DOWNTIME
Saturday, 29 June 2013
Recently I was asked to contribute a show to Ort. a fledgling space in a run-down part of Birmingham.
My instinct, during a reconnaissance trip, told me this was no place to trumpet my own skills or achievements (‘a show’) but rather an opportunity to let others speak.
The resulting event could justifiably be described as ‘socially engaged.’ It featured a mix of mostly local people including professional artists, aspiring artists, amateur artists, adamantly non-artists, and some who made art for therapeutic reasons, or reasons which, when given in a contextualising statement, remained so obscure to others that the term ‘outsider’ seemed accurate and appropriate to apply to them.
Though ultimately successful in its own terms, the whole project felt purposefully risky, and I used this word when launching it. But what was the risk? Perhaps it was the possibility that, by refusing to apply habitual professional judgments and standards we might produce something of no value, little value or dubious value, or something that any audience beyond the immediate contributors themselves might find difficult to evaluate.
Having completed the event I’m certain that all those involved, and some visitors too, would agree that this was not the case, that our own collaborative experience, and that which we offered for others to share and evaluate for themselves, was of value, and was in fact of that rare, true value, the value of that which is truly rare - unexpected, different, ‘thought-provoking’, challenging and progressive.
Friday, 28 June 2013
Contributors
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List of people/artists who submitted work and ideas to
DOWNTIME
Ian Edwards
Emil Toescu
Marceline
Braycotton
Helen Grundy
Jane Thakoordin
Barbara Walker
Barbara Walker
Vicky Cheshire
Prudence Evans
Ines Elsa Dalal
Steve Dowson
Steve Dowson
Tim Ridley
Hannah Honeywill
Joseph Storer aka
Vida Las Vegas
James
Bada Song
Bada Song
Imran
Chris
Kevin Shaw
Josephine Reichert
Cristina Celestini
Ian Greenwood
Chris Poolman
& Liz Rowe
Documentation
Ines Elsa Dalal |
Installation View |
Steve Dowson |
Barbara Walker |
Helen Grundy |
Cristina Celestini |
SIFA Fireside Group - Joseph Storer aka Vida Las Vegas, James, Imran, Chris and Kevin Shaw. |
Jane Thakoordin |
Vicky Cheshire |
Marceline Braycotton |
Marceline Braycotton |
Emil Toescu |
Prudence Evans |
Tim Ridley |
Josephine Reichert |
Installation view |
Ines Elsa Dalal |
Hannah Honeywill |
Bada Song |
Downtime was a socially engaged project for Ort. Gallery Birmingham.
Here is the original proposal:
Here is the original proposal:
"
DOWNTIME is a socially engaged art project inspired by my
recent visit to Ort gallery and the surrounding area.
Ort is an unusual new art space in Birmingham, catering for
artists in an upstairs gallery and project space while providing friendly and
relaxed café facilities downstairs which are frequented by people who are out
of work (unemployment is high in the area.)
My proposal is to use the concept of DOWNTIME as a framework
under which, not only local artists but other regular users of the café can
make a representation of what they consider to be their own DOWNTIME.
The idea of non-allocated time might have first been
associated with changing seasons e.g. after the harvest when country people
would have found ways to repair and prepare.
Meanwhile, the aristocrat, the lofty academic (think of
Kant’s daily strolls), followed in history by the Romantic poet and bourgeois flaneur, have all left traces of the
uses of DOWNTIME in the history of culture. Sigfried Kracauer was one of the
first to write seriously on the modern experience of boredom – something we can
also discern amid the semi-decadent wit and irony of Oscar Wilde or more recently
Morrissey.
From the early 20th century through to today,
mass unemployment - produced by Capitalism’s intrinsic, careless dynamics -
have blighted the lives of people who have famously (and infamously) responded
in both creative and destructive ways to the imposition of unallocated time.
I want to instigate, and subsequently co-curate an
exhibition wherein local people write poems, songs or raps; make drawings,
photographs and You Tube films; anything that best shares their experience of
unallocated time in Birmingham, 2012 - and particularly when infused with an
inspired or intensified experience of the ordinary.
I hope that, by making and sharing representations in an
exhibition, the community served by Ort gallery might become more aware and
objective about their experiences and their conditions, and that this might
generate some new sense of purpose and empowerment, during a difficult time for
individuals, for the area, and for the country as a whole."
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