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Collaborative Study on Partially-Sighted Philanthropic Gestures (working model)
A collaboration with Barry Sykes, includes: 100euro's worth of furniture bought from Vaasa prison workshop (modified), a drawing of
Vaasa made from imagination and a brief email description and a 50 page transcription of an email discussion between the two artists.
An extract from the text is repeated below:
15 October 2007
Hello Sebastian
Good to catch up with you again on Sunday, I was very interested to
hear more about how you run i-cabin and was good to talk through my
work with you.
My website (see below) is now updated with the recent forgery project
I was telling you about. If you are interested in what I am up to it
would
be great to meet up in the future to talk through how things are
going.
I'm currently working on a couple of new projects, one with a gallery
where my proposal consists of the question 'How can I be of use to
you?', I am also designing a large charity donation box sculpture for
'unpopular' charities and series of drawings for a hypothetical £1.23
coin.
Any questions just ask away.
regards
Barry Sykes
www.barrysykes.info
+44(0)7951039663
9 January 2008
Lewis Amar and Jemima Stehli : Video Works 2005 & 2006
Opening Party - Wednesday Jan 16th 6-9pm
January 17th - February 3rd
Thursday - Sunday 12.00 - 6.00pm
i-cabin, Clarendon Buildings, 11 Ronalds Road, London, N5 1XJ
07813 764 937. www.i-cabin.co.uk
NEAREST TUBE: Highbury and Islington
10 January 2008
Hello Seb It's a shame I can't make this as it would be good to catch up with you, as well as Lewis and Jemima. I'm out of the country until very late that night but will try and get along to see the show the following weekend, will you be there? I'm off to Finland for a residency on Feb 1st and it would be good to talk my plans through with you. Good luck for the opening. Barry Sykes www.barrysykes.info +44(0)7951039663
10 January 2008
Hey Barry,
i'm here all the time happily!
come by will be excellent to chat
seb
20 January 2008 ,
Hi Barry,
it was great to talk yesterday, I've been thinking a bit about the collaboration and I've been pondering the possibility of our considering 'importance' as a theme.
As I said I've been trying to shift the scope of the i-cabin offsite projects mainly becuase I was worried about the importance of the peramiters of the projects I was doing.
There's two projects which really led to this change of heart.
The first (which was the second offsite project i-cabin authored) was Cabin Baggage, for Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in NY. (http://www.i-cabin.co.uk/icabsatellites.htm). For this we built a wooden crate which was the exact dimensions of the cabin baggage allowance for the American Airlines flight we were taking to NY. We then commissioned a range of artworks from artists who we considered important to the history of i-cabin, all the works were designed to fit within the case. Some of the artists were what I call 'project artists' and made new works in response to the project and others made more of a simple miniaturization of their works for us. The result was a kind if micro-museum of i-cabin, which had obvious similarities to Duchamp's 'Boite en Valise'.
The second was Z006, where we commissioned a group of artists, writers, musicians and an ex-gallerist to make a works for a book, which we then turned into a set of posters to be sold at Zoo Art Fair. The edition was limited to the number which sold at the fair, i.e. if two sold the edition would be of two or if fifty sold...etc. Therefore by buying a copy the purchaser was raising the edition number, therefore lowering the value of the work. With regards to this project it was really the sale strategy which made up the interesting part of the piece.
Now both works were really beautiful and I am really proud of them, they function almost exactly in the way I like artworks to function, i.e. they are, in my mind, almost perfect artworks! However I began to doubt the importance of commissioning work to what I came to think of as a type of almost arbitrary brief. By doing so, were we ending up with a piece of work from an artist which was just contaminated with our brief for it's own sake? What the hell is the point in that? As we were saying, is it just that collaboration is 'what artists do' and that it is inherently good, it seems to justify itself just because there's an 'exchange' which must be good eh??
So the fourth offsite project is 'What is it?' which is a film, footage of artists talking. I decided it was far sounder to collect a set of 'important'(?)(I hoped) ideas without my having any useless input into the physical outcome of a work. My thinking is that artworks are more often than not completely pathetic playful attempts to reference ideas (often someone else's) simply because the artist 'likes' the idea ( as per C. etc) and because the game of 'being an artist' is is completely vain. I am ruthlessly critical of 'non-importance'!
(So I have some hideous ideas for works which are simply philanthropic gestures which would be documented or in some way exhibited, which is obviously precisely for my own vanity, but at least the action of the work itself would be vaguely justifiable as 'important' if one believes, sickeningly, that 'helping' people (to get what they want?) is important).
Would you be interested in our working together to somehow specify an importance, either within Art of outside of it?
Just an idea.
Seb
i-cabin, Clarendon Buildings, 11 Ronalds Road, London, N5 1XJ 07813 764 937 / www.i-cabin.co.uk
22 January 2008
13:18:53 +0000
From: barry@sykes.tc
To: i-cabin@hotmail.co.uk: subject: Re: collaboration
Hi Seb,
Thanks for the mail, I also really enjoyed our conversation on Saturday and am loking forward to the product of our collaboration.
I like the way you have kicked off the converation with the 'importance' theme, i didn't see that coming! If this project can allow both of us to reconsider the methods and outcomes of our work, so much the better. I also have an ongoing concern with my 'use value' and where my work operates in broader social interactions, excercised in works like the forgery project, the PCSO and the 'stolen, then returned' watercolours.
I can see your viewpoint on the methods overshadowing the content in some works, However, I am a big fan of the processes involved in a works creation being foregrounded as the subject (simon starling being a simplistic illustration of this, I am also reminded of the Hut Projects 'Lead' work at Zoo this year or your Rehberger piece). I also don't believe that a work that that is philanthropic or helpful is any better than work that is not, it all depends on the boundaries and focus the work defines for itself and how well it invokes it's own question. That is not to say that 'helping' is not a potent area to make artwork, far from it but I think that as an artwork it must be questioning those motivations as much as aspiring to them.
I do agree with your point about artists 'quoting' other sources, it's also a pet hate of mine. When I used to collaborate with Sean Parfitt we did a number of works almost spoofing the added weight artists like to give works by relating it to a great work of literature or film (or failed modernist architecture!). Our position instead revelled in the overtly parasitic, vicarious experience of using someone else's work.
In conclusion (apologies for not matching your word count!) I actually find a kind of generosity in the gesture of some of the restrictions you have thus far imposed on artists, spaces and yourself and perhaps a conflation of these two positions might be the way to go. So lets meet up for tea/beer and carry on developing whatever this framework will be, I'd like to hear some of your 'hideous philanthropic gestures' which might be a great place to start. We also need to define the practicalities of operating at arms length this way and if/how that will be evident to the gallery goers.
I could meet up later this week or early next week. Feel free to come down to my studio in deptford in the day or eve or we could go central if more convenient.
cheers
Barry
25 January 2008 ,
hi mate,
have a look at this, its a collaboration bursary.
http://www.criticalnetwork.co.uk/displayopportunities.php?id=55
seb
i-cabin, Clarendon Buildings, 11 Ronalds Road, London, N5 1XJ 07813 764 937 / www.i-cabin.co.uk
26 January 2008
Hi Seb, That's very interesting. I'm all for having our time paid for! Can you meet up this Mon or Tues eve (or possibly Wed daytime) to talk these ideas through? Let me know when's good for you. cheers Barry
26 January 2008 ,
Hi Barry,
wednesday afternoon would be best for me, I'm going up to Birmingham for mon and tue,
what day do you go away? I could abandon the trip if absolutely necessary.
Seb
i-cabin, Clarendon Buildings, 11 Ronalds Road, London, N5 1XJ 07813 764 937 / www.i-cabin.co.uk
27 January 2008
HI Seb. I leave first thing on Friday morning. Weds afternoon is good for me if you can come down to my deptford studio - SE8 4RJ, one stop out of London Bridge then a minutes walk. Very good of you to offer to cancel your trip but it's not necessary. Barry
27 January 2008
wicked buddy,
see you then, I'll give you a call when I get into London,
actually I don't have your number, can you text it to me mine is 07813 764 937
cheers matey,
Seb
i-cabin, Clarendon Buildings, 11 Ronalds Road, London, N5 1XJ 07813 764 937 / www.i-cabin.co.uk
3 February 2008
Well, greetings from the below-zero nordic. Had the day reconoitering Vaasa. Tramping through the snow and and a quick walk out onto the sea ice. Tomorrow will be my first day in the studio so I'll start building my basecamp. There's no internet in the studio at the moment but there's wireless here in my apartment. so maybe mornings are good to do any specific web communications. Already met a pair of designers who work on typography and branding and do a lot of the gallery's layout work. They seem like an interesting couple and have just moved to the space next to Platform. I've also seen a good theatre (though only the nice attached cafe will be much use to me), two local art museums with slightly shabby municipal exhibition spaces, a couple of good looking libraries that apparently carry some english language boks and periodicals and a spanking new 50m swimming pool. I'll get back to you tomorrow after I feel like i've started work. cheers, Bärry p.s. can you forward me Lewis' email as I've lost it and he phoned me about something. ta.
5 February 2008
Sounds great there, I'm beginning to become jealous, perhaps we should swap ends of this exchange!
I am quite inclined to receive a few detailed descriptions of the place and things there, I may start to construct some kind of image from them, perhaps this could be something nice to play with alongside the other project, a remote-view.
I saw on wiki that someone known as Mathilda Wrede - "Friend of the inmates" came from Vaasa, see if anyone has heard of her. (just that this seems to be a local philanthropist, maybe we can go in search of a few more...)
Seb
i-cabin, Clarendon Buildings, 11 Ronalds Road, London, N5 1XJ 07813 764 937 / www.i-cabin.co.uk
7 February 2008
Hello Seb,
Yes, it is a curious mixture of the dramatic and mundane here. Let me paint you a picture...
I reside as the only tenant in an old soap factory. Each morning, after a quick shower-down in the roll top bath set in the middle of the open plan flat - but next to the plywood kitchen unit - I layer up coat-over-jacket-over-contemporarycardigan-over-shirt-over-Tshirt&jeans-over-fullthermalsuit, and on with the wellies. Then it's down the corridor and stairs and opening the heavy door into the chill outdoors. It is, as I said, predominantly white. Whether it's the sea to my left or the tarmac underfoot, everything is now deep in bleached out snow. Locals have all been waiting months through a grey winter for the snow to come down and dress up the bleakness. This was due to arrive last November.
On the Sunday morning, after my first nights sleep in the factory, Ulrika and I went out for a walk in the newly fallen snow. We headed down to the water's edge (Vaasa is nearly an island, having coastline on three sides) and the coastal winds had delicately smoothed over the deep snow into dunes and peaked quiffs. We headed over a rail bridge to a small island just off the coast and walked onto what would normally a beach - a strange feeling, but not as odd as then walking out onto the frozen sea ice. I couldn't resist a jump to test its strength.
The roads are quiet. Even counting Finland's small population the weather keeps most people indoors. So no loitering, it's strictly A-B as quick as you can without coming a cropper on the ice. Pavements and roads are smoothed over by the morning snowploughs, leaving a 2ft high ridge of packed snow on every curbside. My studio is in an old Army barracks. Apparently they moved out of town about ten years ago. There is an officer's bar - still extant - but it was mainly for the young guys doing their military service - which has now been moved to a more convenient spot further inland. It occupies a few blocks with a series of similar pale green wooden single story wooden buildings. My studio (which I guess was a dormitory) is near enough twice the length and width of my Deptford studio. There are only a few vernacular clues to its old life; the odd sign, some chevron painted sentry boxes, some king of clocking in board and at one end of the building are the toilets - with a large antechamber kitted out with two huge, rotationally symmetrical communal sinks.
Your reference to the 'Friend of the inmates' popped back into my head whilst being driven over to the studio in a new direction yesterday. Ulrika (one of the team at platform, who was my contact there and has been fantastic at showing me around and setting me up, a real diamond) pointed out Vaasa Prison on our right, and just around the corner from my studio! It was stereotypical grimy red brick topped rolls of barbed wire. It has a small square footprint and four floors and sits on the very edge of the main road, backing onto the sea. All she could tell me about it was that there may be a shop selling crafts made by the inmates. Here's a link to their list of wares http://www.vankeinhoito.fi/17499.htm
My current ideas for the show (for our work and my own) are slowly becoming more defined so it would be good to run them past you soon for some honest response.
cheers
Barry
8 February 2008
04:10:39 PM
Hi Buddy,
sounds incredibly cold, I hope the studio is well heated or progress there might be pretty slow.
The description is good, keep it coming. I had a look at the products from the prison. I think a site visit there could be useful, take some photographs if you can, and ask where the money goes. Is it towards prison costs or do the inmates earn money/perks by working in the workshop, as I imagine might be the case.
I am wondering about what philanthropy is there, what kind of do-gooding or even charity is there?
Are the people well off, you mention that the cold keeps people indoors to some degree, what is the affects of this do you think? I have often considered when I travel the challenge of homelessness in different climates/cultures. In the heat/street market culture of Brazil I saw what I thought to be a very peaceful confident drifter type homeless. In Japan they have their own self-built homes and possessions which are left with complete confidence as crime is almost unheard of it seems, however they are completely ostracized by the community who try to ignore them as much as possible, or act disgustedly. In London the homeless are always downtrodden by drugs and by the terrible cold. But there, perhaps living on the streets is impossible, so what happens?
Let me know what ideas are forming at your end.
cheers mate,
chat soon
Seb
i-cabin, Clarendon Buildings, 11 Ronalds Road, London, N5 1XJ 07813 764 937 / www.i-cabin.co.uk
10 February 2008
Hi Seb, Things are coming together I think. I'm trying out a few ideas at the moment but feel very aware of the time slipping away and making the most of the opportunity. Ulrika thinks we should have the show open around the 8th so I have less time than I thought - though agree with her that I should have a week here whilst the show is open. I didn't get a chance to talk to you about the sketchy list of ideas I gave you did I. Things have shifted of course and some of them I'm not interested in any more or are inappropriate and others have occurred to me since I've got here. I guess I'm thinking about a selection of four works for the show but am still unsure which. Just wondered what your thoughts were - our project obviously being one of them. The one's i'm very keen on at the moment are the outline font as a wall painting and the one where I commission my dad to take and print a photo(s). I am of course going to head down to the prison shop, it's a nice list of products isn't it. I'll get as much info as I can off whoever works there tomorrow. In regards to the homelessness thing I was talking to Maria, another of the Platform team, in heslinki and she was telling me that during the summer there was a group of about 6 Roma gypsies begging in the town centre and it was a big issue as this doesn't normally happen there. She was telling me about a journalist friend (she does the layouts for the swedish language paper there) who was sent to Romania to see if life was really so much worse for them there. There isn't much racism at all in finland apparently but mainly beacause there aren't that many visibly different or poorer races so it hasn't had a chance to develop. However once the weather got cold they dissappeared, who knows where. I haven't actually notice any social deprivation or exclusion - or responses to these things - so nothing leaps out as something to base any HPGs (hideous philanthropic gestures!) on but maybe the prison is somewhere to start. In terms of the method of our discussion I am doing a lot of skype which allows you to type conversations aswell as use headsets to talk. Have you got this? did you say you had messenger sorted too? I guess we should clarify some kind of methodology for how this is going to build up. I've also started a flickr page as a few people have asked to see photos of where I am. if you want to put soem visuals with my descriptions take a look, it's at www.flickr.com/photos/brockleysinger Oh, and do you have Lewis' email. I think it's something like lewi5amar@hotmail.com but can't track it down. cheers. Barry p.s. attached is a photo of my position in relationship to the prison. I did it the other night, you end up doing strange things in these long winter evenings!
(IMAGE ATTACHED BUT NEVER VIEWED BY SEBASTIAN CRAIG/I-CABIN)
11 February 2008
03:17:46 PM
Hi Barry,
Wow that is soon!
Remind me about the outline font? It's slipped my mind but I love the sound of text wall=paintings! Very up my street, and your dads photo's too in terms of a sort of clinging to the home from afar for some guidance, good stuff.
With the HGP's I thought about something like you buying a piece of furniture from the prison, as this might go towards helping the prisoners financially (spending the institutions money/ or my money/ or your money?), or writing to a prisoner-craftsman/sending a gift? although the furniture shop is really the perfect point of access...what do you think about this type of course of action?
I would like to draw in image of the town from only your descriptions ( I wont look at your pictures) perhaps this could be sent to the craftsman or put in the drawer of the item you choose from the shop, which then you might use as a gift...etc...etc??? For someone who either does/or does not need it. Philanthropy is often more about the giver than the receiver isn't it.
With regards to our having a chat/seminar lets do a messenger test. My computer is at i-cabin, i'll be there tuesday afternoon, i'll text you to see if you're near your messenger or arrange a better time.
I can't find Lewis' email address in my contacts, perhaps send it to Jemima, hers is jstehli@hotmail.com
Cheers buddy,
Seb
i-cabin, Clarendon Buildings, 11 Ronalds Road, London, N5 1XJ 07813 764 937 / www.i-cabin.co.uk
11 February 2008
Hi Seb,
That link I sent you with the list is one page of a great website detailing how it all functions so reccommended reading for someone wanting to get a understand details from afar. Nice and matter of fact. I had a great visit there today. Unfortunately the guy in the Shop - who looked just liek a prison guard - didn't speak any english so couldn't work out muh details, thought the website says they make 90c an hour for the crafts.
I like the idea of using the shop as the point of access as this is how it presents itself. Much my preferred way to operate as opposed to crow-barring your way into where you're not wanted. Then of course you are free to take more liberties as they have invited you over the threshold themselves. I like the idea of corresponding with the craftsman but think it may be legally impossible! but some kind of subversion, adaptation or reemplyment of their work could be great. And philanthropy is entirely about the giver, I agree.
Now, I've just put a load of photos of the shop onto the flickr page so you can see all the products - think of it as a catalogue! - and my photos are just of isolated spots in town and a few of the flat so maybe it's a good idea to take a look.i don't want to compromise your 'remote view' but these are the advantages the technology has given us.
I would love you to do a drawing, or to generate any other matter in response that I can present. I'm happy for us to push the dialogue/debate idea further too. Can you explain a bit more about what you mean by ...'then you might use as a gift etc... etc... etc...' Are you thinking about some kind of ongoing exchange?
Tuesday might be a bit tricky and I'm off to helsinki for a few days until the weekend. I really need to hit the ground running when I get back so that might be a good time for more rapid conversation. I'm fine with emails until then.
I met someone who teaches at the afterschool club in the opposite 'barracks' from us today and offered to do a talk about my work to the kids so that'll be interesting. I've done one before at a school to some 9 year olds and they responded really well. Hope to conjure up some audience for the show from them too. I've also got a talk scheduled at the nearby artschool organised by the gallery. Quite like testing reactions to my work with different audiences so that'll be good.
Had a good day today thinking through my other ideas so i'll report back in a bit.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Barry
12 February 2008
Hi Seb,
Was having a think about the project today and remembered two things we had discussed in that first meeting at i-cabin that seemed really pivotal at the time and could be good to refocus on. One was your analogy with the designer as a methodology for dealing with each situation and the other was a 'cards on the table' honesty with each other.
I'm still really keen on the use of the Inmates crafts as a starting point - I think it would be a great thing to bring into the gallery - but it's worth thinking about all the different ways that could work. I'm intruiged by your drawing, I've not seen a drawing of yours so cannot imagine what it'd look like and the remote view has always been a good idea. The designer idea also made me wonder what would happen if you designed some kind of adaptation, exension or improvement to their work. It would nicely broach the subject that these things are essentially worthy but could obviously be improved, and as purchasers we are at liberty to do that. Can this design encapsulate our discussions? Did you see the phots, could you come up with something?
Just a thought
B.
20 February 2008
01:14:59 AM
Hi Barry,
sorry I have been offline for a few days holidaying in Devon.
I agree with what you say.
Quickly in reply to your other email, I meant 'use as a gift etc' to mean that you might consider using the item purchased from the prison as a gift after we had finished with it, or as the work itself, which could form a philanthropic gesture perhaps.
It seems to me that the appropriate adaptation would be the attachment of an appendage to house the drawing I'll produce. Therefore the item should be a chair or a table.
I'm still trying to think this through fully but the drawing should have the function of providing a new (blind) view of the users local environment. This is something to do with the whole purpose of your being invited in the first place I think.
(This may be unrelated but in a way I an fulfilling part of the function of you being there (the outside view) from here because I can fulfill it more thoroughly from here. Does this relate in any way to the photographs your Dad is producing for you?)
[I feel we are getting somewhere! Somewhere!]
Seb
i-cabin, Clarendon Buildings, 11 Ronalds Road, London, N5 1XJ 07813 764 937 / www.i-cabin.co.uk
20 February 2008
Hello Seb,
Have only just got back today myself. Been a bit of a whirl with a few days in helsinki then a busy weekend back here showing sophie round and we had Ulrika's opening at the Art Hall and a talk by me at the gallery to introduce the locals to my work. It was scheduled for this weekend as the rest of the Platform team have been out of the area until now, which has been a shame as the gallery has not really felt like the hub for my work or a useful site for social activities (our 'importance' workshops for example).
Mon and Tues were also out of town as i was asked to give another talk to the BA students at an art college in Nykarleby (1hr norh of vaasa) with links to the gallery. I also gave 1hr tutorials to a number of students. I try and rethink the structure of my artist talk every time I do it so the one in Vaasa was about my work when responding to a new place or situation and the one to the students was how I kep going as an artist. There were obviously many overlaps but as it spanned everything from one work I made 10 years ago for my degree show (which I haven't talked about for many, many years!) to my 'Animals in Wire' business (that I have never talked about in this context!).
So todays the first day back in the saddle after what seems like a while. It really feels like the big push, where every day needs to be doing something towards a work in the show. The talks have helped clarify which projects I am most interested in but of course there is a lot of dvelpoment left to do. It feel very much like our project and the one with my Dad are the main pairing, with a couple of other works used as pertinent counterpoint.
To elaborate on my Dad project I am sending him a series of directives for activities leading to photographs. After sounding him out about it over the phone from here we agreed that i could just send him a short outline and then leave him to get on with it. My first 'Directive' went as follows...
So here's your first 'directive'.
#1: Go out of the house after dark and photograph any house with a window that you can see someone through.
Take as many as you like but make one A3 print of the shot you're happiest with then send it out to me.
More to follow...
Thank you.
As he works full time in the city all week these are weekend jobs, somthing I see him doing on an afternoon or evening in a couple of hours. they will all be possible to complete close to home i think though I have yet to finalise what the next ones will be. Although i originally thought of it being a one off phot it seems to have the 'legs' to become a series of different directives so I see 3-5 being made in time for the show. As the directive suggests, he can take as many shots as he likes but needs so choose one that he will print up to his satisfaction before sending them all out to me together in time for the show.
I have always thought about each phot being in a kind of dyptych with my emailed directive and the display device being made by me. My current idea is to make a box frame for each piece with cheap hardware store woods and household paint. I think a very hand-made frame authored by me is the appropriate counterpoint to his works back home. It is of course an option to just display the print and email as two pieces of paper but I feel like pushing the display format as much as it does the authorship and control issues, not to mention the family relationship.
This brings me onto our project, which as you say is definitely getting somewhere. I'm really enjoying the twisting path it's been following since our first chat, and as you say, the way you are also 'responding' to the residency location. However, my thinking in relation to your last email is that it brings it into very close territory with the 'Dad' project (in that it involves someone in the UK sending out a sheet of paper that I insert into a purpose-built construction) and that this might lead the viewer to gloss over the dramatic differences in intention, subject matter and dialogue etc... Do you see what I mean? What about a clearer reversing of the direction of my 'Dad' project by me working with the woodcrafts based on your directives or designs? I am still interested in how our tampering with and re-authoring of their work can be an interesting unpicking of the sentiments involved in this charity economy.
I've been doing a lot of 'Skype' conversations which is a lovely free way of sorting thigs out long-distance. Have I mentioned this before? Is it something you can get on your computer (you'd need a mike and headphones). Might be a good way for us to nail some of these details.
I directed someone to your site the other day and saw you had flagged up the collaboration, that's very good of you, it was nice to see! I should clarify that that it isn't that gallery though, I am at Platform, www.platform.fi - There are a couple of shots of the gallery space on there somewhere too. Maybe you could make the word 'Platform' a link to it? could do that to my website too? I'm trying to think of ways to dramatise my links to you and dad in the framing of the show too. Am getting vinyl letters done for the window so should put something there (aside from in the press release of course, and any other printed matter we could come up with together).
Am considering calling the show 'Tree Hugger' at the moment, any thoughts? Has over tones of the do-gooder as well as someone trying to physically engage with surroundings and ideas on an emotional level, so seems appropriate.
Well, that's probably enough for now...
Barry
21 February 2008
06:01:07 PM
Hi Barry,
I've set up skype, my contact name is sebcraig.
I wonder though if messenger is better because we can save the conversation for a text?
oh and big apologies for the mistake about the gallery! how awful, have corrected it immediately. I couldn't find a reference to it in the emails so I had to guess from a few clues, guessed wrong!
I completely understand what you say about the piece of paper appearing similar to the other work,
It would of course be what you say "What about a clearer reversing of the direction of my 'Dad' project by me working with the woodcrafts based on your directives or designs?" as you'd be building my designed appendage,
I suppose what I was thinking was something a little like this [image404] (apologies for the 2 minute doodle) but your point is a good one so we'll move on.
I just want to think out-loud a minute..we decided to try to work on the idea of our actions as artists being 'important' to the society, or doing something important, rather than just vainly self-important in it's own right (as art). So the idea that the artwork could be a gesture which attempted to do something vaguely quantifiable, or could be a 'good deed' or what we're calling a 'philanthropic gesture'. So the part one of the process is patronising the prison shop, which we think is philanthropic by supporting and perpetuating a scenario whereby inmates are earning money whilst inside which will either aid their comfort inside or be saved for release.
Incorporated into the process is my statement that when making art I use the role of being a designer as a tool to create a quantifiable purpose to my presence as an artist and your position that the object should be actively viewed by raising questions about its history which it may not in itself answer. (this is just a note on how we each make work i suppose).
The second part of the process is that we'll work together to alter the purchased item to reflect what we're both interested in about your being there as an outsider and an artist
and just trying to do something with that situation.
I saw something I liked a year or so ago about people 'guerrilla benching' in London! The thing being that LCC (or someone) had a policy of removing benches because they encourage anti-social behavior because kids hang-out around them, and vagrancy because 'tramps' (thats a great Dickensian image isn't it) sleep on them. So these guys were getting any benches they could find, like old iron garden benches or school benches, and concreting them into the street! They looked brilliant when the style was really out of place! They thought that they were doing Londoners a good turn by giving them somewhere to sit. It's brilliantly what we said about giving being to satisfy the giver, even though it might cause other problems!
This is the sort of thing I was thinking we should do with the item after we've finished with it. Something like you should give it to the gallery as a thank-you gift, with loads of ceremony, so they have to accept it even though it'll probably be a burden to them practically! Or give it to someone for their house, preferably someone who has a very cluttered home already. Or put it into the street to further encourage petit-crime (as we've already started encouraging crime directly by easing someone's time in jail). Do you think it's a decent action?
So the ONLY reasonable answer is (!!) that rather than me send the blind-view drawing on a piece of paper I send you the sketch and you carve up the chair (I think it should be a chair, or a table) and turn it into the drawing. I mean carve the drawing into it, not just into the surface but make it like a sculpture of the drawing!
(the drawing is another gesture to exoticize the familiar environment)
Tree Hugger is a brilliant name for the show, perfect in fact.
carving is essential!
Seb
i-cabin, Clarendon Buildings, 11 Ronalds Road, London, N5 1XJ 07813 764 937 / www.i-cabin.co.uk
21 February 2008
Seb,
You have a point about Skype, just thought it was useful to bash out details but as we've stuck with the plain old written word for so long lets keep with it.
It is quite odd thought isn't it, deciding to collaborate but not speaking after the first two meetings at our respective workplaces. It is a tricky negotiation at the best of times so these 'controlled conditions' are probably key to the whole thing.
Might as well tell you that my Skype here is 'platformfi' though, just in case.
Glad you understand about the 'Dad' comparison. Liked your attached chair sketch though but we'll keep moving on as you say.
Your 'out loud thinking' was abslutely spot on, I happily concur.
Your next bit about the guerilla benches is very good, a simple illustration of tricky notions of unsolicited 'good' when in the public realm (I think you have to do somekind of homeless shelter out side your gallery as this is clearly becoming an obsession that needs exorcising!). there is a designer couple with a lovely flat full of scando furniture classics that it could be bequethed too. Also the gallery would struggle to accomodate it so this is another possibility to continue it's journey from the prison workshop.
Have to admit i cannot quite picture your idea of a sculptural drawing of your drawing! Are you doing some kind of street plan? Do you need any more info from me? Will it be recognisable? How will you describe to me what to do?
I can see the little blue rocking chair working well in this context, although it is in the 'not actually from Vaasa prison' section of the shop. I do have a hankering to get busy sculpting with various pieces from the shop, either carving into, cutting up or combining a few pieces jarringly together. The (ir)reverence it suggests is really nice (I keep picturing some kind of redesign of the products to give them a less homespun, populist aesthetic - building up rough angular shapes or visual references to other more avant-garde wooden design). I'd would like to spend at least 100 euros to feel like we are making a 'difference'.
Could do with quite a frequent discussion over the next few days as I'm getting a little anxious about clarifying the feel of the show.
cheers
B.
p.s. I'm enjoying the ambiguities of working with the prisoners' crafts but not sure if we are actually encouraging crime by buying it. Paying them, yes. Being complicit in the system of their incarceration, yes. Making very little difference to their actual lives, possibly. Not sure if crimes are being committed because people are desperate to work with more pine.
22 February 2008
13:04:30 +0000
Buddy,
I'd quite like to get on skype just to see how the hell it looks! do you have a web-cam? I do, we'll do it sometime for fun.
The fact that the rocking chair (thats the one I had in mind too) isn't made at Vaasa is either an added cynicism or a big problem. If there are chairs from Vaasa then maybe we should go with that, otherwise the reverse is equally valid in a different way, it's perpetuating the same situation either way.
I was only partly joking about encouraging crime, we are doing our TINY bit to make prison life more comfortable, providing occupation and entertainment, but also building a work ethic and employment skills, though perhaps crime-skills as well. Difficult to quantify I guess.
Right , the drawing, I have no idea how it will look either, but that is a positive. I always feel happier if I do not visually like the final outcome of a project, it proves to me that I stuck to my guns and was not swayed by visual concerns, so don't worry over it too much. The plan as I saw it is this: I send the drawing, which I haven't done yet so I'm not sure how it looks,
then, [refer to image407!] if you hold it up or project it onto the chair at some angle of your choice, then either draw it on or not as you choose, and carve away!
would it look something like this [image408] ?? I have no idea.
In reality the drawing is a (smaller?) device to allow is to achieve our other aims,
it's in the buying and the giving that the project resides, the drawing is the gesture which talks about our being artists and what that is as a daily occupation, especially for you out there, invited.
In a way I pictured a small heavy dark-wood chair with buildings carved up the legs etc...not sure if this is possible.
I certainly know what you mean about taking someone's work and changing it, definitely in art here's a wicked history of that, design is really user led, as an architect or furniture designer you have to allow for the users mark/rethink, it's amusing when superstar-designers think they are artists and throw tantrums about control (even post-completion control with some architects!), creative control is really the difference between the two disciplines. I doubt the prisoners feel much sense of ownership over the products, but this is me having a ridiculous bruteish image of the prisoners and overlooking the natural love of what you make with your hands. Especially in wood!
I doubt the craftsmen are the designers, I just can't imagine them giving a care, does it make any difference if they do or not?
This all seems to fit for me, you seem less comfortable.
Is it fears about the show or are you seeing other inconsistancies?
Seb
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