. Within display there is a conscious editing process where you decide what should or shouldn't be communicated to your hypothetical audience.

Your represented 'art practice' should be public and what is just occurring on the periphery should remain private. Whether you are producing a website, portfolio, talk or artwork these are all moments when the 'divisions' between public and private, which you have perhaps already set yourself can be re-evaluated.

As well as questioning the need for division I am also concerned with the expectations I feel artistic practice is under to be coherent and to follow a thread or research narrative.

RT: People now expect reams of information so artists have to respond to this. Students are being trained to refine this aspect of display - do you think it may start to become less about the art, or more about the art, after graduation when they're taken out their time given to a studio?

AC: That's a difficult one to answer without considering someone's art practice specifically. For me this touches on an interesting issue within Fine Art education. Particularly in the UK, Fine Art degrees have become increasingly aligned with and treated alike other university programmes. As such, the approach to awarding grades has become bureaucratic and sometimes lacks a personal assessment of an individual's practice.

Perhaps the trend for artists presenting reams of information surrounding their work within the exhibition context could be traced to this requirement within education to demonstrate your thought process?

More generally I feel questions around how to present information within an artwork or as part of its presentation, are challenging and very interesting.

When an artist looks at certain histories or knowledge pools to inform their work I feel he or she needs to demonstrate an awareness of the work's audience: an acute understanding of what signifiers or markers will communicate the research interests they are pursuing.

The work needs to be almost tailored to its audience.

What do you think?

Does maintaining an art practice imply the maintenance of an accompanying website? And what should come first, the work and the exhibitions to make documentation of, or the platform to add to and built more possibility for physical exhibition through this?

When you graduate will you apply your time to a studio or make time on top of everything else to establish a new form of portfolio growth?

Learn more from other professionals and their career paths. More Career profiles »

Links

www.amycroft.co.uk Amy Croft

http://theelephantinthecorner.wikispaces.com
The Elephant in the Corner, March 2008-present, functions as a platform to actively explore the role of female collectivism today through an online wikispace, studio visits, discussions and exhibitions.

www.gasworks.org.uk
Gasworks

www.art4eu.net/en/home
Pépinières européennes pour jeunes artistes

Richard Taylor

Richard is an artist/writer living in Edinburgh and online editor on behalf of a-n The Artists Information Company, for the Degrees unedited and Students community sites.

www.rich-taylor.co.uk

First published: a-n.co.uk March 2010