Katryn Saqui
MA Fine Art
Part time year 1
Project proposal
24th April
2013
word count: 1,078
I have been a practicing artist for
twenty years. I have always been
interested in using mass media advertising and technology to turn the
methodology of branding and advertising on its head, to awaken, guide and
empower society to take charge of what we actually want and need and not be
misguided by what we are told we need.
Mimicking extreme capitalist advertising mediums to draw attention to
discrimination in social injustice; to reveal the incongruity between social
ideals and practices. I have began to
think about marketing and language and the notion of persuasion. I propose
to explore further my use of this language of marketing and selling to promote
this notion of utopia.
Please see figure 1 and 2 on page
6.
By exploring the discipline of
participation art, with notions of a micro-utopian socio-political purpose, I
shall be questioning the usefulness of the terms social renewal and emplacement,
encouraging a sense of belonging through art that could be collaborative, acknowledging
the value of the individual in society. I already see this as a benefit,
informing decisions about how to develop and construct meaningful exchanges and
experiences. Furthermore, it will help
me also to develop a framework to underpin my desire for positive social
transformation through multi-sensory experience of an art object and activity. There
is a cross over between contributing to raising social consciousness through participatory
art, the notion of utopia and the idea of a language of persuasion in
marketing.
I aim to explore ways in which one
might collaborate with other artists questioning different processes and modes of
art interactions, and what it means to have a positive transformative art experience
with notions of micro-utopia.
These are the questions I shall be
trying to answer. What is the value of collaboration? What makes an audience able
to participate in a work of art? What does it mean as an artist to play a
passive role in the constitution of an artwork? What degrees of passivity allow
what kinds of parallel relations in terms of hierarchy? How can artwork operate usefully in terms of
social renewal? What, and for whom exactly, is transformative art?
I intend to research different
processes and modes of art interaction including situations, relational
aesthetics, happenings, encounters, unannounced activity, socially engaged art,
critical spatial practice and participatory interactive art installations.
“…..social
practice artists create forms of living that activate communities and advance
public awareness of pressing social issues.
In the process, they expand models of art, advance ways of being an
artist, and involve new publics in their efforts.”
Ann Pasternak President and artistic director, Creative Time. Living as
form: socially engaged art from 1991-2011
I have been awarded a Canterbury
Festival funded collaborative commission between an artist, fisherman and food
forager that I shall be working on in support of my art practice. This is a live
component of enquiry that is providing my work with a platform to begin to
explore ideas of working with communities through a conceptual, interactive art
installation and an art event, based around ideas of emplacement; reconnection
to the beach and local food sources, and also raising awareness of how one
might participate in changing fishing policies. My enquiry will allow me to
address questions of how art enables various connections to be made within
specific geographic contexts, between urban environment and the sea, between
individuals and the larger community. How
does one provide a platform for working with other artists and develop
interdisciplinary relationships in fresh ways? How could my art assist in
building community? How do I do this without being hierarchical as a form of
utopia?
The funded commission is merely a
platform that will allow me to asses many ways in which the viewer might
respond to the opportunities of being involved, informing my main research.
The MA is exploring more general
questions. Some utopian principles I should like to explore are: micro utopia,
relational aesthetics, human and political conditions, avant-garde utopian
politics, Constant Nieuwenhus – total integration of art and politics, Frederic
Jameson’s Utopian art, Therapeutic utopias and the prospect of transformation,
a localised transformative political potential linking art to political change. I should also like to explore and examine how
contemporary artists are creating their own notions of ‘utopianism’ to improve
human society. Identifying, critiquing and articulating what aspects of utopia
underpin and drive my practice can offer opportunities of envisaging a better
place.
The kinds of outcome may be quite
dispersive: some might exist in an academic context others might exist in a
gallery context and some might exist in a community context, and they will have
to resolve themselves in different ways.
I have always been interested in
the language of media and marketing: the idea that whatever context the work is
operating in there is an element of selling and persuasion, whether it is a visual
aesthetic persuasion or a conceptual, historical persuasion that takes place.
In the past my work has found form
in mimicking and manipulating various forms one might find at a market stall,
museum or in a shop. Through relabeling
or rebranding, for example, the form of a collection of tins or jars, things
that might be passed on or passed between people or as a site for engagement to
(re) sensitise (rather than the desensitisation of mass media). Richard Hoggart
said “Literacy brings all cultures together’. I am also interested in other ways in which conversations
may be generated through these kinds of works. What I am making might be
collected, dispersed or sold and become persuasive things.
The research will be documented on
a blog, through artworks, sketchbooks and possibly film. Skills will be
developed through expanding blog skills and learning to build a website in
dreamweaver for the labelled collections. I should like to develop film-editing
skills as a medium for documentation and conceptual artworks, to build
confidence in bringing people together through art. I would like to learn to
expand my ideas for a wider geographical reach, gaining experience in writing
proposals for funding and learning skills and methodologies for working in teams.
Work will be evaluated by reflecting
on sketchbooks and doing critiques, using appropriate questions that have come
out of the texts I have been reading independently as well as on the course and
discussing work with peers and project collaborators. Please see figure 3 on
page 6.
Bibliography:
Accidental collective (2013) Current projects and home page. At: http://www.accidentalcollective.co.uk/projects/pause
(accessed 16.03.13)
Allen,F. (2011). Education,
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Gallery.
Arts Admin (2013) Current
opportunities and services. At:
http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/opportunities
(Accessed 16.03.13.0
Augé,M. (2008) Non Places an introduction to supermodernity.
Verso
Becker,C. and Weins, A.(1994). The artist
in society, rights, roles and responsibilies. New Art Examiner Press.
Bishop,C. (2006). Participation, Documents in contemporary art.
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De Cauter, L. et al. (2011) Art and
Activism in the age of Globalization. NAi Publications
Doherty,C. (2009). Situation,
Documents of Contemporary Art. Whitechapel Art Gallery.
Encounters (2013) Current and past
community projects and contact details. At: http://www.encounters-arts.org.uk/
(Accessed 16.03.13)
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socially engaged art, a Material and techniques handbook. Jorge Pinto
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Hoggart Richard. (2013) The value of
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(accessed on 08.01.2013)
Kellein,T. (2010). Rirkrit Tiravanija
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curiosity. UCA Canterbury.
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Noble,R. Utopias, Documents of
Contemporary Art. Whitechapel Art Gallery.
Szewczyk,M. et al (2009). Meaning
Liam Gillick. The Mit Press.
Thompson,N. (2012) Living as form,
socially engaged art from 1991-2011. The Mit Press
(All images in authors
possesion)
Figure1 Saqui,K. (2011) first aid kit for emotional emergencies. P2
Figure2 Saqui,K. (2013) Jar of Paper Roll Mops. P2
Figure3 Critique in the Kirk studio (2013) p4
