Outcomes - Seminar 1
'Ambiguous Spaces 2' - Abstracts
Sue Prichard
Setting context - Delivering the V&A's Public Programme and Meeting
Strategic Objectives
Displaying Textiles in a Traditional Context: Short discussion re the
displays of 'In Context: the fortieth anniversary of the 62 group of
textile artists; Recent Acquisitions 1992-2002: A Decade of Collecting
Textiles; Concealed - Discovered - Revealed: Work by Sue Lawty
Conclusion - what next - the V&A's FuturePlan
Moira Stevenson
Collections, Creativity and Enterprise: The International Centre of Excellence
for Fashion and Textiles in Manchester
Manchester City Galleries, Manchester Metropolitan University and the
Creative Industries Development Service are in the process of developing
the concept for The International Centre of Excellence for Fashion/Textiles.
The three organisations are working with the Embroiderers' Guild and
other organisations related to textiles and fashion in the City to promote
and exploit the textile/fashion legacy for educational and economic benefit.
The presentation will explore the history of the project, the current
status and what we aim to achieve in the future.
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Melanie Miller
Melanie will introduce the Schiffli project, and also discuss ways in
which the MMU Embroidery Programme has collaborated with museums and
art galleries in the North West region.
Mechanical Drawing - the Schiffli project
The Schiffli machine is a fantastic, 100 year old multi-needle embroidery
machine capable of mechanically stitching repeat patterns or images
across a piece of cloth. Images are created by moving a pantograph,
so essentially the machine can be seen as a mechanical drawing machine.
Manchester Metropolitan University currently houses the last working
Schiffli machine in the UK. In order to highlight the creative possibilities
of this machine an exhibition of work created on this machine is being
organised.
The process of drawing is fundamental to the creative practice of a
range of disciplines, so rather than getting only textile practitioners
to exploit the potential of this machine, the creative process and exhibiting
opportunity has been opened up to practitioners from other subject specialism’s.
Initially staff from within MMU have been involved in creating work;
a funding bid is being prepared to enable artists from outside MMU to
access the machine.
The project fits in with the current vision of Manchester as a centre
of excellence in Fashion and Textiles; and with the historic heritage
of Manchester: the first company to mass-produce embroidery in the UK,
Henry Houldsworth, was established in Manchester in 1829.
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Helen Parrott
‘
Pure’ Practice? A personal view…
My presentation will explore the fundamental contrast between the essentially
private nature of studio based ‘pure’ arts practice and the
public consumption of the work by some kind of audience in some kind
of context. Curators and programmers seem to me to fulfil the role of
facilitator and guide in the crucial, but often fraught, process of getting
work to audiences.
I will explore some examples of work with curators, based on textiles,
drawn from my own practice and conclude by suggesting that my ideal is
a creative synergy between artwork/artist and curator/venue to reach
wide audiences. My aim is that the process of art making and consuming
enriches the experience of all involved. Inevitably, thus practice cannot
be ‘pure’. Like life it is gloriously complex and creative.
Introduction
I am approaching this seminar from the standpoint of a practitioner in
the textiles field and arts worker. I’ve done lots of things
in the arts; exhibiting, curating, development, artist led projects
and initiatives, funding, teaching, mentoring, training, managing,
consulting. All these activities are underpinned by a passion for art
practice, for myself, and for others. Alongside whatever else is going
on, I have made artworks and supported others to do so.
Practice
For the last fifteen years I have worked within the heritage of English
quilting, particularly the tradition of North Country quilting. My
practice is studio based, in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, within a purpose
built studio development, housing artists and makers across artforms.
Studio based practice is the way that I give form to my ideas and concerns.
These include the repetition of simple marks and stitches, the use of
ordinary materials. My preoccupation continues to be the way we live
and relate to each other and ourselves.
My own work seeks to relate to the experience of living now and the issues
of contemporary life, whilst blending this with the older and less transient
values of community and humanity.
It is in this inner, private world of the studio that deeper issues
are considered. The process of hand stitching often induces a meditative
state of mind that in turn leads to new insights. I wonder about how
I relate what I do to the times we live in? To Reiko’s quote about ‘weaving
the culture of our times’ ?
It is also in the solitude and privacy of the studio that the non-verbal,
tacit knowledge of textiles, the knowledge gathered and interwoven from
a lifetime of textiles and later years as a practitioner, has its space
and place . I value this too, although it is inevitably hard to express
in words, either spoken or written. There remains no substitute for the
specialness of what happens when stitch pierces and joins the three layers
usually considered to comprise a quilt. This sense of the whole being
more than the sum of its parts is another example of synergy.
Subsequent experience and practice have not dimmed the power of textiles
for me, or my commitment to my own art practice. Although when looked
at from an economic and rational viewpoint such activities make no sense,
I am addicted. So what is it that sustains my personal practice, carrying
on through thick and thin? What is the allure of these materials and
this history? Whose history is it? Whose culture? How important is the
cross-cultural, universal impact of textiles? Where does all this fit
with the changes in technology in textiles and other fields that we currently
have access to?
For example, the earlier symposium raised five questions. Of these the
ones that I particularly relate to are:
Is textile a language that crosses cultures? What common meanings do
we share?
The sense of history? An awareness of continuity
Audience
Whilst I evidently value the private world of studio- based practice,
artwork needs an audience to share it with. Exhibiting work, in whatever
form(s) and venue(s) to an audience is vital. The audience provides
feedback, new eyes and the possibility of new understandings. These
ideas and understandings, in turn, feed into future development.
This wider world can be nerve wracking; there are few feelings quite
like showing a body of new work to an audience for the first time, which
is where curators and programmers come in….
Curators and Programmers
Reflecting on the role of curators generally in linking the personal
and private with the public led me to see how their role is one of
bridging the inner and outer worlds. Their role is to translate between ‘languages’ and
facilitate of the process of art consumption. They provide guidance,
critique and much more. Curators are an essential part of the arts
infrastructure, alongside the galleries, venues, media and collections.
I looked back over my last sixteen years of making and showing. I found
several highly successful examples of synergy between artist and curator.
My first public exhibition was open to me because I lived within the
geographical area – the North – within which exhibitors were
eligible to submit work. This was the vision of the curator at the Shipley
Art Gallery who set up the show – ‘A Glory of Quilts’ in
1990. Helen Joseph facilitated my entry to this world of passion and
commitment. This is an example of a straightforward public mechanism
that disseminates the work of artists. The vision of the curator is carried
through in a public setting. The strongest relationship is between the
artist and the overall curatorial vision. Such open shows are a vital
part of allowing artists’ work public exposure.
At the other end of the complexity scale are artist-curator collaborations.
These mechanisms rely on strong relationships, often developed on previous
simpler, shorter projects to create collaborations that go beyond the
apparently simple divide between artist and curator. Such synergy creates
complex and exciting outcomes, often beyond the original specification,
often in pursuit of a wider social agenda. For example, more recently,
I led a project called Flowerpower on behalf of a consortium of Sheffield
Galleries and Museums Trust, residents of a local estate and funders.
We developed artworks to celebrate the centenary of the building of the
model Flower estate. The collaborative works were shown in the main gallery
as part of a national touring show called Flowerpower.
Conclusions – a work in progress
I see curators (and others with programming roles) as key agents in reaching
audiences. For me, the artwork is not complete until it has been shown.
Thus my relationship with curators is vital in getting my work and
ideas out from my own inner, studio world to the wide world and many
people who exist beyond my walls. At its best this is a deeply creative
experience involving many people and extending over many years. The
curator facilitates both the creation and consumption of artworks to
mutual and wider benefit. Thus, for me at least, there is no pure practice
carried out in isolation and unseen.
I’d like to end with a quote before posing you some questions:
Paul Allen in Art not Chance, the collection of Artists Diaries he edited,
writes that the diaries are ‘snapshots of what it is like to try
to make art in Britain now by people engaged in the daily struggle to
make things that haven’t been made before’.
I would like to take this chance to thank those curators who have supported
that daily struggle, accompanied me on my creative journey and given
generously of themselves and their time, in pursuit of the universal
human drive for creativity and self-expression.
Questions
How do others see the role of curators and programmers?
How have they worked together?
How can this relationship be developed to get more textiles work seen
and discussed?
References
Art, not chance: nine artists diaries. Ed. Paul Allen, (2001), Calouste
Gulbenkian Foundation, London.
Ideas in the Making: Practice in theory (1998), Ed Pamela Johnson, Crafts
Council, London
www.2121vision.com/breakout (27/11/05)
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Paul Harper
“
...sophisticated writing on textiles by figures like (Pamela) Johnson
and Sarat Marharaj has helped to give a context for equally sophisticated
work...”
Critical writing has the potential to shape practice into something
that is more easily written or talked about within it’s own conventions.
It tends to the belief that meaning is, first and foremost, something
that sentences have. That meaning is principally to be found in language,
in words contextualized in sentences.
The primary critical and theoretical focus in the crafts has become
the craft object as site of meaning and main area of significance. This
essentially literary approach regards the object as something to be 'read'.
I believe that this focus neglects those things that define craft as
intrinsically connected to the material world, to experience and to practice:
to actions, and to things. As well as the craft object and its meanings,
I want to consider the craftsperson's intimate connection to materials,
process, techniques, forms, and the traditions associated with these.
I also want to consider the context in which things are made and consumed.
At Farnham I would like to present the following questions for discussion:
• What is critical discourse for?
•
Is there is a dominant approach to critical discourse about Craft?
•
If so, is that discourse adequate or appropriate – which is to
say, are there things that fall outside of it’s scope?
•
If so, what might a more adequate or appropriate discourse include?
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