The work of Prosper, a
programme commissioned by Canterbury Festival and funded by the Arts Council of
England which was designed to encourage cultural and social development through
the arts in East Kent in South East England. The report focuses in particular
on the second and final ‘Adventure’ phase of 5 multi-agency initiatives:
Underground Pearl, Singing Windows, Moving Well, The Student Makers Market and
White Horses Whitstable.
The programme was
designed and delivered by The Map Consortium alongside Workers of Art, a
community interest company based in East Kent, working in partnership with
commissioning agency, Canterbury Festival. Shakespeare’s The Tempest was a
significant point of reference and inspiration for the programme’s steering
partners, reflecting their histories of working with the arts on events and
programmes of social change the work of Prosper, a programme commissioned by
Canterbury Festival and funded by the Arts Council of England which was
designed to encourage cultural and social development through the arts in East
Kent in South East England. The report focuses in particular on the second and
final ‘Adventure’ phase of 5 multi-agency initiatives: Underground Pearl,
Singing Windows, Moving Well, The Student Makers Market and White Horses
Whitstable.
The programme was
designed and delivered by The Map Consortium alongside Workers of Art, a
community interest company based in East Kent, working in partnership with
commissioning agency, Canterbury Festival. Shakespeare’s The Tempest was a
significant point of reference and inspiration for the programme’s steering
partners, reflecting their histories of working with the arts on events and
programmes of social change.
In the
first ‘Experiment’ phase of the programme (September 2012 to March 2013) 13
partnerships involving at least one artist or arts organisation were awarded
small grants of up to £5,000 to research, plan and carry out a practical
experiment that explored unlikely connections in 3 areas of enquiry:
• Social
Change – how collaboration might make a difference to ways in which communities
are shaped and potentially transformed
• Place
– how collaboration can shift or encourage different understandings, or
connections to a place
• Interdisciplinary Work – how
collaboration between artists from different disciplines can develop new skills
and thinking working with professionals from other sectors.
1. An
initial locally-focused and personally-bridged recruitment effort led by the
Prosper Team: the Map Consortium and Workers of Art.
2. The creation of a network of
collaborators.
3.
A carefully calibrated set of conditions and criteria
for participation to establish diverse collaborations and encourage experiment,
risk, ownership and sustainability.
4.
A programme of Creative Labs to support the development of
practice and the cross-fertilisation of ideas and opportunities.
5.
Support through individual contact with The Map
Consortium and Workers of Art and mentoring from professionals with expert
knowledge relevant to each Adventure.
6.
Support from the Canterbury Festival, as a key
regional strategic organisation providing advice on further development and
profiling Prosper work through 2013 Festival events
2
An
initial experiment was led by Katryn Saqui, an artist based in Deal, and a
local fisherman, Nigel Clements. It explored ways of collaborating with Deal’s
dwindling fishing fleet and making connections between the community, fishermen
and the town’s artists. The partnership worked with the enquiry questions:
• Are these the last fishermen?
• Can artists have a presence in a town
with no contemporary gallery?
The
questions were used to shape conversations in events titled ‘in and out of
place’, that explored polarities between the diminishing fishing industry and
the artists of Deal to explore ideas of belonging. Adventure funding allowed
partners to continue to challenge separations and disconnectedness in their
community.
‘Cast
from the solitude of our studios and fishing boats, we are lured to the beach.
Our paint brushes, canvases and nets have been tossed to the economic storm and
swept under the rocks. The gift of the ebb tide was the discovery of the
poetics of our coastline, Prosper, Canterbury Festival and the UCA MA
Fine Art. They have reeled us out of metaphorical sinking sand and into a fresh
changing tide that turned in February 2013. It shifted our artistic direction,
materials and solitude to a new and unfamiliar ‘CURRENSEA’ (meaning: new
perspectives, roaring opportunities, continual stream of collaborations, a
gentle flow of friendships and oceanic inspiration to equip us to keep moving
forward and negotiate future storms). This is one way contemporary artists can
survive in a town with no contemporary gallery space. We are in constant flux
with projects and fluid with creativity and curiosity. In this way Underground
Pearl is connected to the tides of its mystical coastal past and is shaping a
new contemporary horizon’.
Kate Saqui.
Adventure
Partners
In the Adventure phase, artist Kati Saqui
continued her collaboration with new partner artist Loren Beven with the
initial goal of creating a fish ‘stall’ that would develop the partners’
previous curated conversations with a broader net of partners to explore ideas
of sustainability and change. The Adventure, though smaller in scale than
others, expanded in ambition as it attracted new partners and has had
far-reaching impacts, particularly in relation to a legacy of new commissions
for the original Adventure Partners. Many additional local partners were
involved in contributing to events, including an art salon and beach cinema.
Partners did not employ an additional evaluator but experimented instead with a
range of creative evaluation tools. This Adventure also illustrates how an
inspirational idea for an artistic intervention can lead to a new model of
consultation and relationship between a local council and its community.
Adventure partnership collaborators: Dr. Terry
Perk UCA, Art Salon leader, Martine Brown, actor, Tom Rowland, journalist,
local historian and boat owner, Barbara Salter, donor of screen (in-kind gift),
Colin Priest, Architect from Chelsea Arts School, Danny Burrows, photographer,
Matthew Sharp, Artistic Director, Deal Music Festival, Peter Stange, loan of
Orkney Spinner boat for cinema, Andy Burrows, local fisherman and historian,
Carolle Ford, Sea Café chef, Rachel Wolf, artist who documented events, Nigel
Clements, fisherman and Michael Tyburski, film director. Clare Smith and Joanna
Jones of Dover Arts Development, Wendy Daws, artist, Päivi Seppälä of LV21,
Kent Autistic Trust, Deal Parochial School, Castle Community College, 20
schools in Medway on the INSPRE programme, Strange Cargo, UCA art foundation
student, Wendy Bagley, Greenpeace.
Activities
Adventure discussions focused on the
potential of the locality and the beach, in particular, to act as a centre for
community engagement. Activities included:
A Beach cinema. In September 2013, a Cine
Boat event was created through an interactive sculpture that created awareness
of Deal’s shrimping heritage. Further research was carried out through the use
of jars and a series of encounters to ask questions about art in the area and
future possibilities. A two seat Cine Boat, an Orkney Spinner, generated
further interest in the possibilities of the sea with a screening of the film Angel
Fish , directed by Michael Tyburski, about the overview effect which
sailors get at sea, experiencing euphoria prompted by seemingly limitless
horizons.
Underground Pearl’s
art intervention ‘Rise of the Renegade’ used 2000 glow sticks to magically
illuminated Deal Festival’s staging of ‘Britten on the Beach’, a storytelling
and musical event taking place in and around beach huts and boats at Walmer.
This intervention commemorated the event in 1814 when William Pitt the Younger
ordered the burning of the boats on Walmer beach to suppress the smuggling
trade.
Art Salon. Underground Pearl hosted its first art salon in June 2013 in a boat on
Walmer beach. Led by Dr. Terry Perk, course leader, M.A. Fine Art at the
University for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, the salon generated new
perspectives of enquiry through an exploration of the poetics of the boat in
relation to technology, geography and site.
Additional Partnerships. As an extra event, the Adventure partners, Katie Saqui and Loren
visited the École Supérieure d’Art et Dessin for a talk on Underground Pearl
for 124 students. The opportunity arose through the artists’ MA studies at the
University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury. The visit led to opportunities to
connect with other local artists and has also led to further exchange visits
between the universities with potential for further collaboration and exchange.
As artists, the Adventure partners
experimented with different means to gather data creatively as an ‘illustrated
mapping’. The cine-boat was conceived of as a cultural laboratory which
involved both cinema and conversation and ways to record visitors’ views and
responses to questions. They used, for example, jars with titles on them.
People could place pebbles in them to indicate what they would like to see
happening in Deal. These creative consultation tools provided information that
shaped planning for interventions. Data gathered was used also as part of a
formative assessment process as to the impacts of activities but the methods
chosen precluded wider analysis of long-term social benefits.
Underground Pearl’s vision of collaboration
is strongly rooted in their artistic practice and ways in which this
facilitates new connections between place and community. Situating artwork and
events on the beach was identified by the Adventure Partners as a significant
contributor to increasing interest and engagement from the local community.
Adventure
Partners also see huge potential in the way the council has responded
imaginatively to the artists’ work as a means to bridge the gap between the
council and the wider community: ‘they like our nutty ideas’.
‘Connecting
history and contemporary art through casting a light on it... we’re
illuminating the two, merging the two with light...’
‘The
realisation of the power of collaboration has been very significant, working on
the beach creates lots of curiosity and interest, people want to get involved
when they find out what we are doing – bridging the gap between council and
community, this is what working on the beach gives us’.
‘We felt the need to play with light as a signature...The
Burning of the Boats had massive strength in winning commissions. We never
envisaged that....’
DAD lantern procession images.
Building
Cultural Capacity Conversations, Commissions and Legacy.
‘we’ve had small audiences but it has had a massive impact in
other ways... It will be a slow growing thing... we had to build that up....
‘we’re used to working in our studios and going to suddenly doing something we
can’t possibly do on our own. That’s an adjustment...’ Katryn Saqui
Image of DPS
The trajectory of the
Adventure has demonstrated how low-key interventions create opportunities for
conversation, exchange of ideas and raising awareness. The situation of events
on the beach provided a point of connection between the community, its location
and its history encouraging new perspectives on how these connections could be
revived. These processes were also shaped by the innovation of the event
delivery. The prominence and boldness of the Burning Boats event, for example,
was a key catalyst in generating interest in Underground Pearl which led
directly to further commissions, including:
•
Dover Arts Development. As part of their Nautical
Threads project, Underground Pearl has illuminated a street procession,
co-ordinated the event and run school workshops about the project.
•
Walmer Council has also commissioned 2 projects:
i.
An Environmental Consultation week, ‘surveying litter as a social art project’
to encourage different ways of dealing with litter
ii.
Installations accompanied by workshops designed to prepare young people to
engage in ways of preparing funding applications.
•
LV21. Working with the new Gillingham-based arts
organisation based on a former lightship, Underground Pearl are running 5 mini-residency
days, working with Kent Autistic Trust and local artist Wendy Dawes
• Other enquiries are in
progress with the North Kent Sports Programme and with the Trinity House
Goodwin Sands project and the Cheriton Trust
• The company is also applying
for an ACE development grant.
Building Cultural
Capacity. Exponential growth in attracting additional partners and commissions.
The
increased scale of interventions has continued to be led by a key driver
identified in our Interim report: the role of bold, innovative arts practice in
‘disrupting’ social spaces to provoke community reaction and engagement. The
novelty and ‘otherness’ of the artists’ installation and activity have acted as
catalysts to seed new conversations and relationships with councils and other
agencies, leading to gains in commissions for participating arts organisations.
Site-specific work at the heart of
Adventure interventions. Creating
audience encounters on the beach, as a new site of social interaction, has been
a notable successful element of 2 Adventures. The Singing Windows Adventure has
also demonstrated the capacity.
Interdisciplinary work
and collaboration as an instrument of social change. Cross-disciplinary
experiment has remained central to Adventure Activity. The increasing role of
local councils and universities in the Adventures has generated strong future
development routes to explore the potential and challenges for arts-led social change
and collaboration
Collaboration. Reflection on the ‘how’ of constructing cross-disciplinary
Adventures has been a central theme of the Labs that have accompanied the
Adventures (facilitated by The MAP Consortium with Workers of Art). This
summary of the final Lab discussion focuses, as a conclusion on this key area,
on the discoveries of collaborative practice that Adventure partners identified
as important to pass on into future practice and others engaged in this work.
Summary
of Prosper Final Lab Reflections
It’s shown the importance of playfulness as a social tool, as an
important ingredient to engage new audiences in conversation and the need to...
Being around people you wouldn’t normally be around.
Moving from always ‘doing’ to teaching and sharing with others.
Creating opportunity to work across different backgrounds and
practices.
Income generation – moving from being unemployed to self
employed.
‘Through collaborative arts, we have found the potential to
bring revenue streams in’.
Place – conserving traditional skills, language, values by
showing them in new ways.
As a fundamental aspect of collaborative
work between widely-varying partners, the concept of experimentation was
identified as a vital component in building a shared ethos:
•
Shifting preconceptions
•
The concept of ‘Experiment freeing us from expectations’
•
the value of putting equal merit on different
perspectives on activity, ‘you can collaborate and still be independent’
•
Creating a centre of gravity that others got pulled into
•
Building a sense of the collective
•
Endurance – having to get something tangible in front of
people before they understand enough to step in
•
Being asked to reflect brought rigour, it could have
just been free play... academics also brought rigour and a helpful tension.
•
Staying open to communicating outward, allowing people
to come into the process, avoiding preciousness
• ‘There have been pleasant
surprises, generosity, people coming forward.
‘It’s
important for artists to focus both on relationships as much as process and
also on the small steps that allow things to evolve in ways other than
‘end-gaming grand schemes’. MAP Consortium.
The legacy of Prosper is:
•
‘A new sense of aesthetic and process around arts and
‘change’ work and the border lines between public art and participative art’
•
A new approach to ‘growing cultural capacity’ - an
understanding of a process that can deliver it in lasting ways
• New practice / approach to
thinking and processes for artists, institutions, organisations and communities
