TAC goes tweedie with Dr Bacharach

Meeting up with Sondra Bacherach was really fantastic! Made me and Liz miss our discussions where we were all together as a group.

She wanted to know:
How we got started, we talked about the everynowandthen project beginnings.
How we made decisions, the consensus process, and how we worked out our times of non-agreement…

Sondra has looked at groups here and overseas. She specifically mentioned gilbert and george and the marukis. She said that as a philosopher, their processes were of lesser interest to her as she thinks through collaborative artistic output. This is because the artwork, in those cases, are the works of multiple individuals, yet each plays their own part – with the Marukis for example, each spends time on a painting before handing it over to the other.

Was interested in the nature of collaboration and the idea of a “true collaboration” as distinct from a role taking scenario where tasks are divided up and completed individually as part of a larger project (eg film crews).

We spoke about how we are a collaborative group formed to work collaboratively to explore, experiment with and test collaborative processes and structures. Sondra thought that was pretty neat and quite philosophical.

Also works collaboratively with her Marsden Grant fellow developing their ideas and writing together – understands the difficulties of long distance communication. She encouraged us to think less as a place based group and try new methods of communication such as skype conferencing.
Talked about the role of communication and our understanding of it as a part of the art that we make (process model).

Sondra said she’d like to meet with us again, later in the year, and is excited about the potential of either working with us or pickin our brains in the future.

Paula and Liz