opportunities
COMMUNITIES UNDER CONSTRUCTION
increased co-operation, collaboration and trust .. leads to .. better opportunities, health, quality of life and neighbourliness*
CALL FOR ARTISTS
3 Artists’ residencies, each lasting approx. 6 months
Artists’ fee: £3,000
Production: £3,000
Plus travel expenses (within reason) and free accommodation in Wysing’s farmhouse
Artists’ profile: We are seeking artists’ with a track record of working contextually and/or with an interest in relational aesthetics (in a playful way!)
Deadline for expressions of interest: 23 May 2008
More info: donna.lynas@wysingartscentre.org
Wysing’s artistic programme:
From March 2008 Wysing Arts Centre will bring every aspect of its artistic activity under the umbrella title Communities under Construction. Wysing itself is a community under construction – a growing community of artists learning how to work together and support one another. Wysing is also located within an area of housing growth which is having, and will continue to have, a huge impact on the people who live here. Wysing feels well placed to provide a focus for some of the discussion and debate around the notion of community, and to play a part in contributing to a developing a healthy community.
Wysing wants to get the villages surrounding us working and playing together and with us. Communities under Construction is influenced by both Joseph Beuys’ writings on Social Sculpture and by writings of American academic Robert Putnam. Putnam refers to “the collective value of all social networks and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other”. His concept of social capital stresses the importance of social ties among communities, the central idea being that higher levels of social capital result in increased co-operation, collaboration and trust, hence better opportunities, health, quality of life and neighbourliness.
Through this project Wysing is seeking to raise levels of social capital, by developing experimental models of artistic activity and production. To do this we will be organising a series of residencies, each lasting 6 months, over a three year period.
Similar residencies at Wysing:
Last year three artists worked with a group people of Traveller origin. N55, who are based in Copenhagen, collaborated on developing a ‘Walking House’, which plays with issues surrounding Traveller lifestyle by providing sustainable housing that is always on the move and therefore outside any system. A life-size Walking House will come to Wysing during 2008.
Torange Khonsari of public works recently worked with Bourn village, the primary school, individuals whose families have lived in the area for generations and, crucially, landowners, to create maps showing disused and forgotten pathways around Bourn and to open up these paths for public use. The artists then built a temporary structure on a bridleway in Bourn village. The structure was a focal point for a series of walks in and around the local area which were led by people living in the villages, such as local landowners, key village families, and local historians. Public works’ piece was rooted in the ownership of rural land and has been developed in partnership with the people who will be leading the walks.
And recently Wysing set up a temporary space in a disused car showroom in one of Cambridge’s deprived residential neighbourhoods. During this period we ran a programme called Seja Marginal, Seja Heroi (Be Marginal, Be a Hero) and invited five artists’ collectives to respond to that title. The artists chosen were: Danger Museum (Oslo), i-cabin (London), La Culpable (Lima), Platoniq (Barcelona) and Mess Hall (Chicago). What was achieved with that project was a coherent programme of five individual parts, each the contributing to a total, which got a whole community motivated by art.
Communities under Construction has received funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Arts Council England East.
* Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community 2000