Doggerland is a new research initiative, supported by a-n’s New Collaborative Research Bursary. We hope to use this blog to ponder speculative questions about the development of the project, as we begin to survey the breadth of artist led spaces and projects around the UK.
Inevitable Circumstances?
Doggerland has reached a stage where the Collaborative Research bursary we initially received from a-n is coming to its final few pennies. Recalling our original application for the grant, it is evident that we’ve been more effective with managing our expenses and content output, allowing the project to continue to develop beyond our expectations.
Originally, we foresaw the grant enabling three visits to artist led spaces around the country, conducting pilot interviews with each respective organisation, and publish a broadsheet-type paper to be disseminated across every active artist led project in the UK currently.
In contrast, we’ve held eight meetings so far, with more to follow shortly, designed and maintained a website, and scrapped the broadsheet.
These decisions, made between Sam and I, have been made in response to the circumstances we had not perceived when making our original application. A practice new to me is publishing articles concerning the work of individuals and organisations with whom we have recently met. It is now apparent that each project coordinator, artist or curator we’ve met, have a different standpoint on how they wish to be represented. Not everyone is comfortable in front of a camera; it can skew or hinder a conversation. Likewise, audio recordings too can detriment the objectives of the meeting. Write ups also can cause concern regarding information not wanting to be made public. We must respect the conditions set by those we are meeting, and understand compromise is not always a negative alternative.
This correspondence takes time, and eventually it was apparent the material we had accrued required an online base, ahead of our intentions to launch the project only after the research phase was complete.
In actual consideration, the ‘research phase’ of Doggerland is ongoing, and will continue to be beyond the initial bursary. Having made the project live, we have posited it as something with a defined purpose and design, within a trajectory of regular activity and engagement. It is somewhat conflicting in its appearance professing to be a project with sustained longevity, whilst meanwhile being still in its formative nascent stages.
Doggerland is now requiring Sam and I to approach the work with a business mind set. As anticipated, even online publishing necessitates financial support. The bursary has afforded us the opportunity to meet with the organisations currently profiled on our site, but now we are in need of further support to enable us to invest time developing a business model to sustain the project.
I don’t think we’re interested in developing a forum of exhibition reviews that is updated daily. We aren’t aiming to be a reference for current listings. By taking it slower, and encouraging more investment into the creation of content for the site, working with others, we hope to gradually build a survey of the UK’s artistic led and non commercial activity that strengthens an ecology of practitioners engaged with producing, thinking, writing and presenting work.
We’re starting to approach universities to speak with current students on BA Art courses, encouraging a discipline with respect to their geographical context and whether they actively seek to participate in artist led activity around their city, town or region. We are also considering working with MFA students to write an article for us that will support their academic studies.
We ultimately wish to pay writers for their time. This is difficult, as we are not looking to host advertisements on the site, promoting the larger institutions we are exactly attempting not to pedestal any further. Smaller organisations generally don’t have such marketing budgets. Rather than one-off articles, we would like to host Writing Residencies, spotlighting specific areas in the UK where the resident is based, and produce a number of articles in response to activity occurring in their area, with guidance from Sam and I.
A membership scheme seems unjust for online-exclusive content, so we’re faced with the prospect of submitting a GfA application to allow us to continue developing both the content of Doggerland’s research, and an understanding of our possibilities to sustain the project financially. That as-yet-unknown territory is where this post will finish.
Tom Prater, Doggerland
First off, we published our website this week: doggerland.info
This hopefully gives a vague indication of things to come from Dogglerland, as well as detailing meetings in Scotland with GENERATORprojects in Dundee, and Many Studios in Glasgow. We have more meetings lined up next week in Manchester and Liverpool, and should be able to publish the details and information gleaned from our meetings in London (with A-Z, a project by Anne Dufau, and Legion TV) at the beginning of March.
For now, as well, as is the want of everyone and everthing that exists in the known universe, we have twitter & facebook accounts:
@doggerlanders
www.facebook.com/doggerlanders
There is a long way to go with the project, in particular, our archilles heel of sorts… sustainability. But, as this is the beginning, I’ll maybe post these few smatterings of the projects own beginnings, and leave it at that.
Many Studios, Glasgow
GENERATORprojects, Dundee
