Friday 1st March - Hui Worser Bay.
Listening the talk by Frances Whitehead brought up several new thoughts and ideas for me. I was fascinated with her projects in Chicago and Gary regenerating areas of desolation and ecological disaster by repurposing and bringing new life to a dead area. What drew me in was her reference to the many facets involved from Engineering to Architecture and community buy in. The words that struck me were: rewilding (taking barren to fruitful), remediation (collective buy in from community and cross discipline involvement), reconnection (community with the land and the environment), regrounding (having a sense of being at one with the environment).
In the afternoon, we had a chance to respond to the provocation. Ian, Katy and I discussed how as a society we have become utterly disconnected with our environment and our land. We in NZ do not have the same desolation of landscape through heavy industry but none-the-less, become unaware of our surroundings. This comes about partly through the sense of being time poor and partly because we live so much in the digital world. In response to this, our group felt it was important to gain a sense of slowing down and wanting to reconnect with our beautiful environment. Who could not respond to the beauty of the day? - sunny, warm, smell and sound of the sea, feel of the sand or grasses and seaweed under fingers andd limbs. Our performance was literally to ground ourselves by lying on the sand and reground ourselves in that moment. Experience the environment through sense and touch. We asked our audience to join us - reground.
So how will this affect my practice? I guess the answer for me is to continue to ask the question and seek answers to what is art and what or who is artist? If projects can include multi-discipline professionals and community, are we all artists? Whilst Frances seemed to be the instigator of the projects, her collaboration with others, her dedication and love of seeing beauty in the ugly and her graciousness in acknowledging the potential in others, is inspiring. She was adamant that she was not the leader of the projects - everybody led. This throws individualism out of the window and counters the idea of artist being an individual working in isolation. I think that time has passed. I often find my students at work tell me quite explicitly what they think of my work and I do respond to their take on my practice. Can I know take the next step and allow others to become involved in the making of work? I have taken this on board and am collaborating with another teacher on producing sound pieces. I like to be fully in control of projects so this is a leap of faith for me. Two leaders or collaborators. I'll keep you posted on what happens next.