This is a selection of imagery and text from my Masters of Fine art
( Art in Public Space) submission in 2014 at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
There are two documents that go hand in hand, which are both separate posts on this blog.
Putting Personal Texts into Public Space: Projects
Putting Personal Texts into Public Space: Research
If you find it easier to read a pdf. (this will be like a book) these are available at the following for download. Please note that these are very large files and you need to be aware of this if you have limited download.
Putting Personal Texts into Public Space: Projects (29 mb)
https://app.box.com/s/373lqq70x0ja7lxky0xrfw6ll3tzqhpy
Putting Personal Texts into Public Space: Research ( 54 mb)
https://app.box.com/s/wjsaa3pf9tuhswbclnut1kn3zavn6r7r
( Art in Public Space) submission in 2014 at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
There are two documents that go hand in hand, which are both separate posts on this blog.
Putting Personal Texts into Public Space: Projects
Putting Personal Texts into Public Space: Research
If you find it easier to read a pdf. (this will be like a book) these are available at the following for download. Please note that these are very large files and you need to be aware of this if you have limited download.
Putting Personal Texts into Public Space: Projects (29 mb)
https://app.box.com/s/373lqq70x0ja7lxky0xrfw6ll3tzqhpy
Putting Personal Texts into Public Space: Research ( 54 mb)
https://app.box.com/s/wjsaa3pf9tuhswbclnut1kn3zavn6r7r
....................................................................................................................
Putting
personal text into public space: RESEARCH
by
Debbie Harman Qadri
Debbie Harman Qadri
Introduction
Our public space is saturated with advertising and
signage which seem to have an authentic place and validity. All around us are
signs telling us where to go and what to do and advertising that shows us how
we should look and what we should desire. There seems to be no place for
a personal voice. This research project
explores ways in which we can insert personal texts into public space,
permanent, ephemeral, permissioned and un-permissioned. Debbie undertakes a series of small projects that
explore methods of making and placing personal texts into public space. Using these activities with community participants
leads to events where personal texts are made by the people for the spaces that
they inhabit. Exploring ideas of personal expression and ownership of public
spaces.
Contents
Introduction
Contents
List of Projects
Research Directions
I was here
Community and Place
Nuts and bolts
Communication and reaction
Afterword
Appendices
Curriculum
Vitae
Bibliography
List
of Projects undertaken for this research
Note: This research was conducted part-time
over three years June 2011 – June 2014
Empty: memory, hope,
love, grief, 2011 ceramic installation for the Moreart Public Art Show 2011.
Commissioned by Moreland Council.
A series of
installations spanning two kilometres of footpath alongside the train-line and
a specific garden space at RMIT. Installations were explorations of ceramic
text in a range of languages exploring personal text responses to grief.
21 Alfred st,
commissioned by Curator Anabelle Lacroix, for the group show ‘Uncomformity”.
2011. Uncomformity used a condemned
house, and artists were asked to respond to the house. I devised text that
explored the history of the house and excerpts of the text were written on
parts of the house, using slip or ceramic letters. I also made a film which
featured the house and the act of writing the text on the house and the full
spoken text.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLlD0CxZilE
Parksong, Moreland council park, unsolicited, ceramic and silicon, 2012
Collection of ceramic
text interventions which celebrate the movement and freedom that open spaces
provide us with.
Sing to me –
intervention in St Marks park, Hawthorn, ceramic letters, 2012
Ceramic letters strung
on fishing line around tree trunks
Stop and Go,
Intervention on Brunswick Rd. Brunswick, ceramic letters with fishing line.
2012-14
Street publishing
trials, commissioned, private residence, 2012
Television
interventions, ceramic letters on televisions on local nature-strips, 2012
http://ceramictextart.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not/
The poets of Moonambel, permissioned community project,
ceramic on fence at Moonambel common with the Moonambel Art and History Group,
2012
Concrete Poetry made
with local group, clay workshops and installation at community common.
Exquisite Me, participatory workshop with
ceramic letters, Brimbank Festival with Sunshine Gallery Everywhere, Feb 2012,
Feb 2013
Concrete poetry
workshop with Yea School, August 2012
Exquisite Me Project
- Plastic Banners with letters workshops with Children from Mother of God
Primary School, Ardeer, August 2012. http://exquisiteme2012.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/mother-of-god-primary-school-alive-and.html
Filling the Cracks with Conversation. Ceramics and all purpose
silicon, and blog. Fringe Festival, September 2012 and ongoing installations
till 2014.
The Clothesline Timeline, Ephemeral Artwork at
Djerriwarrh Festival, November 2012, plastic, tape and mixed media, (Commissioned
by Melton Council) documentation of the project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IvK1lMC_n4
Sunshine Babel Onion, participatory and durational installation over one
month at Sunshine Art Spaces, Sunshine, November 2012. Plastic, acrylic paint
and mixed media (supported by Brimbank Council) http://sunshinebabelonion.wordpress.com/,
Sages
of Sunshine Project, Sunshine,
ceramic tiles mounted on marine ply, 2013. Portraits of local people and scenes
with local wisdom written along the bottom of each tile. Sunshine Art Spaces
Seeding Grant.
What
does Faith mean to you?, Faith to Faith Exhibition at
Sunshine Art Spaces Gallery, stoneware ceramic letters silicone to front
window. February 2013. Excerpts of text collected via interviews about “What
does faith mean to you”, are installed on the gallery window.
Sketch
of Peg Poetry no.2, exhibited at
D11 Supporters Show 2013
Installation of Peg Poetry , The Brimbank Writers and Readers festival,
http://concretepoetrymadness.wordpress.com/2013/09/
Mosaic
Musings workshop, The
Brimbank Writers and Readers festival, commission Brimbank Council, September
2013. Writing workshops with ceramic letters, peg poetry installations in
street. http://concretepoetrymadness.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/today-at-the-brimbank-readers-and-writers-festival/
Stencil
the Street workshop, The
Brimbank Writers and Readers festival. September 2013, with Toni Burton and
Mike Conroy, Brimbank Council.
Working with the local community to
write on the footpaths using letter stencils and temporary builders marking
spray.
Peg Poetry Installation and workshop,
Kids Day Out Festival, 2013. Commissioned by Brimbank Council.
Concrete poetry with ceramic shells
at La di Dardle, Tasmania, 2013
Shelton Lea was here, In memory of
Shelton Lea. Ceramic plaques and poetry of Shelton Lea placed in areas he
frequented. 2013 – 14
Concrete Poetry ceramic mural
installations, Moonee Valley river reserves, un solicited, 2014.
Facilitated ceramic
crochet hearts workshops and installation for the Fiona Warzywoda Vigil,
Sunshine, April 2014. Requested, made and written on by community members.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s3991802.htm
…………………………………………………………………………………
Research
Directions
How can public art practices be used to
insert personal text into public space?
WHY
Our public space, the space beyond your front fence is
so regulated now, that you might find it difficult to write something in it.
You have to have a permit to put up a sign, and you have to have money to apply
for the permit and to make the sign. Perhaps you even need to own or be able to
rent the land on which the sign sits. Otherwise what you write in public space will
most likely be illegal. Everywhere around us the amount of text bearing
instructions and advertising becomes more dense, whilst personal text, messages
or statements become less and less. Advertisement text, whose aims are economic,
which could be labeled permissioned graffiti, made of digitally printed words
proliferate whilst the voices of locals have been criminalized. The
proliferation of the opposite field of tagging and graffiti art has polarised
the situation. The rules governing text in public space have been developed in
reaction to tagging and graffiti and unfortunately preclude many other forms of
personal text in public space. What does it mean? We live in a highly regulated
urban landscape where governments and businesses have the power to alter the
text in the landscape. Individuals have lost the opportunity to say something,
even something pleasant, in the spaces they inhabit outside their homes.
Its an unhealthy situation if locals don’t feel they
are able to contribute text in their own public spaces. Especially when there
is a huge text conversation going on in public space, often carrying subliminal
authority and influence in our lives. This text is predominantly designed by
council employees and marketing experts. This research seeks to visualize what
locally generated text might look like in public space and to begin a larger
text or dialogue about this present
absence.
Context
The number of texts that face us as we go
about our lives are increasing. Signs generally tell you how to drive, where to
walk, what to do and what you cannot do. Advertising lets you know what you
should look like, how to dress and what to aspire to. You are limited to
wearing your personal message on your t-shirt, on your skin or on your number
plate.
Advertising and signage seem to bear less scrutiny than personal text
interventions into public space. If you own or rent the space in which you
advertise you are freer to say what you want.
Our public space is increasingly designed, governed, watched and
legislated which makes it difficult and seemingly inappropriate for an
individual to place text in this space.
It’s also very interesting that advertising
seems to be accepted by most people as if it has a right to be there. But if you put an obviously personal message
somewhere, it is seen as not belonging. You can only make an advertisement if
you have the money to pay for it or if you own the land on which the
advertisement sits. The power to say something publicly is thus limited to
those with money or means, landowners or the government.
Public space is more and more being seen as
an area that has to be kept nice and neat, but at the same time it facilitates
messages about how you should live and behave from government and economic
entities. These types of textfeeds are seen as okay and normal for this space.
In one city, Sao Paulo has challenged this idea by banning advertising in all
public spaces. Neal Lawson (20.4.2012, theguardian.com) places it in this context, ‘We can choose the magazines we look at. But
we’ve no freedom to walk down the street without the advertiser’s assault.’
Lawson suggests that we see an average of 3,500 brand images a day and these
images of perfect bodies and flash new cars amongst other things are promoting
unhappiness and the drive to purchase products, ultimately successful in
creating anxiety and insecurity. “They help sow the seeds of mental illness,
insecurity, humiliation, debt, brand bullying at school and, through the
remorseless use of resources they inspire, they threaten the planet.’
The use of personal text in public space has changed dramatically from
the sixties and seventies where the personal voice was used in many campaigns
by individuals and collectives to change laws and social conditions. The
increase in graffiti and tagging culture has meant that the idea of just
writing what you want in public space is seen as transgressive and antisocial
behaviour. Within this context the expression of personal text in public space
is not viewed favourably as something a citizen should do. My observations have been that generally
people feel uncomfortable about writing in public space. Public space is not
seen as the place for a personal expression of self.
Placing a personal text in public space is
also now regarded as graffiti. Graffiti as a major phenomenon in urban space,
and its degenerative label, have had a role to play in our reluctance to place
our own words in public space. The discussion of un-commissioned work in public
space is topical, particularly in the area of local government management of
this space. The research is useful to those who are making decisions about the
use of public space. Many councils are loosening the legislation that was put
in place to control graffiti, in favour of preserving street art that residents
enjoy.
Part of my research into how personal text
can be placed in public space has been done in the context of collaborative or
community based works. Councils are also
becoming more interested in engaging citizens in the making and ownership of
public space. Methods of enabling the public to have a voice in public space are
topical with an increasing pressure on council bodies to increase community
consultation in all aspects of their decision-making. There is pressure on councils to involve a wider
demographic in community activities and to move toward involving communities in
‘placemaking’ which is a philosophy promoting communities becoming more
involved in designing, making and feeling community ownership of public space.
The concern of this research is to counter the idea advertising and
signage should be the only texts in our public space and to explore ways that
this situation can be challenged and changed using art practices. Artists,
Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer have used text in analogous ways to interrogate
our usual reading of text in public space. Kruger uses advertising mechanisms,
such as billboards, posters, led lights and printed merchandise with ironical
twists of text to comment on advertising and its role and influence on the way
we think. Jenny Holzer places deeply personal texts into public space to expose
the hidden texts and stories. Her work
is often about what we don’t say out loud or acknowledge in public space. Street
artist Banksy has also utilized text in his work and often in a way that
addresses the particular place and local community. I admire his interest in
addressing the general public and locals as his audience. These artists have influenced the way I
perceive text and have compelled me to think about the usefulness of text as an
artform. My artwork for this research is much less political in character and more
subtle in its approach perhaps because it wishes to engage the audience, not as
viewers but as accomplices. The text not being an artwork to look at, but as an
encounter or conversation.
Method
The method of research for this project has
been the undertaking of a series of small projects. Each project trials an idea
and then subsequent projects further the exploration of the materials or
methods of engaging participants. These have been both sole
artist or collaborative works. Materials and concepts are always explored by
the artist before being used in participatory projects.
As a series of installations of text in
public space the artworks become a conversation or a text about this research. This
text, which will be continually referred to, signifies the dialogue about
personal text in public space which is created by the artworks. The changes in
method, materials, audience, participants, place and context also become part
of this wider dialogue about the role of personal text in public space.
Initially I began by using
ceramic text in public space. I used unfired and fired ceramics, then explored
other materials which could be recycled or economically viable for working with
large groups of people.
My explorations also began to
move away from personal practice towards community-based practice and the idea
of getting the public to write their own text as a more authentic
representation of place. This was influenced by my work in the Community Arts field
where commonly my role is to produce a work of art that the whole community are
engaged in making. My policy of enabling the community to make the artwork, means
that the artwork has a strong relationship to the community and that it has a
strong significance for them. Whilst as part of this research I did some
projects alone, I always consider the audience for the text. The further I ventured into this research
practice, the stronger I felt that if placing the text in a suburb where I did
not belong, I was in fact intruding, I was installing in another person’s
place. The personal text is more authentic and more powerful when made by
locals.
I find also that when I work in
new settings with people, I often have my own ideas questioned. The circumstances and the group that I work
with often challenge and change what I plan to do. Opportunities for lateral thinking and
explorations of how materials can be used alternatively are more easily
explored when working with groups of people who have other ways of thinking.
This type of practice provides more opportunities to learn about the medium,
the process and opportunities for the site. Participants may move the artwork
in a new direction or suggest something that sends the artist off on a new
tangent. Also when you work with others, apart from new things cropping up,
problems also arise that need to be solved and sometimes lead to something new.
Eventually my research also had
to address some of the problems that I encountered repeatedly. One of these was
the reluctance for the public to place their voice in public space. So my work
has not only included forays into placing my own texts in public space but also
excursions into how to encourage people to make texts, and eventually into more
playful explorations of writing.
OUTCOMES
The outcomes of this project are a series of installations
and activities where personal text is placed into public space. The intention
of these activities was to explore ways in which this could be done by an
individual artist and by communities and to explore the aspects of permanency,
materials, installation methods and reactions. The other outcome of the project
is a dialogue created from these instances of personal text in public space,
which I refer to as the text.
It should be noted that at no time does the
artwork produced in these projects take on any higher cause for aesthetics or
take itself too seriously as an art object. For the purposes of this project
the artworks are tools, in that they are made solely for a specific purpose or
action. To engage the audience, viewer and participant in making, placing,
reading or speaking about the idea of personal text in public space. The
dialogue or text that ensues the artwork is what becomes most important. This
dialogue raises questions about why there are not many instances of personal
text in public space and why we don’t often get the chance or would indeed take
the opportunity of writing in public space.
Roland Barthes situates the artwork as
separate from the ‘text’. The work of art is the thing that I will
place into public space or the objects that participants play with and move to
create words and phrases. The text is
the dialogue that happens as a result of the written text being in public
space. The meaning of the work becomes contingent on all those choices, why,
where, context, place, materials, audience, time and space, and the interplay
between the meanings the works are given and the meanings that the audience
gives and the thinking and discussions between (irretrievable and unknowable by
the artist) becomes the text. It is what Barthes refers to as a writerly text,
where the reader has to make an effort to read or understand the text and may
have to even place themselves in the author’s shoes and reenact the actions of
the author themselves to derive a meaning.
The work, so to speak, loses its ego and
steps down into a field of interactions which Barthes refers to as play. In
this context, I have noticed that my explorations have moved from the initial
serious interventions made solely by the artist, towards an opposite which is the
artwork providing a sense of play for participants to engage in and change how
they think about personal texts in public space.
…………………………………………………………………………….
Essays
I WAS HERE:
TEXT
– Graf – handwriting
(Photographs
– sunshine babel onion, djerriwarrh festival, Brimbank writers and readers
festival canvases and graf on footpath, Brimbank festival names.)
mark graffiti means write, draw, mark, scratch or
otherwise deface property by any means so
that the defacement is not readily removable
by wiping with a dry cloth;
(definition of graffiti, Graffiti prevention Act, 2007)
Any
discussion of text in public space has to take account of the phenomenon of
graffiti. Graffiti has become so ubiquitous that it has redefined the role of
text in public space. The proliferation of
Graffiti in our public space has had a subsequent reaction with councils making
rules to govern the use of public space, in an effort to combat graffiti. These regulations governing public space have
created a different way of citizens viewing public space and the culture that
surrounds it.
Reactions
against graffiti have caused laws to be made that control intervention in
public space and what has ensued is a dichotomous culture of authorised text vs
non-authorised and a tension between the two. Laws to curb graffiti and the
ongoing cleaning of walls to remove unauthorised texts has caused people to
view a personal text intervention as wrong.
Artist CDH speaks about the situation in Victoria where he says: ‘street art is actively stifled by the State
Government; the Graffiti Prevention Act (2007) requires artists to provide lawful
excuse if caught carrying a graffiti implement (aerosol
can, sharp object, pencil) and thus reverses the burden of proof, to a
presumption of guilt (2014).’
Halsey
and Young (2009.p297) suggest one of the reasons that graffiti is disliked and
controversial is because it serves to ‘. . . . interrupt our sense of the
familiar, our sense of certainty, our sense of the established and proper order
of things.’ This order of things Humphrey McQueen refers to as another type of
graffiti. McQueen says of Graffiti, ‘As with gallery art, most pieces were
third-rate, but no more so than the architecture that defaced the visual
environment.’ Order is seen by some as how it should be, but by others, this is
a sign of complacency, false security and limits to freedom of speech and
creativity.
Subsequently the act of placing a personal text into public space, is akin
to a criminal act in the eyes of the average resident. In the sixties,
seventies and eighties, people often made their own posters and signs to
comment and protest, to insert their personal ideas into public space. It seems
to be seen now as only something that a radical person would do. There is an
increasing emphasis on the uniformity of public space and expectations of local
councils to preserve and develop this space in a neat and orderly way.
EINE, a graffiti artist tells a very interesting story about his career
which sheds some light on this phenomenon.
Eine says he realised that he could not continue doing the same graffiti
as he was being arrested too often and a friend of his had been sent to prison
for making graffiti. He changed tack and began to make artworks which had big
decorative letters and were neat as if they were digitally printed. Because the
text was a single neat decorative letter, a clear contrast from traditional
graffiti writing style, it became accepted and sought after. Now people pay him
to do the big letters on their roller doors.
It was suddenly okay to do it illegally in public space because it was
neat, beautiful and well-designed. His
work demonstrates that if the artwork is neat and orderly (akin to the
orderliness of advertising and signage) that it is more easily accepted into
the environment, even though it may be illegal.
This has had implications for what I do and where I do it. It has
influenced me to make pleasant projects such as ‘Filling the cracks with conversation’, in the hope that the
community will enjoy them and want to preserve them and also in the hope that
my un-permissioned work will not get me
into trouble with authorities and caretakers.
Graffiti is a very old practice, it has been found in the remains of Pompei and in the form of Aboriginal rock carvings. That it is an old and now such a prolific phenomenon, signifies that it has a significant meaning and place in human culture. There is a reason that people want to write their names or make their own marks in public space. There is some innate yearning to write “I was here”. I have noticed that when I facilitate participatory text projects, about fifty percent of people write their names. There is an instinctive compulsion to write one’s name. Is this to do with our ant like existence and our need for our fifteen seconds of fame and to make our mark in some way? I have been particularly drawn to one respondent of Halsey and Young’s ( 2009 p.287) interviewees who said of graffiti ‘It’s like putting a piece of you into your area.’ Making your mark on your territory.
(photogrpahs of
people writing their names . (see concrete poetry madness blog, Sunshine Babel
Onion, Brimbank festival with ceramic letters and the stencilling the street
workshops).
Halsey
and Young suggest that writing words in public space fulfils a particular
‘pleasure and desire in the act of writing,’ (2006, p.276). They suggest that
the act of writing becomes a powerful heterogenous event, one for the writer
only. In my work with participants the aim is to reproduce this pleasure and
desire and give it to the ordinary citizen who would not usually imagine
placing their text into public space.
The main protagonist in the artwork is the participant that engages in
the writing.
Handmade text
What is the meaning
of placing personal text in the space?
What is a personal text? What makes it personal as opposed to
instructions and advertising? What type of text can begin a dialogue about the
lack of personal text in public space, which will contrast with the type of
text that is commonly found in the space.
My work was very influenced by ideas of handmade, hand-written and the
ungrammatical, informal and verbal. The signs all around us, and most of the text we read has been printed
or digitally made in some way. Handwritten text and text that is hand selected
and arranged (a bit like old printing type) is the opposite of this text that
is produced by technology.
My initial workshops using writing implements did not seem to capture
audiences but when presented with words or letters as objects participants
became engaged with the arranging of them. The physical action of selecting
words or letters provides a physical activity and is also durational over
time. The slow arrangement of the words
and letters allows for time to be used in thinking and making choices about the
arrangements of the words. Choice provides avenues for ownership and the act of
physically arranging or making text means that the creator will remember the act
of making more because they physical made the text. When doing this in a
community setting the process is also accompanied by conversations and often
physical touching of other members of their family or group as they share and
arrange the letters. The participant has used their body to make the text.
When I ran the clay workshops with the Moonambel community they had a
choice as to how to make their text. There were plaster moulds for making letters
but again this text is still handmade, it has to be hand-pressed into the mould
and then removed and tidied. Other
people chose to make their texts in other ways. Each piece bears the handprints
of the maker on the text and each piece is different because it has been
handpressed and hand moulded and shaped or handwritten.
Most text is now digitally printed.
So to have the text hand written is to associate it with hand making, with art,
craft and analogue processes. And also with freshness and immediacy. Handwritten text is more personal, it conjures
up the act of letterwriting, card writing,
writing personal thoughts, notes to oneself, recording daily events in
diaries or daily needs on lists. Moreover, when handwritten text is in public
space it is more noticeable because it is so different from the digitally
produced text that fills the space.
The handwritten is also produced by the body, not
printed by a computer. In an environment where the agency to produce text is
given to a machine, and most of us can now type very fast, the handwritten becomes
difficult, time consuming and more liable to mistakes and disorder. Intent and
persistence are ingredients in producing a handwritten text. It is also harder
to read. The situations that my participatory art produces are activities,
which necessitate physical action. The
artwork’s aim is to produce physical activity and also a dialogue or Text about
the idea of writing in public space.
Again it is necessary to engage with what happens when
unauthorised text is made in public space. It is intentionally made and the
result of determined physical action. Halsey and Young suggest that graffiti
writing is not just a static two dimensional activity of paint being applied to
a surface, it is an ‘affective
process that does things to writer’s
bodies (and the bodies of onlookers) as much as to the bodies of metal,
concrete and plastic, which typically compose the surfaces of urban worlds. In
short, where graffiti is often thought of as destructive, we would submit that
it is affective as well.’ (Halsey and
Young, 2006 p.276)
Candy Chang’s project ‘Before I die’, is a blackboard made on an abandoned house in New Orleans. Chang stencilled onto the blackboard, the words ‘before I die I want to:, using neat digitally designed letters. But next to them participants wrote their responses in chalk by hand. The variety of handwriting demonstrates the different voices of the people who responded on the blackboards. Handwriting like signatures also demonstrates authenticity. The authenticity and reality of difference voices. The ownership of public space as a forum where people meet and share ideas is one of the tennets of Candy Chang’s work. Chang says ‘At their greatest, our public spaces can nourish our well-being and help us see that we’re not alone as we try to make sense of our lives.‘
Hand writing is also immediate.
Making digital text is a longer process and often has stages. You write
the text on a computer, someone edits it, you send it to the printer, they
print it, then you pick it up and pay for it, then you install it (you’d better
get a permit too). The spontaneous aspect of making texts on the spot
references the unprofessional, the unedited, the incorrect, the unaligned, and
unedited voice.
Graffitti also stands out as a handmade text. It is handwritten and also often illegible.
It is a text, but a coded one. Fran
Tonkiss suggests that although the act of graffiti sets up a discourse between
the writer and the reader, it seems to be an act that alienates the
reader. She says that in these
circumstances , ‘ the politics of graffiti take the form of an identity
politics which insists that nameless others should notice your presence and
remember your name,’ (2005).
Doesn’t advertising do the same thing? But it does it with the air of
authority of the digitised and expensive process of the printed text. Why is
the billboard allowed to dominate your view? Because someone paid for it.
Graffiti is a momentary unpaid for and unedited conquest of public space. The
signs, advertising and the tagging are all a form of what Barthes refers to as
the readerly text. It is straight
forward, you read it and its meaning is clear. A sign tells you what to do, the
advertising tells you what is a good deal, what you need to buy and the tag,
tells you that someone is challenging your space, on the nicely painted wall.
The writerly text is one that will make you think about it. An intervention of
handmade text into the public space as an art practice is an example of the
writerly text. Its meaning is not clear and it inferences other things, why is
it there? who put it there? Why did they put it there? What do I think about
it? Would I do the same thing?
What remains after the graffiti is removed is
an anxiety about any un-authorised form of text in public space. There is an idea of what is and isn’t allowed
and many people dislike any intervention into this landscape of text and will
often remove it. Sanctioned forms of personal text in public space seem to be notices
for garage sales and lost pets. Any text
advertising business and products seem to be allowed even when they are
interventions onto private or public property. This is one of the reasons why I
altered my own work to either directly speak to the audience in a friendly way
or to involve the local population in the making, so that the use of public
space was by the people who inhabited it and was creating text
collectively. I was very aware that the
ego of the artists that says ‘hello I am here” can remind people of the
audacity of graffiti artists who take space for their own.
In a sense I had to lose myself as the author
of the work, in order for the work to speak to others. I might own the work in
a secondary sense, on a blog or in an application for something, but apart from
that the artwork has to be given over to the space or to the community that it
is in. Hence there is no author signature on any of the work that I have made
for this research.
When I began providing letters
and words for participants to play with, the writing was difficult to make and
constrained by finding the right letters and words and time and space to place
it in. These constraints produced a truncated style of writing with a strong
relationship to poetry, which is shortened and more concise writing than prose.
The most common form of graffiti is a single word and secondary to this is a
short phrase which carries meaning for the writer. These phrases are not prose
(which has rules) and so they become its opposite – poetry (which doesn't).
Lawrence Weiner’s use of abstracted
text has influenced my work. He does not use text grammatically but instead suggests
ideas and leaves the viewer to wonder about what his meaning is. I enjoy the way in which the audience are
forced to derive the meaning for themselves. And I also like the way that the
work is not speaking directly or instructing the viewer about its own meaning. For
my work, this has meant a loosening or relaxation of what happens to the
letters and words. I have taken particular delight in watching how people will
misspell, invent words and shorten phrases to get their messages across with
the limited letters and words available, sometimes creating something that they
understand, but others cannot. The misspelt and grammatical incorrect phrases
accentuate the handwritten, the human made, in contrast to the digitally made
text of signs and advertising all around them.
Particularly with the peg poetry, as there are only a few available
words to use. A loose prose develops that does not stick to rules, and this is
closer to our oral language which is full of pauses, and words used
incorrectly, unfinished sentences. It is not literature, grammatically correct
or edited text, more of a colloquial shorthand related to idiom and
conversational speech.
…………………………………………………………..
Community and Place
Much of the participatory works that I have
been doing loosely fall under the umbrella of community art because they
involve community participants. I have
practiced making and exhibiting my own artwork for the last twenty-five years
but have become quite dissatisfied with the cultural practice of placing
artwork into a gallery to be shown. This became particularly poignant to me
when I noticed that close friends and family do not attend my gallery openings.
I also found that there was a very strong cultural divide between the people I
spend most of my time with and the people who frequent galleries. For this
reason I have become very interested in art practices outside of the gallery
world.
Reflecting upon my other
art practices outside this research, it strikes me that I am driven by the idea
that art is therapeutic for myself and for the communities that I work with. I
think that art as product, but more so as a process, can be used to strengthen
communities and give individuals confidence and pride in the work they have
made. The community arts movement gave credence to this therapeutic process of art
making and its value for community development.
The components of
ceramics, writing, teaching and community artwork all contribute to my practice
as an artist and have contributed significantly to my interest in the personal
voices of community members and in the use of text in artwork. I worked as an art teacher for many
years part-time but have also been making ceramic murals with communities for
the last twelve years. This research project has provided a forum for joining some
disparate areas of my experience and work.
In the beginning of
the research I envisaged myself making all of the artwork, but since beginning
to work full-time as a community artist in 2011, the research has been
influenced by and has become part of my practice as a community artist. Throughout the project there has been a
strong relationship between my own personal explorations of placing text in
public space and collaborative community projects using the same processes.
There has however been a difference between the work I am commissioned to do
for communities and the work that I do with communities specifically for this
research. When I am commissioned to work with communities they have their own agendas
and outcomes, which I assist them to realise. This commissioned process has
more of a relationship to the general Community art movement and the idea of art
making as a conduit to achieving an outcome such as learning or community
strengthening.
On the other hand the
work that I do with communities as part of this research cannot really be
classified as community artwork as it does not have at its heart the motive of
improving the community, but instead is about creating a dialogue or text about
placing personal text in public space. It is less about the community as an
entity and more about dislodging a cultural norm, the interventionist act of
placing text in public space and the dialogue or text that ensues.
In one of my very
first projects, EMPTY: memory, love,
grief and hope (2011 Moreart show), I asked people for contributions of
words and phrases that they would use to remember people that had gone from
their lives. Very early on in this research I thought that if I was going to
place a text into public space, it needed to be a range of other people’s words,
not my own. I felt that my own voice, representing the artist’s ego and a
singular experience, was not the authentic voice for the context.
This also developed
from the reflection and learning about the importance of the place in relationship
to the artwork. That the artwork needs to respond to the people in the place,
the audience. I am very concerned with
the idea of an audience or reader for my text artworks, so this has been an
important aspect of this research. If I designed the text myself I thought very
carefully about the audience or the text’s relation to the place. The text may
not come from the actual people in the place but it has to be resonant and able
to ‘speak’ to them. So by gathering many
voices, I hoped that the work might resonate with more people. I also gathered
texts in different languages. And I was also collecting examples of oral
language by speaking to people. So that
the text felt like a conversation you might have with someone.
So how could I engage
communities in writing text in public space?
Working with
community participants brought about new challenges and restrictions such as
time, budget, theme and legal installation mechanisms. The methods that I used
working alone to place text in public space would not always work with
communities, ideas had to be adapted or invented. There was also the issue of
engagement, how do you get someone to place their own text in public space?
The most significant
project was one of the first ones, where I worked with the Moonambel Art and
History Group in 2012. One of the key
ingredients for success was that the group knew me and trusted me as I had done
many projects voluntarily with them in the past. I emailed the group and asked
if they would like to do a public poetry project and got a very positive
response. I ran the workshop to show them how to make ceramic poetry, I fired
and glazed the work, then I helped them silicon the work onto the fence at the
Moonambel Common. Because the participants were members of a small community
this project was embraced by all and accepted as a worthwhile project. They
only asked permission from the owner of the other side of the fence, not the
local council authority because they felt that they owned the common
themselves. The Mayor of the Pyrenes was invited to open the project by cutting
a ribbon and a fabulous feast ensued which moved into the adjacent CFA fire brigade
garage when it began to rain. The group already facilitate art projects in
their town and they had the confidence to take over some parts of the project
such as the media releases, advertising and organisation of the launch. Because
of the large number of people involved from this small community there was a
sense that the artists’ already owned the space in which they glued their
artwork.
Photographs of the
moonambel project
The Moonambel group worked together on this project
but each participant made their own poem and installed it. For each person,
their writing was an individual act of placing their own text into public
space. The public space was theirs, and they wrote into it. I wonder now, has
it posed a wider question for that community about placing text in public
space?
The community art movement also gave credance to the idea that art made by community members, not just artists, was inherently valuable. Community art also values the process over the product. The product is evidence of the community working together and also becomes something that the community can keep. My perspective is similar in that I think everybody should be involved in art-making and that the layman has valuable insights and knowledge to add through the medium of art. The community art movement broadened the idea of who was an artist, and perhaps broke down some hierarchies between professional artist and community member, valuing them both as creative authors. Lori Hager says ‘Community arts break down barriers between artist and audience and include everyone, no matter the skill level, in creating and presenting the arts.’ Conceptual art has also broken down old definitions by allowing the author of the artwork, to be the author of the idea, and not necessarily the maker of the work.
Hager also suggests that Community arts differ from art by artists in that they, ‘are about fostering local dialogue, generating social capital, and stimulating positive social change.’ The idea of the community arts movement is one of civics, sharing values, community cohesion. Whilst some of these things are called to mind when I involve communities in this work of writing their own voices, I should be clear that it is my agenda that is being pursued, not theirs. In that sense it might be safer to describe my involvement of others in this research as participatory. The participants become involved in my agenda and my interests, by making text.
The involvement of community in writing is part of
another dialogue about people being involved in their place, and about the
words that I place into public space being derived from the inhabitants. I have
often felt quite intrusive as I lure participants into an activity or dog them
to give me their words of wisdom so that I can install them for public
scrutiny.
(Photograph of the sages project – bukky etc.)
How do they feel when they see their words continually
in public space. Do they regret it? How
have the people they know responded to their statements?
No matter what the artist does, they are always an interventionist. They place something where it wasn't
before. They upset the natural order of
things. The practice of getting the locals to make text for or to write in
their own places was not for community arts purposes of social cohesion or
civics, but more as a natural evolvement of the question ‘how can we put our personal
text into public space’.
Marc Schiller ( The Wooster Collective)
suggests that Street art is almost a compulsive response from artists:
‘ . . . this
proliferation of advertising in our urban environment, the repetition of that advertising
and the mundaneness that one finds has led to the need for artists to make
sure that these places are livable,
that they’re humanizing. That there’s a balance between the advertiser who has
the ability to buy the space, and the city, and the artist who has the need and
the desire to take the space.’
What’s perhaps
missing from the above idea is the inhabitants of that space. After all what is
a place, but the amalgamation of objects, its history and its people.
This research began
from the idea that personal text was missing and could be placed in public space,
and then the question is why? and how?
The answer to the
first question is; because we have lost that public space, it seems that it is
not ours to interact with anymore. And how? has become more complicated. The how?
could refer to the artist but ideally should refer to the people who use and
inhabit the space. The how? leads to community and
participatory art practices but does not necessarily stem from them. It stems from the personal viewpoint and
personal interest of the artist. And like Schiller’s statement above, as it is in this research, the artist’s desire
to intervene into the space.
In this project it came through to me very
clearly that as an artist I can place something into public space which can
reach an audience but how much more powerful it would be if I make an artwork
in public space that involves the people who inhabit that space. Then the
artwork has a connection with the people who had a part to play in its making
and also the audience of the artwork. Also the loss of authorship has allowed
the work to be more about the place where it is installed. For example the
Sages of Sunshine project has no indication of authorship apart from the obvious,
that someone made it and installed it.
The only names on the work are those of the locals who have contributed
the text. The imagery is of the local place or the local people. The artwork refers back to the place, and not
to the artist.
This research project is also placed across
different areas of arts culture. At one end of the spectrum it might appear as
an activity at a festival, the very simple act of rearranging letters to make
words. At the other end it is exhibited
in a contemporary art space, alongside other contemporary artists and is
successfully sold as an art commodity. In between it is found on the street by
those people whose eyes look or find things.
(photos of words at festival and peg poetry
at d11, and filling the cracks)
…………………………………………………………….
NUTS AND BOLTS:
MATERIALS and making processes
This research was
conducted through a series of small projects which facilitated placing personal
texts in public space. Each project explored a number of variables such as
materials, installation process, permanence and permission. Materials and installation
methods affect the size, scope and permanence of the work and also have
consequences for permissioned and unsolicited works.
The materials will also
affect how people respond to the artwork, how they interact or remember it and
also the materials create a conversation and relationship with the space they
inhabit. For example the ceramics installed onto concrete and brick seem to be
part of structural areas, whereas when ceramics are installed onto natural
objects, they create a tension about manmade versus natural environment, which
echoes larger issues. I have also noticed that when artworks are made of less
permanent materials such as plastic, they are more quickly removed from the
spaces, perhaps because they looked more temporary and not as pleasant in the
environment.
Very early on in the research
I had to let go of the concern about the cost of placing artworks into public
space. I also had to let go of the artworks themselves. The artist’s time and
materials is given over to the public and their response, much like craftivism
or gifting.
The installation of
text into public space, also commits itself to not being treated as valuable
artwork by not existing within the gallery or art market structure. The
artworks are often able to be taken home by an odd passerby for gratis or
shared via photographs for free. The materials are
recognisable but not especially valuable. The only value is the artist’s time
and this is implied by the artworks being in the place.
The audience are necessary participants in making text or in being there to
read it. Because of this continual use and giving of materials, I have chosen
to use cheaper materials or to work on a small scale unless funding could be
obtained. The other aspect of this type of practice has been the loss of
authorship of the artwork. When the art is encountered it is usually without
any sign of who the author is. I felt this was necessary in order to give the
work over more completely to the place it was in.
One of the text
works, ‘Sketch for peg poetry no. 2’, was placed into a contemporary artist
space, at D11 in August 2013. It was named sketch to indicate that it was not
to be mistaken for a completed artwork, it was the sketch of an idea for making
a mechanism that would invite people to play with moving the text on the pegs,
and also as an attracter to lure people into engaging with the artwork.
(photo of artwork)
I think that any
artist hoping to be able to make a living or part of a living out of art,
cannot pretend to themselves that their art is free from the influence of
economics. For many of the projects in
this research I was able to gain funding or was paid for my time, which might
free the work in regards to materials and time, but incurs other restrictions related to the
funding guidelines of needs of the sponsor.
Actual materials
Ceramics and clay
(photograph of
unfired clay work, slip on house, )
At the beginning of
this project I experimented with using ceramic text. One of the reasons I am
attracted to the use of fired ceramics is that if left in place it can be a
permanent artwork. It also has a monumental feel about it as its surface can be
made to look like stone. The material –
clay is already found in many buildings in the form of brick and the glaze on
the tiles is a form of glass, which is also a building material. So although
the tiles have a handmade aspect, their materials have a strong relationship
with the built environment in which they are installed.
(photograph of
conversation tiles in brickwork)
Early on I realised that the process of
making ceramics, drying time, access to kilns and the necessity of two firings
often caused slow turnarounds, was sometimes costly and there is often
difficulty getting access to firing. Ceramics is a time
consuming process and projects needed to be planned carefully to avoid
stressful situations. I also began making ceramic projects very small, so that
the cost of producing them in multiples would not be a problem.
Part of the research
for this project was to find ways of installing the ceramics that would suit
different situations. I have experimented with a number of adhesives and
installation methods. I have experimented with a number of adhesives but I have
found all-purpose clear silicon to be the most effective material to use. The work can be permanent but it can also be
easily removed with a knife and some silicon remover if necessary. I have
discovered artworks still in place a year later. I also experimented with making
holes in the ceramic letters so that I could string them up. This was an
effective method for installing work around tree trunks or for situations that
needed to be temporary.
Photographs
Letters installed
using fishing line
Stop and go on
Brunswick rd.
I found that my work
with community participants was limited by using ceramics because I couldn’t
provide enough letters for a lot of people to make a permanent work. For
example if I wanted to do even a public ephemeral work cheaply, I needed to
consider the time and money involved in making the ceramic letters. Also if I
wanted the participants to make their own letters, I then had to fire them,
which is a costly and time consuming process. These constraints in ceramic
materials propelled me to explore other materials, which could be easily found,
were economically viable and could be used more immediately. I used clay slip but I found that although it washes off easily, it
lacks aesthetic appeal because it looks like dirt or white paint.
Plastic
I began using recycled
plastic with fabric letters as a potential material to use with large groups of
people. The plastic I found in dumper
bins or given to me by furniture stores, and fabric is very cheap to buy from
opportunity shops or easily sourced from the community. Cost-effective
production methods are an important factor when you are working with large
numbers of people on a limited or non-existent budget, which is often the case.
I also discovered that the plastic reacted to sunlight,
so it added another dimension to the artwork. This work was initially developed
as a trial for the Moreart Art Show, and was further developed in workshops
with school children, the Sunshine Babel Onion project and then used in The Clothesline
Timeline (commissioned by Melton Shire, Ephemeral artwork for the Djerriwarh
festival).
Photographs
I wanted to tell you
Plastic banner at
Anstey station (trial), 2012
Fabric letters
between two layers of recycled plastic
Sunshine babel onion
The Clothesline Timeline,
Commissioned artwork for the Djeriwarrh Festival, Melton Council September,
2012, Plastic and fabric, clothesline with Nick and Mary Hackett, tape, pegs.
Pegs
Still on the search
for easier ways to make words and something that the public would respond to. I discovered the idea of pegs mid 2013. You
can buy 80 pegs for $2.50 so it was extremely cost effective. The other surprising thing I discovered was
that you can place them in many situations and often they don’t get removed. There
was a familiarity about them that people enjoyed and because they were small
and temporarily attached they didn’t appear intrusive.
I initially thought
of stringing a line for them but the first installation went onto a fence in
Lauderdale. A second installation was made on a fence next to the Moonambel
General Store. Both installations still exist one year later but with new arrangements
of the words made by the respective communities.
I also developed pegs
with labels on them which could be written on with permanent markers and were
displayed on lines. An experimental installation at the Huntclub Community Arts
Centre, led to a commission to make it on a larger scale at the Brimbank Kids
Day Out and The Brimbank Readers and Writers Festival in 2013.
Photographs:
Peg Poetry
installation on Fence, Bike path, in Lauderdale, Tasmania.
Peg poetry at the
Moonambel general store
Sketch for peg poetry @ D11
Pegpoetry at the Brimbank Kids day out
festival
Peg Poetry at the Brimbank Readers and
Writers Festival
………………………………………………………………………………
COMMUNICATION AND REACTION
I was interested in
the response to the text in public space: how the participants, audience,
residents, and caretakers of the public space react to the personal voices.
This is of particular interest to me, as this has affected the situation we
have now, where a personal writing in public space is not welcomed. Block H says in his essay, Sanctioned and unsanctioned art in Public
space, ‘Increasingly, public space is shrinking, morphing into ‘public-use’
or ‘public access’ space. It is progressively subject to surveillance and
control where even minor deviation from the conventional established social
standards becomes illicit, and commercial codes of conduct are enforced.’
I felt that this was
particularly evident in my initial fear about placing something into public
space. I was fearful of being prosecuted but after a while I worked out that
someone had to complain first before someone would prosecute. Who owns what space and who are the
caretakers of that space became more pertinent questions. How they would react to my use of their space
was also something to consider.
How is public space
viewed and how can a community’s idea of ownership of their public space be
changed. Can they see it as a place in which they can place their own words?
Feedback is perhaps
the most difficult thing for an artist to organize. How can I find out what the
community response is?
Through the research
projects I paid particular attention to how the participants, audience,
residents, and caretakers of the public space reacted to the personal voices.
What type of feedback do I receive or is there evidence of how the community
felt about the artwork? People of course, love participating in workshops and
activities and express this satisfaction but don’t usually comment on a deeper
level. In regards to creating a dialogue about the idea of personal text in
public space, I am not usually privy to how this affects people’s thinking. There
are many places in time and space where this silent or conversational dialogue
might take place. There is how the work affects the writer, how it is seen and
thought about by others. How other
people speak about it and how the dialogue continues. This is impossible to document.
I was however, able
to gather some responses by blogging all of the artwork, and I accidentally
came across some reactions by being in the right place at the right time.
Example, place in special box
Stop and go
Ephemeral installation, West Brunswick, November 2011.
Ephemeral installation, West Brunswick, November 2011.
When you drive along Brunswick
rd. there is a particular amount of traffic congestion as you approach Lygon
St. On your right is a traffic island with huge old trees in it.
I assembled a series of words, stop and go, with ceramic letters strung on fishing line and then tied around the trees. Using the words stop and go perfectly sum up the driver’s situation in rush hour traffic, particularly at this spot.
I assembled a series of words, stop and go, with ceramic letters strung on fishing line and then tied around the trees. Using the words stop and go perfectly sum up the driver’s situation in rush hour traffic, particularly at this spot.
Then I was at blacksmithing one day and I had some ceramics left over from the moreart show, which I was giving out to the other women.
Then Sarah said, "hey, did
you do the stop and goes on Brunswick Road?’
Debbie: “Yes, I did!”
Sarah: ‘I was sitting on a bus
getting pissed off at the traffic jam and I looked out the window and noticed
them. It was so funny I just laughed and laughed!"
It was very valuable to get that response, as I had no idea about whether people noticed the installation, or what their response was. The fact that it was memorable and made Sarah laugh, is a good indication that other people may have seen and appreciated the stop and go texts.
Photograph: Stop and Go, ceramic
letter installation, Brunswick Rd, Brunswick. 2011 - 2012
I was sitting in a
staffroom at a school where I was doing a project one day. The school was in the next suburb from the
Sages of Sunshine Project. A teacher came in and said that she had seen some
artworks up in sunshine, ‘little portraits.’ She was referring to the project
excitedly and I was pleased because she had even noticed them whilst driving
through. I realised that there were probably thousands more conversations about
the project but I had just witnessed one by luck of being in the right place at
the right time to overhear it.
Photo – sages of
sunshine
blogging
I began blogging individual projects in 2010
as a communication tool for communities to share the project that I was making
with them. The blog also linked with my other blogs and worked as an
advertising tool. But its primary role
was to allow the participants to share their art making with their families and
friends.
For artworks that people find on the street,
being able to find the project on the Internet can provide the context for the
artwork. For example in the Sages of Sunshine Project, I would tape the flyer
nearby which listed the blog address, so that interested people could take the
flyer and find out more about the project if they wanted to. When running
activities that make ephemeral artworks the artworks would be photographed and
then blogged to provide a record for the author and to also let them see their
work in the context of the bigger project.
This is especially true of the concrete
poetry madness blog where many projects have been posted of different types
with different materials, it lets the viewer see that their poem as part of a
larger practice of making poetry out of objects, letters and words.
By blogging your work you also get a second
audience and the artwork has a second life as a series of photographs and text.
In it’s virtual life it is an idea or image that people respond to. Often my
projects are small interventions in very disparate places, so the blog brings
all of the parts of the project together in one place. It makes the project viewable and more
understandable. People can also see the size of the project and they can even
ask questions and I can respond to them.
When I did filling the cracks with conversation I used the fringe festival as the conduit for the project. I knew that the fringe festival would use an online forum and that I could get an audience to click to my site through linking from the fringe festival app. This worked well and I had the most ever views on a project in such a short time.
Mixed
reactions
Filling the cracks with conversation has been a very popular project and I receive many requests for it to
be placed in particular areas. Often people will let me know if they see the
work and some people let me know that they have gone out in search for it. I
have had requests from Council art officers to install it around community
centres and have not had any negative feedback about the use of Council
Footpaths which house the work. The permanence of the project and ongoing
installation has assisted in it remaining an durational artwork with an ongoing
dialogue.
Photograph above: a Facebook message from May 2013 – demonstrating that
the project is still current and seen over 9 months after it was installed.
Filling the cracks
Response via Facebook
Photograph; Facebook capture of
sighting work 8 months after installation.
In 2013 I was asked by the
curator to install ceramic conversations (from the filling the cracks with conversations project) temporarily in front
of “The Front”, an artist run space at Docklands. This artwork extended 1.5 cm
from the front window onto the street, in that it was glued down onto the
silicon holding the glass in place.
I drew attention to the artwork
by surrounding the tiles in hundreds and thousands. One week later it was
requested by the management of the shopping centre that the artwork be removed.
This was a response driven by the extreme rules of the shopping centre
regarding signs and intervention by shops onto the footpaths and perhaps
feedback from other shop owners who had expressed their fear of the hundreds
and thousands attracting ants.
Photograph:
Installation of conversations at
‘The Front”, Docklands August 2013.
The Poets of Moonambel has been the most permanent and longstanding
artwork. Its success lay in the
ownership of the project by the community. The project has been up for two
years now and only two letters have gone missing.
The heavy weight of Aspiration
Jan – Feb 2012 this was a poem I
wrote and adhered to a slab of concrete in a park in East Keilor. I used liquid
nails for this one. I noticed that it is still intact and complete 18 months
later in June 2013. Council workers had done extensive works in the parklands
where it was situated and had not attempted to remove it. I found it very
interesting that it had lasted for 18 months. The concrete slab where I wrote
the poem also had a large tank like structure above it, which is regularly
updated with graffiti art, and I was pleased that the local artists had not
tried to remove or paint over the letters. Sometimes it's a good response if
there is no evidence of response.
Photograph;
The
heavy weight of aspiration
Ceramic
letters, liquid nails on concrete slab
East
Keilor 2012,
The Television Interventions
Keilor East, Essendon and Coburg
Jan – March 2012
In the spirit of Julie Shiels
work, I began placing words on the televisions, which had been dumped onto the
nature strips in the suburbs that I frequented. People had placed them on the
nature strips even though it was not hard rubbish time and even though no one
really needs an old television anymore, particularly one that has been sitting
in the rain for several months.
The text of the work referred to
the fact that the owner’s relationship with the television had ended and served
as a metaphor for human relationships and our relationship to the objects that
we purchase and discard. A couple of
texts referred to the fact that we are all tossing out our fat televisions for
slimmer models. The words on the televisions did not go down well with many
people. Some people removed the letters, some turned the television face down,
and some removed the televisions quickly thereafter. However, one television
just across the road from me was left on the nature strip with the words ‘tele
too tubby’ for at least four months.
The television project was really
interesting because of the negative response.
The project was political in nature in that it referred to our
neverending desire to purchase the new and throw out the old at an
ever-increasing rate. It reflected our
‘throw away society’ and also the rate at which relationships are disbanded. It
said things that people didn’t want to hear.
In that sense it effectively communicated the message but was not
received well in public space.
Photograph: Tele too tubby
ceramic letters on television
Television tipped over and tipped
back
Afterword
It is interesting to note that the first and the
last projects for this research have explored ideas of grief and loss as a
common human experience.
The most recent project I made can be seen as
the outcome of this research and again it related to grief. It encompasses many
of the conclusions that I have found in this research and facilitated the
writing of authentic and heartfelt personal text by the local community, and
written in their own public space.
On Wednesday April the 16th Fiona
Warzywoda was stabbed to death by her de-facto husband in Sunshine. In a response to this a Vigil against Violence memorial for Fiona, was organized for the
following Tuesday at the place where she died. The organisers for the Vigil requested
that people bring crochet or knitted hearts.
I had two requests from friends who asked me, could we do something for
the vigil. So I decided that we could have a workshop to make ceramic crochet
hearts.
On the Saturday afternoon I made plaster
casts of crochet so that the hearts could be positives of crochet not just
prints, then I dried the casts in the oven Saturday night. On the Sunday
morning 16 people arrived at my house to make the ceramic hearts and they made
over two hundred of them. Sunday night saw me painting and drying the hearts in
the oven so they could be ready for firing.
The hearts were placed in the kiln on Monday morning and retrieved on
Tuesday afternoon. Still warm they arrived at the vigil at five o’clock
accompanied by eight permanent textas and fishing line. Some of the people who
had made the hearts began writing on them and hanging them in the tree nearby,
and then offering them to other people to write on. Other people that I knew
and more that were unknown to me began to assist with the project. Within two
hours all of the hearts had been written on and were hanging in the tree.
What was incredible about this project is
that it evolved from the community upwards. The artist was used as a conduit
for managing and processing the artwork. Two community members initiated the
project by requesting the artist do something. I only physically made one of
the hearts as a demonstration, then spent my time organizing the other needs of
the project, such as moulds, clay, coffee, food, introductions. I also only
wrote on one of the hearts. The text came from the community and each person
wrote what they wanted. The people who wrote on the hearts felt free to write
about how Fiona’s death had made them feel and also often wrote about other
friends and family that they had lost through violence. The process extended
the depth and meaning of the Vigil, and also extended the duration of the act
as the text was left in the tree for others to read on following days. The
remains of the flowers and candles left for Fiona and Her family were removed
the day after the vigil, but the artwork in the trees were left untouched.
As I have worked through this research
project, the use of text has invaded all of my art output, in public spaces, in
public art and my personal work. Its ability of text to extend the meaning and
depth of artistic expression is powerful.
In public space, hand written or arranged
text is in sharp contrast to the digital overload of text we see around us and
is more noticeable. It has the ability to stop us in our tracks as it was
written by another human being, and usually cries out with a different purpose
than advertising. It can tell us of a real story and experience that perhaps we
also share.
The difference between my work and that of artist such as Holzer, Kruger
and Banksy is that I have derived the text from the space in which it is installed.
I develop it from the ‘ground up’ using the place or the people as the
catalyst. Unlike graffiti and other forms of public art and indeed text in
public space, my research practice has been to encourage textural community
conversations which are layered into community history, place and people. This
type of practice leads to benefits for the individuals and the community.
Developing art practices in public space from the ground up rather than the
imposed has the capacity to be owned by the community.
Photos of the hearts writing
………………………………………………………………………………………..
CURRICULUM VITAE
DEBBIE QADRI
Education
2011 - Currently studying for Masters of Fine
Art (Art in Public Space) RMIT
2010 - Certificate 3 in Training and
Assessment
1997
- Bachelor of Arts, Victoria University (Professional writing)
1991 - Graduate Diploma of Education,
Victoria College
1989 - Bachelor of Fine Art, University of
Tasmania (Ceramics)
Debbie works as a community/public artist in
the Western suburbs of Melbourne. She exhibits her personal work under her
maiden name – Debbie Harman.
Recent Projects
·
Overnewton
Anglican Community College, Noah’s Ark Mural 2013
·
Artist in residence at Gardenvale Primary
School, 2013
·
Ardeer: My suburb, My Stories, Artists
in Schools project at Ardeer Primary School and Mother of God Primary SchoolMural
Project, St John’s Primary School, West Footscray 2013
·
Brimbank Readers and Writers Festival –
stencil the street and mosaic musings workshops 2013
·
Artist for the Ephemeral Artwork at the
Djerriwarrh Festival, Melton, Melton Council. 2012
·
Two year residency at Deer Park Art spaces –
Brimbank Council, 2012 - 2014
·
Artist for the Future Knox Community Arts
Project – Knox City Council,
2012
·
Poets of Moonambel –facilitated ceramic poetry
installation Moonambel Common. 2012
·
Animal Storytelling Wall, Strathmore
Community Kindergarten Ceramic mural, 2011
·
Overnewton Anglican Community College –
Artist in Residence, 2011
·
Bird Garden Project
- Lincolnville Kindergarten, totem poles, pavers and birdbath. 2011
·
Caulfield Grammar School, Wheelers Hill
Campus – Ceramic Dragon Mural 2011
·
Bellevue Hill Preschool – Australian Animals
Ceramic Mural, 2010- 2011
·
St Bernard’s Primary School, Coburg – 16
Ceramic Totem Poles, 2010
Other
significant Projects
·
Ceramic Murals also at: Keilor Heights
Primary School 2007, 2010
·
Lincolnville Kindergarten, 2007, 2009, 2011
·
Strathmore Kindergarten, 2008, 2011
·
Keilor Downs Primary School 2008,
·
Overnewton Anglican Community College 2010,
2011, 2013
·
The Scarlett Bar, Burnley St. Richmond – ceramic murals interior and exterior. 2008
·
Painted Murals for Taco Villa Mexican
Restaurant, Elsternwick. 1999
·
Painted Murals –at Victoria University,
Footscray, 1997 -8
·
Painted Murals - Visycare Youth Centre, Dandenong,
1998
·
Painted Murals - Youth at Risk Offices,
Frankston, 1998
·
Painted Murals for Taco Villa Mexican
Restaurant, Glenhuntly 1996
·
Painted
Mural - Native Birds of Tasmania,
Sheffield, Tasmania 1987
·
Collections; Devonport Gallery, University of
Sydney, University of Tasmania,
Memberships
·
Regional Arts Victoria
·
Western Youth Arts Network
·
Australian Blacksmiths Association
·
Moonee Valley Council Arts and Culture
Advisory Committee
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alberro,
A, Zimmerman, A, Benjamin, HD &
Batchelor, D, 1998, Lawrence Weiner,
Phaidon, London, UK.
(surveys
of the language-based art of Lawrence Weiner, which has been an influence on
the non-didactic methods of making text, that I have used in my research)
A Man of Letters – EINE (Graffiti Artist) documentary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wY5hzCEn-4)
documentary film by Jack Oliver, Joseph Brown and Will Abell
Banksy, 2005, Wall and Piece,
New York: Random House UK.
Barthes, Roland, ‘De
l’oeuvre au texte’,1971 ( English
translation by Stephen Heath in ‘Roland Barthes, Image, music, Text, London 1977 pp155 – 64), Harrison,C and Wood, P
(eds.) Art in Theory, 1992 Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge, UK.
Block H (author’s name), Sanctioned and unsanctioned art in public space, <http://www.blockh.net/Block_H_publicspace.pdf>
Bolton, R, (ed) 1992, Culture Wars, New Press, New York, USA.
Burn, I, (essay) ‘The
art market: Affluence and Degradation’, in Harrison, C & Wood, P, (eds) 1992, ART in Theory, Blackwell publishers, Cambridge, UK.
Carpenter,
G, & Blandy, D (eds), Arts and Cultural Programming: A leisure Perspective.
2008, published by Human Kinetics, USA
(The
role of Community Arts Practice in cultural programming, definitions and
limitations of this art practice)
CDH, Selected writings links:
http://www.cdh-art.com/writing.html
(The participatory projects by Candy Chang have been
useful for my research)
De
Botton, A & Armstrong, J, 2013, Art
as Therapy, Phaidon Press pty. Ltd. London
(De
Botton and Armstrong explore the roles of art in culture
De
Salvo, D & Goldstein, A (eds) 2007, Lawrence Weiner: As Far as the
Eye Can See. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles: Museum
of Contemporary Art.
Fietzek,
G & Stemmrich, G (eds.), 2004, Having Been Said: Writings &
Interviews of Lawrence Weiner 1968-2003, Hatje Cantz Publishers, Berlin,
Germany.
Goldberg, R, 1979 , Performance - live art 1909 to the present,
Thames and Hudson, Great Britain.
Thames and Hudson, Great Britain.
Goldstein,
B, (ed), 2005, Public Art By the Book,
published by Americans for the Arts, Washington DC, USA.
Hager,
L, 2008, Community Arts, in
Carpenter, G, & Blandy, D (eds), 2008, Arts
and Cultural Programming: A leisure Perspective, published by Human
Kinetics, USA
Halsey, M & Young, A, ‘Our desires are ungovernable: writing
graffiti in urban space’, University of Melbourne Australia, article in
Theoretical Criminology 2006, Sage productions, London.
Harrison, C & Wood, P, (eds) 1992, ART in Theory, Blackwell publishers,
Cambridge, UK.
Kelly, O, 1984, Community, Art and the State: Storming the Citadels, Comedia
publishing Group, London.
Lawson, N, 20.4.2012,
theguardian.com
Robbo
Vs Banksy "Graffiti Wars" (2011), documentary, <http://www.streetartnews.net/2011/08/robbo-vs-banksy-graffiti-wars-full.html>
McQueen, H, 2004, Social
sketches of Australia, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld,
Australia.
Schwarz,
D (ed) Lawrence Weiner: Books 1968-1989. Köln / Villeurbanne:
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König / Le Nouveau Musée, 1989.
The Wooster collective ‘Gaming the streets: uncommissioned art, 2011, TED X Bloomington,
(Youtube) Schiller, M & Schiller, S <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZcbOyKxW2M>.
Tonkiss, Fran, Space,the City and Social
Theory: Social Relations and Urban Forms, Cambridge:Polity, 2005
Looking at and looking through: Futurism,
Dada, and concrete poetry. article, non attributed: <http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5934>
Victorian Government, Graffitti Prevention
Act 2007 ( no. 59 of 2007)
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