Tate Exchange: Come Together in a Time of Change 2019
Art is necessarily caught up in contemporary politics in many complex ways. Come Together invited the public to join forces, to ‘come together’ and consider how we might reflect on and tackle our current state of affairs. Below are some of the workshops that the students and staff from the Art Programme at Central Saint Martins created for a series of events in three zones: talking together, making together and playing together. These will include practical workshops, lectures, reading groups, film screenings and performances among others. Join in a wide range of practical activities which explore the many ways in which making and politics might intertwine.
A performance work by Teresa Zerafa Byrne, Laura Madeley , Margaux Derhy, and Abigail Zerafa Byrne, that looked at the validity of news headlines and how history is written by those documenting it. Can we rely on what we read? We encouraged members of the public to take part in three activities based on game shows, and to generate their own randomised news headlines; each participant walked away with their own Fake News page.
Artists have always responded to the political climate in which they exist. Art can critique, reflect, support or challenge the powers that be. The experimental approaches that many artists deploy are to challenge established systems of authority. But in today’s volatile political landscape, the role of the artist is an increasingly dangerous one. Across the world, artists have been arrested as a result of the political nature of their creative output – Pussy Riot, Ai Weiwei and Tania Bruguera to name a few. In the UK, visas for international artists are becoming more and more difficult to secure. In schools, politics is challenging our creative faculties from the inside out, favouring STEM subjects over art and design.
Art Crit 2019
Our group was made up of alumni / current students to discuss how important it was to have critiques within the framework of art education. Please click on the link below for the film of January 2019, the film was published in July 2020
Above image: Rose Leventon talking in the critAbove image: Ana Catarina Pereira talking in the critAbove image: Alexandra Harley talking in the critAbove image: Claire Mc Dermott talking in the critAbove image: Ana Catarina Pereira and a member of the public talking in the crit about his work
Big thanks from Claire to all the above artist who made this Art Crit 2019 happen. Special thanks to Rose Leventon who started the ball rolling by agreeing to take part in this event. Warm thanks to Ana Catarina Pereira and Wini Pritchett for the planning of the event and for the photographs taken by Alexandra Harley and Ana’s friend. Graphic design, coordinator of the event and the fundraising were made by Claire Mc Dermott. A great film that topped off the event with co edits by Wini Pritchett and produced by Declan Slattery.
After discussion over the Christmas holidays, we settled on an approach which would invite participants to co-create a work with us by creating an artwork after Andy Warhol – bold colours & repetition. Research brought us to Macaws, which I had seen in the Peruvian jungle when I visited to study fresh-water river dolphins in 2000 and to Brazil, where the recent swearing in of new President Jair Bolsonaro – who is committed to cutting down rainforest for agriculture – is causing huge concern.
So we worked on a macaw-based work which was displayed A0 size at the workshop and which we had cut up into 90 pieces. We asked participants to vote on the relative importance of the democratic process which had led to Bolsonaro’s election and the inherent rights of Nature and indigenous peoples. And we offered them the opportunity to interpret their piece of the work on a paper-covered tile four times its size.
Originally scheduled for three hours on Saturday 19th January, popular demand ensured a five hour stint. 95 people contributed to the re-made work which was finally finished! The enthusiasm, concentration and talent of participants ranging in age from one to seventy was tremendous and we plan to extend the work at other venues, hoping to display the finished artwork in a public venue later this year.
A totally engaging experience from start to finish, we were delighted with the result. Oh, and the final vote? 42 for the democratic process and 91 for the rights on nature and indigenous people!