Students

Richard Taylor talks to Charlotte A Morgan about writing as a research process and striking the balance in adapting opportunities to her interdisciplinary practice.

Continuing conversations

January 2009, Leeds: Charlotte and I tackled wires and gaffer tape securing a projector to an office desk as she told me of her plans for establishing a writing collective based in Yorkshire.

We met again a year later next to another projector in a boardroom in Sheffield. She was quick and busy but friendly and we managed to make the most out of our exchange in words. Now we both have as much time as our inboxes allow, so here's to the longevity of emailed discourse and more insight in to the life of an artist curator who uses writing to bind together the wires of her interdisciplinary world.

Projects past and ongoing, Charlotte in her many guises

Charlotte A Morgan graduated with BA (Hons) Fine Art from Sheffield Hallam University in 2007 and continues to live and work in Sheffield, based at S1 Artspace. Her practice responds to spatial and social conditions, often extending into archival and curatorial processes, design, live events and critical writing, exploring a position between research, action, object and document.

Morgan was selected by curators Annie Fletcher and Frederique Bergholtz to exhibit as part of Art Sheffield 2010 - Life: A User's Manual showing 'Lookout' at Site Gallery as part of the festival. Lookout is a bookwork, which explores the space between two prominent high-rise buildings on the edge of Sheffield's centre through text, research and archival images of watchtowers, lookout points and elevated structures.

In March 2010 RITE, in which Morgan is published, was launched at Project Space Leeds. RITE is a collection of experimental art writing addressing notions of the critical and writing as or around art practice, resulting from Critical Communities, a four-month project run by New Work Network and Open dialogues from East Street Arts, Leeds and Space, London. Morgan was also recently commissioned to produce MarketPlace, a re-imagined, adjustable market stall structure and accompanying publication, for Chesterfield Market Festival as part of the re:place Derbyshire programme.

Other recent projects include Ta(l)king Place, a series of discussions around the intersections of art and architecture held at the Encounters Shop and Make/Shift, a series of one-day exhibitions exploring temporality, impermanence and dislocation in the built environment, curated by Morgan at S1 Artspace.

Charlotte is currently co-developing the New Writing Collective Yorkshire with writer Joanna Loveday. The collective seeks to provide networking and discussion between regional art writers and provide a platform for critical writing in the region.

Conversations continued

Richard Taylor: You've certainly got a lot under your belt since graduating. Could you tell me some more about the New Writing Collective Yorkshire?

Charlotte A Morgan: The collective developed from conversations between myself and Leeds based writer Joanna Loveday after we met through a critical writing project led by Open Dialogues at the New Life Berlin festival in 2008. We both saw a gap in opportunities for networking, critical support, collaboration and publication for Yorkshire based writers, and in the amount of writing around events, exhibitions and issues specific to the region within the national art press.

RT: What were the initial aims as such and how did you navigate the collective's progression from idea into action?

CAM: The initial aims for the collective were to provide a platform for critical discussion around regional visual art, live art, performance and critical writing, developing a network of writers and people interested in working with writers or developing writing as part of their programme.

We didn't want to define a model before discussing the potentials and sharing ideas with people across the region, so we set up open call meetings in Sheffield, Leeds, York and Hull. We met writers, curators, artists, educators and publishers with a range of experience and varied perspectives. The collective generated a lot of support and enthusiasm; we are now developing an online presence, discussing potential collaborations with other organisations and sourcing funding. We've taken part in a number of projects and generated a lot of our own work since starting to develop the collective. It can be hard to balance at times.

RT: How did you come to realise that writing had such an important role in your work?

CAM: Since graduating, writing has become a more significant part of my practice: it was something I pursued originally after doing a few pieces as part of my degree course. My dissertation 'Re-Writing the City' was quite experimental in its format, combining interweaved narratives and diversions into lengthened footnotes: it played with the structure of text to reflect the subject of an unending journey. I considered it as a piece of work in many ways, which led me to think of writing as a part of my practice rather than something done to illustrate it or articulate areas of research. I carried this forward into my degree show; a live project accompanied by text and a leaflet to guide people in procession.

RT: How does the balance between writing in research and writing as a form of art practice weigh itself out then? What sort of process did you go through after completing your course?

CAM: After graduating I researched and applied to projects to further explore and develop writing as part of my practice. This was an organic process that took hold of the elements of writing I was most interested in but a lack of financial resources influenced it all to an extent.

RT: Does writing and its place in the continuity of your practice come part in parcel with having a studio space?

CAM: I don't use writing in a specific way or have a formula for its place in my practice and since graduating my critical judgment has become more informed. But it's hard to define the time I spend on individual pieces, they're all part of a research process before they become distinct works or projects. Being at S1 Artspace has been significant though. It's beneficial working around other artists having the opportunities for dialogue and peer support. The social element helps too.

RT: How long did it take for you to join another studio environment and how did it take hold of your practice and change it?

CAM: It wasn't until midway through 2008 that I became a studio member at S1. But I had been a volunteer whilst at university and was offered the opportunity to curate a project there through the Associates scheme after graduating and being part of that sort of network has been really influential.

RT: Studio spaces take up a certain amount of financial commitment, but I guess finding financial equilibrium is slightly easier a year or so on from graduating. Do you have any advice for people who have just graduated, for anyone interested in pursuing the interdisciplinary highway?

CAM: It's important to carry on practicing when you leave university and find contexts for your work, carry on with your research, develop a peer network and find ways of working with the situation. For me, writing is just as time consuming as making, designing and co-ordinating collaborations and projects; processes that combine as ongoing research.

It's also interesting to consider how much time you are afforded after employment commitments, how to make time for opportunities sought and offered, allowing contact within communities and networks and other factors that can impact upon how you develop a practice after graduating. Things are different for everyone but can be negotiated in a way that works best for each individual.

It can take time to get the balance right.

Links

www.charlotteamorgan.co.uk »

Charlotte's Interface reviews »

New Writing Collective Yorkshire »

RITE publication »

s1artspace »

Richard Taylor

Richard Taylor

www.rich-taylor.co.uk

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