A large scale public art commission coincided with the start of my doctoral studies that involved the collaborative20 development and production of integrated artworks for a new school in Barton Hill, Bristol, U.K., part of a regeneration programme for an inner city area. The project provided an opportunity for action research as ‘a
18 Lippard’s ‘art governed by [a] place ethic’ (Lippard,1997: 286) is explored in chapter four and in relation to a selection of my previous context-led projects (Appendix B); toward the development of interfaces of location and memory as a conceptual framework for context-led arts practice.
19 Thinking inside the box was the title of my paper presented at the University Arts London research symposium in Feb 2008, it references the constraints of the Barton Hill Public Art Programme project and the ubiquitous phrase ‘thinking outside of the box’ – as implying a disconnect from context. As Francis Whitehead states ‘there is no box’ in What do Artists Know (Whitehead, 2006) available at http://www.embeddedartistproject.com/whatdoartistsknow.html [accessed 30.11.2010]
20 The Barton Hill project commission is a collaborative project with artist Mac Dunlop.
23
situational process requiring the co-operation of participants in a specific real-world context’ (Gray and Malins, 2004:74). It involved working with the project partners21 over a two year period meeting all the requirements that a project of this scale entails: health and safety issues, planning permissions, building regulations, sub-contracting, contract schedules and budget management. The resulting artwork22 and publication was well received by the school community, commissioners and stakeholders. The project also features in an exemplary guide for local councils and commissioners ‘Creating excellent primary schools; a guide for clients’ published by CABE23 (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) in 2010.
The encounters, negotiations, reflections and responses that drive a project of this scale and duration are lengthy and complex. But with view to understanding the impact that the project had on the direction of my research an overview is provided in Appendix A. In short, the Barton Hill project challenged the rationale and ethos of my practice, illustrating how artistic integrity can become compromised which in turn affects the dynamics of the work produced.
The aspirations for the Barton Hill public art programme and the 'definitive artist’s brief' focused on a socially inclusive agenda of community and project partner participation, in reality this was unachievable. The effect of amalgamating three existent school sites into one organisation meant that the school was unable to fully participate in the project aims. The project has exemplified how well intended strategies of participation promote ‘good practice’ on paper, but in reality need to be embedded in the context-led changeable processes of the project. (Lovejoy in Hall, 2007:32)
21 The project partners were Barton Hill School & Children’s Centre, Bristol, Community at Heart (Bristol City Council), Architype (architects), RiO (Real Ideas Organization). The project involved the development and production of a series of artworks for a new build project with a budget of £33,000.
22 Details of the work produced and the processes involved are described in Appendix A.
23 “CABE is the government’s advisor on architecture, urban design and public space. As a public body, we encourage policymakers to create places that work for people. We help local planners apply national design policy and advise developers and architects, persuading them to put people’s needs first. We show public sector clients how to commission buildings that meet the needs of their users.
And we seek to inspire the public to demand more from their buildings and spaces. Advising, influencing and inspiring, we work to create well-designed, welcoming places” (cover notes ‘Creating excellent primary schools; a guide for clients’ CABE, 2010).
This led to questioning the complex relationships involved – how the balance of power in those relationships might be critiqued as well as my own complicity or good intentions. Commissions such as this invite artists to participate within certain
parameters unique to a particular context. However, generic policies and out-dated bureaucratic infrastructures tend to work against the relationships and dialogue necessary for an open approach. Even well intended strategies of participation that promote good practice on paper, can be otherwise in reality. In order to create something meaningful, all stakeholders need to invest time in the project, to be on the ground and embedded in the changeable processes of a project’s fruition. In his meditations on creativity and culture, physicist David Peat speaks of how our
perceptions are divorced from natural relationships of change and flux. He questions how outdated policies and ‘hierarchical organizations that have limited lines of communication and inflexible structures are supposed to deal with a rich and complex world […] The point about creativity and, indeed about living is that it cannot be prescribed’; and neither can creative response be laid down as a fixed programme (Peat, 2007: 150).
Flexibility is key: complex collaborative practices are about ideas, scenarios, challenges and uncertainties - you can’t slap process on to communities. These sites are places in flux in a continual process of becoming. To work in these environments can be both challenging and compromising, as Posner says these situations require ‘the eye of a journalist, the ear of a poet, the hide of an armadillo, the serenity of an airline pilot and the ability to swim’ (1996: unpaginated). The artists Helen Meyer and Newton Harrison, who have long term professional
experience of public art projects, reference their approach to working with inflexible bureaucratic systems as follows:
25
We often remind ourselves not to confuse systems thinking, which points to new space of mind, and systematization, which leads to the overproduction of sameness, which bureaucrats in our experience often confuse – giving lip service to the former, while obeying the dictates of the latter. (2004:5)
The Barton Hill project although challenging had prompted my reflexive thinking to question: what might be entailed in producing context-led outcomes that have uncompromised integrity? By ‘integrity’ I mean a responsibility to the sensibilities of context-led practice, to the experiences, encounters and processes that generate ideas toward outcomes that are relevant to a particular place. Berleant notes that:
Sincerity as an artist does concern the person as an artist and it signifies integrity of intent. Yet insofar as this is artistic, it follows from the integrity, that is, the honesty and truth, of his work. Thus integrity for artists is not just working conscientiously and skillfully and devotedly. This trait would not distinguish them from any other professionals who exhibit those
characteristics. Even so, the degree to which artists characteristically manifest professional integrity is exemplary to such an extent that it is common to call anyone an artist who exhibits a high level of integrity in his work, whatever that work may be. The integrity of artists, however, is ultimately their truthfulness to their artistic vision. This is no purely personal trait, however, but is inseparable from their work. (Berleant, 1977:199)
Summary:
In this chapter I have discussed the formal requirements of the doctorate in relation to the role of arts practice, and the provenance of the research. The existing
connective concept Interfaces of location and memory was introduced as a means of disseminating the processes and outcomes of context-led practice.
This was followed by a brief overview of the Barton Hill Public Art Programme conveying how it crystallised my research concerns toward the development of interfaces of location and memory as a conceptual framework for new work. This framework hinges on an understanding of context-led arts practice as being
responsive to the relational complexities of a particular place, rather than a model of practice that is applied to a place.
The next chapter critiques the designation of art-field categories to the socio-spatial processes that artists engage in. The commodification of artist’s processes is
evidenced in reductive arts historical and contemporary critique that isolates artwork from the socio-political conditions of its emergence. This limited understanding of arts practice fuels an objective perspective that can lead to prescriptive expectations and foreclosure of a work’s potential, as artist and writer Susan Kelly points out:
The grand inclusion or identification of all kinds of transversal practices, practices of self-organisation, practices in which it is never clear where the art ends and the politics begins, into expanded categories of art ('relational', socially engaged etc) needs to be met with suspicion. (Kelly, 2005: 1)
27