Following (and maybe as a result of) my slightly panicky post on Thursday, I decided against a give away of my text piece ‘Recipe For Reciprocity’ at the Inhospitable private view in Leeds last night. Which is probably just as well, as I got caught up at work and couldn’t make it over to Leeds in time. In any case I think it was the right decision. I think it would not have had any impact as a generosity action – I feel I need to do a bit more readng/thinking/researching and think things through more thoroughly before I’m ready to ‘do’ something. Thanks to Bruce Davies of Basement Arts for being up for facilitating a potential action and apologies for the last minute flakiness…
The last few days have thrown up a whole load of generosity based stuff in the form of an upcoming symposium, current exhibition and a slew of conversations (IRL and online) with other artists. All of this is massively exciting and galvanising.
Firstly via New Work Yorkshire e-network I came across:
Economies of Generosity Symposium, happening on Saturday 1st December 2012 at The Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool, 11am to 5pm
http://givingintogift.org/economies-of-generosity-…
which is described as
‘A day of presentations and discussion, the Economies of Generosity symposium provides an opportunity to explore the role of gift-giving and generosity in both capitalist and alternative economies, as thought through themes of education, sponsorship, volunteering, piracy and theft. With central government endorsing/enforcing projects such as The Big Society and Workfare, a parallel force, in the form of the financial crisis and ‘austerity’, forces communities to think about alternatives to capitalist transactions; Economies of Generosity provides a chance to talk through some of the issues at stake.’
THE perfect symposium at THE perfect time in my research! When does that happen? Never. So I’ve booked a space.
The Symposium is part of a wider project called Giving in to Gift describing itself as ‘a meeting point between artists, their peers and the public, Giving in to Gift is the beginning of a conversation around ideas of generosity and reciprocation and how these themes manifest’
The website also details interventions and performances (in Liverpool, most of which I have missed) and other material, and in particular a great reading list which I am in the midst of sourcing articles and books from.
http://givingintogift.org/further-reading/
I’ve also been alerted via Franny Swann’s blog and also from Kate Murdoch to a current exhibition at the Jerwood, ‘Now I Gotta Reason’ which is co-curated by Marcus Coates and Grizedale Arts and ‘focuses on art production as a useful and productive activity’
This inlcudes an ‘honest shop’ skill swap bazaar, craft school. lunch clube, and many other participatory activities structured around exchange and gift. I would love to go – maybe I can endure a megabus mega journey to get down to London to see it before it closes on the 9th December?
Also, some really interesting and useful conversations with other artists are sprouting up: I had an exchange via twitter with Emily Speed about the book ‘Why are artists poor?: the exceptional economy of the arts’ by Hans Abbing and also Lewis Hyde’s ‘The Gift’ and she alterted me to her blog ‘Getting Paid‘ www.a-n.co.uk/p/497389 which is going to be really helpful to look at. Sophie Cullinan and Kate Murdoch both a-n bloggers, have been sharing links and books with me, via Twitter and email which has been great. Also been talking to Leeds based artist Louise Atkinson about an upcoming alternative economy project she’s planning.
Thanks also to Franny Swann for expanding on her upcoming group show on gift on her blog, and also for signposting me to her posts about ‘Collection Plate’ an exchange project she did last year – the posts about the distressing letter left particularly have given me a lot of food for thought re potential things that can happen when you invite participation.
It’s great to be having these exchanges as I’m planning my next batch of writing to be about reciprocity between artists..
