Conversations Series I – OutsiderXchanges
OutsiderXchanges is a collaborative visual arts project evolving from Venture Arts in partnership with Castlefield Gallery and BALTIC Mill – Gateshead. Supported by Arts Council England, OutsiderXchanges will bring together learning disabled and non-learning disabled artists to explore collaborative practice and create new work.
Sara Jaspen, Corridor8, reviewed OutsiderXchanges take over at The Whitworth Thursday Lates event on the 3rd of November. Read her article here:
http://www.corridor8.co.uk/online/article-outsiderxchanges-overview/
We sat with Horace Lindzey, one of our OutsiderXchangeS artists to find out a little bit more about his work and his experiences on the OutsiderXchangeS project.
Horace what have you been working on during the project?
“I’ve been working on a big book which shows a lot of things I’m interested in also the different types of people that interest me. One of the main things I’ve been making art around is my old school, a school called Cambrian school.
In my book I’ve brought together a collage of new and old pictures of different schools, but also showing different people’s schools as well. For example I’ve got pictures of Tanya’s school and my mum’s school which was Webster School near Denmark Road.
Horace a lot of your work seems to focus on your school days and places. Is there any reason for this?
“My school days were good, I also went to Whitworth. This was back in 1977. I was really happy in school and I always think back to my time there. Especially the teachers who aren’t there now, but it is a long time ago.”
I see food and people celebrating features quite a lot as well?
“Seeing pictures of people out enjoying themselves I like very much, so I’ve collected them all in a collage. Food I really like because there are certain foods I’m unable to eat because of diabetes. So foods like Christmas and fruit cake and finding out if people eat them I like to find out. So I ask people questions about food as well. “
So you’ve taken those questions to the next level working with Juliet and you’ve been conducting a number of interviews?
“Yes I’ve been interviewing lots of people. I’ve been asking them a lot of questions about their schools and weddings. Juliet has been recording them and then we’ve asked them to build their old school out of wooden sticks. That was good to watch.
Also working with Juliet and Sophie I’ve visited my old school and interviewed staff and I also made them both wait till a train came through the local railway bridge. It was very exciting
I’ve also been making art with Rosanne and we broke up old records and made bits of art with them. I quite like this piece of work because I love music and vinyl. Although it is strange, but felt good, to cut up old records.
I’ve enjoyed the work with Rosanne the most because it has included records but the work with Juliet and Sophie has really got me excited as well.”
Going back to your artist book there looks like there’s a style developing there?
“There is an artist called Peter Blake who James introduced me to. I like the way he takes images and cuts out people and then turns this into his own art. So I’ve done the same. I’ve made art of Last of the Summer Wine, people with spectacles on, people from television history, comedy – like Eric Morecombe and soaps – I very much like Rudolph Walker (Patrick from Eastenders). Using these characters takes me right back to watching television when I was young. But I’ve also used complete strangers and shapes with abstract art, or flowers and body shapes. I’ve even started to use pictures from these workshops we all do on a Wednesday.
So my collaboration has brought about some good art but my little book is like a mini book exhibition about what I like and what work I’m doing now. I’ve curated what goes on each page.
The work I’m proud of the most includes the pictures we captured of the freight train near my old school, the work that’s come from the visits to my old school and of course my book. When we have exhibitions of the project I will feel proud to tell people “I made that”.
During her time on the OutsiderXchangeS project three things have inspired Sarah: Architecture, Sketching and Fashion.
Sarah constantly sketches the world around her and has a huge passion for the buildings around us in the North West.
“I like to take the tram or bus rides across the region to look at buildings. Recently Wythenshawe Hall had a large fire and I took the structure of the building as inspiration for a collection of clay sculptures. These included the roof, the fireplace and other parts of the building.”
Sarah begins her creative explorations by sketching these buildings or particular details of the buildings:
“I like buildings and like to draw parts of them. Sometimes I’m trying to find some unusal features in a building so I can capture that in a sketch. I’ve explored bridges in Altrincham, Errwood Hall and Wythenshawe Hall, buildings within central Manchester and lots of places that I come across on my journeys. I just sketch them in to my little blue book, to start with these are just little scribbles and what not and then I transpose them into more physical pieces of art, like the clay work I’ve done and currently as part of the leaf clothing on the model dress I’m making.”
Alongside the clay sculptures Sarah has also been sketching and designing a dress full of artistic flare. The dress has a leaf design within its tailoring and Sarah came up with the idea to merge the two explorations of her work recently – her fashion designs and building sketching. Sarah has now begun to move her sketches of buildings onto tiny leaf fabric and adding them to the small model dress she is constructing. Resulting in each part of the dress being connected to a place and a history. Bringing sketching, architecture and fashion together as one.
2016 Jan – Feb Workshops – Reflections from Glen
As the new year of 2016 commenced our Venture Arts artists returned to their workshop space in Hulme. Every Wednesday our five artists – Barry, Sarah, Lesley, David and Horace – have the space and time to explore ‘their art’. Tanya and James – our lead artists and facilitators of the sessions – oversee and suggest different techniques, media and ways forward with their work. I pop in to the sessions at least once a day to explore what the artists are working on and to see how their work develops from week to week. Having this unique insight into their artistic journey I feel very privileged. It’s not often you get to see an artist grow week after week and I get the chance to see five artists grow into their work and their work become so individual.
This way of working for most of the artists can be quite new for them. Within Venture Arts a lot of the artwork produced is workshop led. So the finished product and the content of the artwork is very individual and of a very high quality the starting point of their work doesn’t necessarily come directly from the artist.
With OutsiderXchangeS the work produced comes truly from the artist, with no time pressures or group pressures. Because of that we are seeing our five artists starting to produce work of an even higher quality than they have in the past.
Over the past two months we have engaged with artists across the North of England all of whom had shown an interest in collaborating on the OutsiderXchangeS project. We now have 5 artists who are joining us on that journey in Manchester in our dedicated artist studios in Chorlton and one artist who will be collaborating in Newcastle in our tandem project with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. All artists will be coming together to start collaborating by the end of March till August, and we will introduce you to each of them in the coming weeks.
But looking at some of the work already produced by our Venture Arts based artists the artwork that will be produced in the next few months, through collaboration (that collaboration facilitated by Tanya and James), should be really exciting. I know personally I can’t wait to see what’s produced and I’ll be keeping you up to date here with their progress.
From next week I’ll be posting updates on how each Venture Arts based artist has developed their work in the past four months. But in the gallery below you can see a few examples of the artists work.
Coming up soon:
Artist Profiles
Full artists studio collaboration updates
Newcastle Updates
and more…
As lead artist on Venture Arts OutsiderXchanges studio project my initial first thoughts were about finding inclusive ways of connecting with the artists as practitioners in their own right. To explore their themes and artistic practices with them that is driven by learning disability art and cultural identity. This has proven to be a natural road to follow. All of the artists, as you can see from the blog posts so far, are developing their own ideas, exploring materials and developing there own unique techniques. This seems to have grown very quickly and organically in a very short time.
Our staring point was about exploring our identities as people, as artists and the relationship we had with the new space. Everyone soon claimed their space in the studio and set about making and thinking about their own art.
The studio really does feel like a hub of artistic thought and ideas beginning to flow, artist centered and artist led. Our studio practice is very much like embedded in the culture and practice of a supported studio. We have James Pollitt from Venture Arts, an art tutor who has a great foundation and background knowledge into the artists past work, working practices and communication. James directly facilitates the artists in their arts practices as and when they need it. Glen is our photographer, blogger and has been named Grip the Runner Man in case we need a hand in the studio and I have Jackie Cooley who is my personal artist assistant and she supports me to access my working arts practices when collaborating with the other artists.
As the artists are now working on their own individual ideas I am able to begin to stand back and reflect on how I might develop collaborations between the artists, myself and the non disabled artists that will be joining us later this year.
With each artist I’m very interested in exploring verbal and non-verbal collaborative processes to develop new work of my own that explores learning disability art aesthetic, cultural identity and inclusive practice.
I have just begun to do this with Horace. With Horace I’ve began to explore our shared experiences of childhood memories of school and childhood. Horace recalls experiences he’s had in an almost per formative way, taking on the physicality and characterisations of the people he speaks about, asking questions that he already has the answers to, whilst expecting you to know the correct answer. His recollections have an almost docudrama feel to them. When Horace is interviewing you it’s like you are the first to have been asked these questions. Making you, the interviewee, and feel very important. For me Horace’s stories are extremely lucid, totally reflective of a disability cultural identity and very real and for me our collaboration will inform a series of paintings about illustrating these types of memories whilst in the studio. We worked together on some pictorial ideas for this, which we filmed.
And this was just for starters so I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens next.
Tanya Raabe-Webber Lead Artist
Don’t forget you can join the artists on their journey by applying to be a collaborator on the project.
We are looking for 4 interested artist to join our Manchester based artists over a five month period and in return they will be given a free artists space for the duration of the workshops and we are also looking for one artist to collaborate with a learning disabled artist based at Baltic 39.
More details can be found here: OutsiderXchangeS Collaboration.
The OutsiderXchangeS project is already a month old. During the past month our five artists – Barry, Sarah, David, Horace and Lesley – have been hugely focused on developing their own individual art form and skills.
The OutsiderXchangeS artists will now take a short break for the festive period but will return on the 5th January to continue their artistic explorations.
Don’t forget you can join the artists on their journey by applying to be a collaborator on the project.
We are looking for 4 interested artist to join our Manchester based artists over a five month period and in return they will be given a free artists space for the duration of the workshops and we are also looking for one artist to collaborate with a learning disabled artist based at Baltic 39.
More details can be found here: OutsiderXchangeS Collaboration.
Want to join our artists? Want to be involved in a collaborative process? Want to be involved in a ground breaking project? An artist based in Manchester and Newcastle areas and want a free art studio space for 5 months? Find out how you can be involved by visiting: Artist Submission.
The deadline is 8th January.
The second week of the OutsiderXchangeS project and our artists: Lesley, Sarah, Barry, David and Horace continued to experiment with their artistic explorations which included the local community, superheroes, space exploration, Bronte country and stories.
Horace experimenting with paper cutting.
David exploring with pastels and space.
Sarah experimenting with pencil and Bronte country.
Lesley exploring pencil and pen drawing using superheroes and figurines as inspiration.
Barry exploring text art and a story about working with old Coronation Street stars and a trip to Wales.
Want to join our artists? Want to be involved in a collaborative process? Want to be involved in a ground breaking project? An artist based in Manchester and Newcastle areas and want a free art studio space for 5 months? Find out how you can be involved by visiting: Artist Submission.
The deadline is 8th January.
Venture Arts are seeking expressions of interest from visual artists who would like to be considered to engage with the OutsiderXchangeS project.
OutsiderXchangeS is an exciting, experimental, collaborative visual arts project that will bring together learning disabled and non-learning disabled artists to develop shared ideas and new contemporary work.
Venture Arts is working in partnership with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester and the Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN) to deliver OutsiderXchanges.
Lead organisation Venture Arts are now seeking expressions of interest from visual artists who would like to be considered to engage with the OutsiderXchangeS project.
OutsiderXchangeS came about to develop the talents and profile of learning-disabled artists and also to investigate the potential to make new, interesting, challenging work through visual artist ideas exchange and real collaboration.
Venture Arts are looking for 5 artists to work alongside 5 learning disabled artists to develop ideas, share practice and, through collaboration, develop contemporary art. The partnership is particularly keen that this initiative creates an opportunity for both learning disabled and non-learning disabled artists to share an interactive workspace, for their own work and the potential for collaborations.
Acclaimed disability artist Tanya Raabe-Webber will work with all the artists involved focusing on assisting in the collaborative process with all artists, as well as developing her own work throughout the project. The intention of the project is that the work will be shown on a number of platforms so we are particularly interested in hearing from artists who use a range of media in their work.
All successful artists will receive £1000 artist bursary and given a free studio space for five months (February – July 2016) coming together for 1-2 day(s) per week to share their studio with a learning disabled artist involved in the project. The bursary is intended for artists to use in the production of their own work.
The project and art created will be showcased by Venture Arts, Castlefield Gallery and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, following the residencies in Autumn 2016.
WHAT VENTURE ARTS ARE LOOKING FOR:
The work will be made in Manchester and in Newcastle Gateshead so we are looking for 4 Manchester based artists and 1 Newcastle Gateshead based artist. Manchester based artists will work from a central studio location in Manchester and the Newcastle Gateshead based artist will be at BALTIC 39, Newcastle.
APPLICATION PROCESS
Please e-mail your expression of interest to amanda@venturearts.org
Deadline: 08 January 2016 Interviews: W.C. 18 January 2016
Please include the following in your expression of interest:
FURTHER INFORMATION
Contact Amanda Sutton for any further inquiries you have regarding the project or the application process.
E-mail amanda@venturearts.org
Tel: 0161 232 1223
Venture Arts
43 Old Birley Street
Manchester, M15 5RF
* In the interest of better communication, the partnership led by Venture Arts, with Castlefield Gallery and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead would like to further clarify the OutsiderXchangeS project.
The partnership planned this project to be a professional development opportunity for both learning disabled and non-learning disabled artists.
For learning disabled artists this is an opportunity to work alongside other artists, one or two days per week when they will use the shared studio as a drop in studio. Learning disabled artists will not be based there at other times. For other artists, this will be an opportunity to interact with learning disabled artists. The open call is intended to attract artists who want to learn from learning disabled artists and the exciting field of learning disability visual art practice.
The selected artists will have their own free studio space for 5 months, which will be adjacent to or adjoining the shared studio space. The studios will be at Baltic 39, Newcastle and project spaces run by Castlefield Gallery in Manchester. Artists will not be expected to lead or run workshops, or support learning disabled artists. That is the expertise and responsibility of Venture Arts. The idea is to create a platform for collaboration to take place between artists. We envisage that all artists involved in the project will be inspired by each others practice in creating work. The £1,000 bursary is to support artists in their own practice.
The partnership is led by Venture Arts, who has been working in visual arts with learning disabled people since 1985. Venture Arts is a small charitable organisation that works from Manchester with learning disabled artists.
Venture Arts has selected 5 learning disabled artists to work in the shared studio space, once or twice a week. They will be accompanied by lead project artist Tanya Raabe-Webber and experienced artist mentors. This project aims develop the work of talented learning disabled artists, through giving them the opportunity to work in a professional artist space alongside other artists. *
Venture Arts is charitable Community Benefit society (No. 28604R) working in visual arts with learning disabled people since 1985. Our vision is for learning disabled people to be valuable contributors to our culture as artists, workers, participants and audiences. Venture Arts is a visual arts organisation that develops the creative talents and career opportunities of learning disabled people. Web address: www.venturearts.org
Castlefield Gallery (CG) Founded in 1984, CG is one of Northern England’s most active and successful organisations/agencies for developing emerging contemporary artists and practice. Its ambitious curated exhibitions programme responds to national and international trends, promoting artists at key stages of their careers, including subsequent Turner Prize nominees/winners and exhibitors at international festivals. Central to CG’s activities is an artist development programme including the CG Associates members scheme and the recently launched New Art Spaces. CG’s vision is for the North to be where artists can develop work of international standing. Its mission is to nurture talent, explore cultural trends and deepen audience’s relationship to contemporary art. Web address: www.castlefieldgallery.co.uk
BALTIC is a major international centre for contemporary art situated on the south bank of the River Tyne in Gateshead, England and has welcomed over 6 million visitors since opening to the public in July 2002. BALTIC presents a distinctive and ambitious programme of exhibitions and events, and is a world leader in the presentation and commissioning of contemporary visual art. Housed in a landmark ex-industrial building, BALTIC consists of 2,600 square metres of art space, making it the UK’s largest dedicated contemporary art institution. Web address: www.balticmill.com | www.baltic39.com
The Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN) represents and supports a diverse and vibrant visual arts ecology, embracing a broad range of artistic and curatorial practice across the nine English regions. CVAN’s ultimate goal is to nurture contemporary visual artists and organisations in order to produce internationally regarded, critically engaged work that is valued by our society. Web address: www.cvan.org.uk
Conversations Series I - OutsiderXchanges 