Tree of Life
At last today I met someone who challenged me about the project. So far everyone has been so positive – like no one has been phased about the fact that artists were doing something without taking into account who the audience might be or whether they are addressing particular issues – or whether they are ready to work with certain groups.
Art in communities is often about people getting stuck in and getting pleasure from making things and spending time together doing it and then a sense of pride when that work, however good or bad, is shown off to friends and family. Our project isn’t going to achieve that end. The art we are involved with is about stepping back and looking at the situation of community work and networks, and commenting upon that. Bringing the work into the environment on which it is focusing, has a tradition in site specific work, art as environment, more than it does community art.
I’ve been expecting hostility, suspicion and frankly “stop wasting our time” since I began, because community development grew up hand in hand with community art. But apart from a few artists, working in the community centres, who at first may be a little territorial about their spaces (and fair enough) almost without exception, community centres and their workers have been really positive and accepted my somewhat vague descriptions of what the project is about.
Janet, manager of The Tree of Life Centre wasn’t able to offer me the space I had hoped to simply walk in and secure – a table in the corner of the café. The centre wasn’t really open, but I wandered in, and Janet kindly stopped her fundraising, offered me tea and showed me around the furniture and clothes shop, cafe and activity space(church). She wanted to understand exactly what my project is doing – and what exactly was the point of placing art work in her centre. What would the centre users get out of it? What was the objective of it? Why would anyone be interested, or need to know what CN4M is? What she was saying is that ordinary people access her centre to either have a meal, buy cheap furniture, or take part in a club or group, and then off they go – she knew that actually people wont be interested in the art work, let alone “engage” with it, and they certainly wont understand CN4M or want to. Andrew Wilson is making a board game, which in the playing, describes CN4M’s function. She was asking why people would want to know that anyway? Surely if they needed to find something out, they would ask her, and she would point them on then to the ward coordinator (council worker for that area) not CN4M, who are based in town anyway, miles from her community.
ctd
