net cement

so, now it seems we are not,
what do we do with what we did when we were?
shall we leave this blog meandering up as space trash to free float amongst the web-o-sphere?

stepping out

well...
in light of Sians departure from Tac the (now) two wellington-based members have decided we definitely need to make a priority of finding more collaborators.
The way we see it, a down-scaled unfunded run of posters will do the job just fine. Cheap and cheery, black and white, photocopier printed and distributed over the next couple of months with a plan to meet up in the new year.
It seems practical that there won't be much real action until around late January - considering that, I think we should work towards planning a hoolie of us all around that time in Wellington. Also, by that stage Toms move back won't be far off the horizon. (land ahoy!)
Above is a pre pre pre idea for poster, see comments for a draft of an email to be sent out to potential interested peoples.

Thank you and good night x

Hi all,

Sian here; some confusion over who posted my last post.

Sorry for lack of engagment; Tyree's dad died and so that has taken huge amounts of time and energy, as well as being involved in four shows in as many months. One of which is my solo show opening next week, so still going and working............!

Anyway. We didn't get the Creative Communities funding for our poster recruitmemt project in Wellington. They rang me up to clarify the application and basically the problem was that they just couldn't understand what we were about or for or what our function was in the arts community of Wellington.

Now I did my best but man I really struggled to get a succinct version out of what we are about etc. .........and reading over the recent posts it seems that other people are a bit too?

I think the problems are that we started this group and then Prospect came along so soon that we did a big project which took lots of energy without having that groundwork on working out what we were and what we wanted to achieve. So now I feel like there is a lot of confusion because there is no solid base. I know at work that we have a very simple but totally nutted out and clear manifesto of what we are and what we do and why, so projects can be tested back against that model.

I empathise with others who have tlaked about how we seem to be doing a lot of research or something on our own processes. To me this feels laborious and is not really what I was interested in being part of the group for in the first place. As I said on the previous post, I am interest in making things and I hear you barking Liz when you say that I should pick up and make this happen, but I find at this stage that I just have no energy to do this!!!

I think I have run out of steam for this project of being part of the group, and I know that I have really no time to energise or get going any new projects between now and starting school at the end of Feb. I have plans for next year to set up critique and feedback groups in Wellington for artists who wish to build a more connected and responsive community, and I feel that this is more in line with satifying what I am interested in.

So I think I am done! We have done some great things and it has been cool working with you ladies. Paula and Liz if you would like to meet up and discuss further that would be cool, but I thought it would be useful to post this up here so we can all see it.

Flow chart frenzy! 1week decision feedback

Here is our formatted feedback - double click to view.
Taccers please do a close reading because there are some (mostly minor) discrepancies in understanding between members and it would be good to arrive at an overall consensus.
Can we please also feedback further to the suggestions to resolve how best to use "1-Week Decisions".
p.s. Hope you like your designated colours!

Shedding light on collaborative common ground, a book review

Above image: PAD/D: DEMONSTRATE!, installation of art made for public protest, Chicago (circa 1983).

This is the second installment of my quest to harvest relevant tid-bits from between the pages of Temporary Services’ new artists’ book Group Work. The trials and accomplishments of past collaborative and collective activities can offer a lot in the way of cautionary tales and models of success. This group has got them both.

New York collective Political Art Documentation/Distribution was established to archive an amassing collection of ephemera from art/political actions and events but snowballed into something much larger. Temporary Services’ Brett Bloom conducted three interviews with four members of Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D); Gregory Scholette and Janet Koenig were interviewed together and Jerry Kearns and Barbara Moore were each interviewed separately.

PAD/D was sparked into being by writer and activist Lucy Lippard, in New York’s East Village in 1980. Lippard had been collecting up a bunch of posters and other documentation from the preceding two decades of political art activism, mostly through donations from the artists themselves. At the time the art institutions were largely ignoring socially engaged art so, in the spirit of self-organization, Lippard called a meeting to enlist help with the creation of an archival resource. Jerry Kearns recalled turning up to the first meeting after “seeing a leaflet stapled to a pole”, he describes Lippard’s continuing involvement in the group as contributing a “Leadership of doing”.

So told, this was a period of many collective activities, both locally in the East Village and in the US scene in general. Because of this Lippard was interested only in creating a resource - not in forming another group. However, after the first couple of meetings the artists became frustrated with such administrative documentary tasks and started to get excited about the potential of the group as a site of artistic/activist production. It seems like this kind of self definition and direction from amongst the members so early on really continued through the group’s lifespan. These energies meant the group were both prolific and divergent in their output.

While the documentation team became an autonomous entity within the wider group, largely left to their own devices, PAD/D grew to become an umbrella organisation for a diverse range of activities. These spanned from the initial archival project to a reading group that “kind of mutated” into an anti-gentrification project, the publication of a leftist cultural events calendar and a newsletter to distribute the contents of the archive — to name the few ongoing projects mentioned in the interviews.

I thought it was interesting to note, and of some relevancy to the TAC situation, that as the group became larger the structure of PAD/D became more hierarchical. In their first year of operation consensus was used, after which they moved to majority voting. Jerry Kearns explained “We tried to make power transparent within the group. But we also tried to avoid the endless group therapy sessions that consensus decision making often leads to”. I think one of their most interesting achievements was developing a system to deal with their growth. To keep communication and opportunities open a system was instigated whereby people proposed new projects to the group to gauge interest and gain support. In order to keep a track of all the activities there was a regular event called “Second Sundays” where members spoke about their on-going projects. PAD/D was a real large-scale group, something hard to imagine happening in a Wellington context.

It seemed like there was quite a struggle over keeping the organisation centrally located. A steering committee was formed to oversee the activities of the project-focused sub-committees. At times, although the steering committee conceptualised themselves as advisory, this caused uneven power relationships to arise. Gregory Scholette recalls that “As time went on PAD/D became very structured … to the point where there were elaborate flow charts about how you submitted a proposal to the group”. Long-time PAD/D member Janet Koenig argues “It was no longer Democratic, at that point, at least to my mind. ‘Democratic centralism’ is nearly an oxymoron”.

Despite differences of opinion PAD/D managed to hold it together through some challenging events. Koenig and Scholette were part of a reading group that was accused of trying to create a faction. Scholette explains the initial motivation for the splintering: “Some of us felt that we didn’t have enough theory. We didn’t feel like PAD/D had really thought through these issues of art and society very deeply”. During a big event that PAD/D had organised, designed to bring together other counter-institutional groups into a mega coalition, Scholette circulated an essay that he had written which mounted a critique on PAD/D. Crazy times. Luckily, the group had “a very strict structure for dealing with problems” and after an initial period of tension things settled down and people realised that the reading group was generating valuable resources for PAD/D.

One of the great things about this article was the way the different perceptions and experiences of the group are communicated through the discrepancies in opinions between the separate interviews. This group and its structures were formed from a collective desire to honour and continue the legacy of activist/artistic activities from preceding decades of political and social change. They did this through making a place for the materials that were left behind and, more importantly, through keeping the practice of collective activity alive and functioning.

Throughout the interview with members of “Political Art Documentation/Distribution”, in Temporary Services’ Group Work, there is mention of the other many and varied organisations that influenced their group – both in terms of its structure and its ideology. I haven’t really even gone into the specifics of this. There are a heap of touchstones for TAC in the stuff above, it has been great to read about some of the common threads and I hope it’s been informative for you, dear reader.

The first book review installment, which is about General Idea, can be found here: Group Work artists book review
An article on PAD/D written by member Gregory Scholette can be downloaded in pdf form here: A Collectography of PAD/D

TAC meeting minutes adn discussion points

TAC meeting Monday 27th August

I have organised the points into the three agenda areas so it is easier to read. This means that it is not sequential as the meetings actually ran but will be clearer to follow. Points which require feedback have been marked in italics.

All of the below is my subjective note taking and is open to correction, suggestion, comment, feedback etc.

NEW MEMBERS

All are agreed that we need new members.

Suggestion that new members should be recruited in each area of the diaspora.

Blog would then become group to group post rather than internal communication.

Name suggestions; TAC Wellington, TAC Christchurch etc. The when we do something together we would be TAC United?

So, with suggested new members involved, each TAC project would become under their own regional control. Each group needs to be activated and able to act. Esp as noted by recent problems with blog re communication, loss of energy for group etc.

A group focus could be feeding into a new bio / manifesto which could be used to create a new members pack. Enough history to provide an orientation.

Importance of the power structure remaining level discussed. No experts. Decision making should be consensual.

Manifesto should not be too solid / prescriptive etc. Open; like how we have recorded our processes as conversations. New members could get the assessment of CAMRU as a conversational piece in new members pack.

Differentiation between tac groups can develop. Each group could contribute a chapter to the kit. Organic. There would be a natural progression according to each group’s interests.

Value of the initial openness of the call to TAC. Diverse range of people.

Could use photos in orientation/new members pack.

NEW MEMBERS SUMMARY

New members in each centre
Each centre deciding on how to recruit it’s own members
Create an orientation kit for new members – (photos, manifesto, CAMRU assessment?)


KIT

Use the aesthetic of CAMRU like the scattered notes. Give artists / organisations a page where they could write / draw whatever about their experiences in collaboration.

Flow chart model

Open structure for other collaborative structures to engage with.

Non-directive and non-definitive. Can keep being added to. Could be like a ring binder with new chapters / blank pages.


FUTURE PROJECTS

Developing and spreading TAC

Becoming The Association of Collaborations, ie finding ways to be inclusive of other groups without them having to be part of the every day running. Pages in kit are one way.

Funding application to Creative Communities Wellington. Idea of creating posters about TAC to create interest in group / ideas / new members. Then packs could be sent out after this. This would be relevant for Wellington audience. Other groups apply in own districts? Or may prefer alternative methods of recruitment?

Poster ideas; disseminating info, drawings, text, a series of three, drawing of writing on wall at Enjoy? Good to have a visual project to keep interest up aesthetically. Good to have another tangible project this year.

CAMRU ASSESS – questions for the group

Input are Tom’s questions and Andie’s musings previously on blog.
Discussed these and own input and came up with following Q’s;

What were our individual expectations of the CAMRU project?

What did it do?

What TAC processes worked well?

What TAC processes didn’t work so well?

How effective was CAMRU in communicating with an audience?

What did the responses tell us that was valuable towards understanding the Prospect show?

Assessment of Prospect

I've been thinking about the necessity of assessing TAC's activity in Prospect in order that me may move onto greener pastures with clear directives, awareness of successes and failures and evident focuses. I don't know if the Wellington meeting of TAC has gone ahead or any discussion has been had a about this?

I thought that since we are all now spread around corners of the globe, one way to collect and assess would be to draw up a number of questions to which each TAC member could respond (perhaps by using the email system). After this we could analyse, assess, see if there are any similarities or wild discrepancies in our responses.

I also thought that these written responses could also partially be used in future documentation of process and potentially some of it could even be re-worked for the toolkit if we decide that is something we want to go ahead with.

A few questions I had thought of so far were:

1. At what stage did you feel most comfortable with TAC's processes?
2. How effective did you feel the trolley project was in engaging with a community wider than the art community?
3. If you could have changed a process in the development of the trolley project, what would you have changed? Why?

ps Best title award goes to Sian for title previous to this one :)

Tim's article for MOB now finished

Hello dears,
Tim's article on collaboration featuring TAC, Rachael Rakena & Brett Graham, and Nova Paul is finsished and you will find it in the TAC gmail account.
Check it out, it is interesting to see what he quoted from us in the final version!
x p

Tim Wong interviews TAC here!

Consensus reached - onwards through interview process. TAC : Remember to use the association's login for commenting, and that all contributions are up for grabs for quoting. Tim: Look forward to your questions, and resulting writing!

Below is an anonymous comment gleaned from CAMRU that I thought might add something to the conversation
click on image to see larger view.
x p

Meeting notes 22.2.07

So I thought I would put up some stuff from the last meeting. I think I mainly notated (is this a word?!) the actions which we planend to take rather than every detail.

So, first we discussed what we would try and cover in the artists talk on Sunday. Sian and Tom to do the talk;

* How the Association came about; 'Every Now and Then', call for involvement etc.

* What the connections are between members (I wasn't sure if this meant previous experiences with collaboration or between us as people?)

* Aims of the group; To investigate, test and experiment through collaborative processes to find out how collaboration works (and doesn't work....) To use these cumulative experiences to build a resource for other group to use. To develop further projects which further investigate collaboration through other avenues as well as art practice (political organisations, groups, etc)

Values
Commitment to process over product / object based outcomes.

Use of various models of decision making, but underlying an agreement to work on a consensus model.

Sustainability of the group in terms of management of time energy and resouces.

Flexibility to change evolve and grow as we find things which work more or less well.

CAMRU
Decision making processes evolved for this project due to time constraints. We developed a practical and pragmatic approach which worked on the most practical approach. We did not make decisions purely on an aesthetic basis.

Part of the CAMRU project is to test out models of participation within the gallery context. This means that the structure of the work is fluid to change and development. CAMRU is responsive to its audience. What happens during the show feeds back into the system. What you think matters to the association x

CAMRU has developed in the context of a survey show and aims for a conversation which has the potential to become a form of collaboration between the Association, gallery hosts, the public audience, the gallery and the other artists work.

Some other points which were discussed

*How to document peoples' responses.

After some discussion it was decided that the best idea would be to have a large scrap book into which responses could be stuck with bluetack. This would document how people had decided to take the responses off the wall (their particular rule) and also mean that it was easy for others to take those responses out and possibly put them back on the wall or elsewhere.
Ideally people would write down what the response was in the scrap book if they took one out, so that the 'map' retains that integrity.

We thought that this idea could be a good way to encourage further host engagement with a clear role.

* How to make the outposts more outstanding

Ideally we would like to use the walls behind them as another area where peoples' responses could be put up. Sian will email CG to check this. Otherwise we thought about adding wires to the outside of the outposts so that responses can be attached to them, or stringing a washing line between the outpost and the wall. For either of these last ideas the outposts would need to be weighted at the base so that they are balanced.

There was agreement that we should purchase some more white plastic chairs which can be situated beside the outposts for people to use. Also we discussed raising up teh posts to make them higher, perhaps with rubber feet on the bottom, or pieces of wood cut to the same size as the base.

* Catalogue

Possibility of adding some material into the catalogue. There are approx 500 to be printed. Paula suggested that we put approx 3 original responses into the catalogues. This would mean that they were one offs and that we are spreading and not owning the responses.

Personally I like the distribution aspect of this, and also it is material generated from the public not from us which is nice. I will check when they need this material, as we will need to see how many responses we have by then.

There was also a suggestion of putting some of our own material in there. I will check whether we are to be given any budget for reproducing material ie photocopying.

* Manning the CAMRU

Has been noted that we are all a bit burnt out but also that we all need to make some level of personal commitment. Problems arising are that some peopel are thinking this project is solely Lizs' as she has been a regular visitor. We discussed the best use of time, and decided that perhaps it is more useful for us each to make some commitment each week, even if it is just an hour, rather than trying to commit to chunks of time.

In terms of visiting on a regular basis, one of aims is to keep engaging with teh resposnes. We are still working out how we will use them as a whole resource, and part of the process of doing this is to document them (digital photos, scrap book, map making) and to look for themes and conenction within them. Thus they have the potenital to grow into a true 'Alternative to the curatorial voice'.

* Hosts

Decided that the best way to engage them is just for us to be around more and talk to them on a regular basis. Liz has found this effective.

* Inviting others to join the group

Not yet while the project is in a practical function period ie CAMRU.

Headhunting?

Asking people to join for a specific reason / time period?

Should we have a boy?

Could be hard to 'initiate'?!

*Blog

Discussion due to address being published in catalogue. Decided that although it can be quite 'intimate', that is appropriate for a blog and that it is good to be transparent. Value on process not product and the blog shows lots of the process. Keeps us on an equal level with others ie it's not us being experts, we are obviously working things out as we go.

OK I think that's it, sorry it's huge!!!

See you all soon X Sian

Meeting Minutes - 15/1/07

Finished minutes for meeting on Monday 15th Jan

Adgenda whip - Tom
Notes – Liz
Catering – Paula, Liz and Roar

Adgenda:
- Wallspace: need and purpose
- Hosts: how to bring them on board
- (Wo)manning the trolley
- Acknowledging Tyree and self identification
- Entitling the trolley
- Trolley update
- One liner pencils
- 100 words
- Flowcharts
- Thursday night working bee and meeting
- Materials budget
- Turning the criticality on ourselves

Alex sent her apologies, general comiserations: Paula will keep in contact, update & refer to blog.

Wallspace: need and purpose.
Decided that yes, we do need wallspace for collating and displaying audience feedback notes. General discussion on how audience would be encouraged to write their responses on notes: Tac to start the activity (lead by example), more ‘examples’ created fresh each day by gallery hosts, favourite past responses recycled and positioned around the gallery on audience barrier floor markings (don’t cross the line, be well mannered but active in distribution).

Hosts: how to bring them on board.
Andie to ‘drip feed’ info to the city gallery hosts about tac and the project as a way of cueing them into the concerns in manageable chunks . We decided it was important to contact hosts personally as soon as we could put together a good description of the aims and concerns of the project. We decided the best way to do this was a meeting with the hosts in the board room, tac supplying food (each bringing a plate), on Tuesday the 23rd – 5 or 5.45 – to confirm. Andie to check with Heather and email hosts in reciept of go – ahead.
Although there was some suggestion we could tack (!) ourselves onto the end of the walkthrough it was generally agreed that the distinction between hosts turning up because they are required to (walkthrough) versus because they are interested (tac meeting) would provide a way to differentiate those who are (personally) interested from those who are not. A separate meeting would also provide a distinction between the standard institutional blurbage and our intentionally more critical venture.

(Wo)manning the trolley;
It was agreed that we would all be present for the first weekend of Prospect, hanging around the trolley, painting our nails and getting the critical responses off to a healthy start. We discussed what other ‘high traffic’ times there might be, such as weekends in general and the symposium weekend in particular, and decided to arrange for a member of tac to be present during these times. Mel to post symposia timetable on the blog. Tom to make availability diary for filling out at next meeting.
It was noted that we were waiting to hear back from Heather re the stationing of a host in the west wing and their possible facilitation of the trolley.

Acknowledging Tyree and self identification;
We talked about Tyree’s request to have her labour and skills acknowledged, which opened up some questions about how Tac wanted to acknowlege ourselves (and the distinction between fabrication, construction and cabinet making). It turned out that there was a discrepancy in the groups perception, some thinking that Tac was going to remain anonymous and others thinking that we were going to identify (name) ourselves. We talked about what it would mean to be anonymous, agreed that anonymity wasn’t an important goal to persue and that we (and our work) would operate with more disgression by us remaining identified. We compared this choice to the that of the et al collective, and discussed how direct comparisons would be drawn between our choices because of the curatorial neighbouring of our two works. Mel described this difference, rather eloquently, as ‘many attempting to be one rather than one attempting to be many’ and we all ohhed and aaahhhed at her. We decided to make a flowchart comparing our work to et al’s and add it to the trolley.
Through that discussion we, somehow, arrived at the decision to acknowledge Tyree for construction (her pick) and Tac: [list of our names] for conceptualisation.

Entitling the trolley;
We debated the current idea: Contemporary Art Mobile Response Unit. General positive response, Melanie suggested dropping contemporary art and Liz (ah - I) said I liked it because it comedically connoted an emergency service like the police or ambulance. We decided to take it home and try it out on our friends.

Trolley update;
We updated Andie on the changes to the trolley, namely the stripey canvas instead of the umberella. We were concerned the umberella was making a suggestion that the audience needed some kind of shelter and protection from the scary art exhibition, and felt the canvas was more like a stall, more festive. We also covered our decision against a banner because of the desire to be more suggestive and less prescriptive.

One liner pencils;
We decided on printing pencils with slogans on them to sell in the multiples cabinet. Slogan ideas included;
- have you tookin a lookin?
- language at me
- Fear no Art
- TAC it on
- try not trying so hard

100 words;
We checked out the draft on the blog – thanks Andie- and worked through a few concerns including:
- the aim to expose & challenge the limitations of the institutional framework rather than the curatorial voice or the format of prospect shows
- the provision of an environment (physical and social) where people will feel comfortable and open about sharing their responses
- the desire to provide a means for audience responses to be physically present alongside the standard curatorial narrative and develop into a conversation between many voices
- a chance for this conversation to potentially widen the scope and diversity of comprehension
- the provision of a place to pause, sit and be

We made some headway but decided it would be faster to work independantly and blog it. Cut off for contributions and feedback is 10pm on Wednesday night after which Paula to edit and Andie to pin on hosts notice board.

Flowcharts;
We did a check in on how everyone was feeling about the progress of their flowcharts. General agreement that seeing everyone elses attempts, with their different approaches, content and designs was very helpful and would make subsequent flowchart making easier. We talked about the success of;
- using phrases like yuk! Relax! Try not trying so hard! as a good way of lightening the tone and taking people out of themselves
- andies design layout for its comprehension
- leaving gaps for the audience to fill in their individual responses

It was decided that we would stick to the origional plan to include one flowchart from each tac member so that the diversity of design and conceptual formats could be represented.

Thursday night working bee and meeting;
To be held at the boxing church workshop Thursday night. From 6pm. Sian mentioned there were lots of great fish and chip shops in Naenae for getting dinner at. General appreciation of Tyree’s discovery of the trolley width versus door width. Sian to spray canvas for Paula to carefully craft canopy stripes.

Materials budget;
($400) needs to cover:
laminator (Melanie to research)
uphostery pins
pencils (Melanie to research)
ribbons & pins
coffee grinder (Tyree koha)
Bunnings materials ($104.51 on Liz’s credit card)
Paint ($34-8[?] on Melanies credit card)

Turning the criticality on ourselves;
Sian talked about the importance of keeping in mind the origional aims of TAC – to be self critical of the means and processes of our collaborative activities. She suggested we document our beginning, developments and current processes and create an archive of them. General agreement and interest in making a folder with the history of the association and further reading in it for potential inclusion on the trolley. No decision on who to action this (!)
Liz (me again) suggested the need for a document stating the values of TAC, the functions of the members and an auto biographical statement on our individual contributions which could be supplemented by other members. Sian exampled her boss’s habit of writing something like ‘I will always believe wholeheartedly in what I say until I change my mind later’ on the board during meetings as a possible value.
Melanie talked about her desire to keep some information (such as this ‘internal admin’) closed to public access to provide an intrigue factor and we decided to keep the autobiographical discussion (and potentially our values and member functions? Mel can you clarify?) within an email only circulation.

Phew! I hope that’s covered everything, I rekon this meeting went really well, we kept to time thanks to our nights whip Tom, and the adgenda was completed almost within our 2 hour timeframe aim. Yeah!!!

Consensus: A definition

Hi all,

Here is that description of the process of consensus decision making that I have been referring to in our meetings...

Consensus

"…It does not mean that everyone agrees on a particular outcome. It does mean that everyone has been involved in the process, and that every one agrees to test a particular outcome for its workability.
Most descision making situations do not have as an inherent component only one best solution. If such were the case there would be no need to decide anything. Consensus involves the complete exploration of a particular situation with the recognition that there are going to be conflicting points of view, and that it is important that these come into the open during this process. These differences are not resolved just because a decision is reached.

Individuals who are not in agreement with the “majority” perspective do not just give up their differences and comply with the majority. They sit back and wait for some way to sabotage the outcome, or to say, “ I told you that wouldn’t work.” These outcomes are likely because a competitive process is established where the goal is to ‘win’ rather to arrive at a workable outcome. Since winning is the predominant goal, all of the dynamics described earlier emerge in a miniture form during this process.

Stereotypes of both paries influence what they hear the other party saying, and power gaining, rather than power generation is the outcome. A nonconsensus descision making process results in the dominant coalition in the process or larger organisational context retaining their power base, and the lesser coalition looking for ways to regain their percieved loss of influence. Immediately they begin to develop strategies to regain their lost “clout” and prestige, or at least to minimise their overall losses by gaining ground in other parts of the organisation or in future descision making situations.

Consensus is a critical value for organisations, not because it is good in and of itself (although that is true), but rather because it leads to better quality decisions, with more investment in implementation. There is less focus on decision making to protect organisational boundries and authority distribution, and more focus on decision making to solve diffulcities facing the organization".

P 138-139. William A Kraus, Collaboration in Organisations, Alternatives to Hierarchy. Human Sciences Press, 1980, New York.

Also, I was chatting with Sue Shone, an advocate for ihc who has had lots of experience working for collectives such as rape crisis and womens refuge and she has promised to send through some relevant resources on collective structures to our email address.
She had some interesting things to say about the importance of the place for individuality in collective bodies, that at their best they worked against a culture of individualism, but for a culture of diversity. Sue also suggested that a succinct one page charter that outlined some goals (a re-occuring suggestion in our blog) and guidelines for process might be helpfull for ongoing functioning (and perhaps a good alternative to an artists statement about ourselves).

Anyway, Merry Xmas and congrats to Mel who has just been made the new assistant curator for the Govett Brewster Art Gallery!!!!

Why collaboration?

Ok, well, good question. Why did you set up a collaboration? Break it down .. . . .

Call and Response: A curators invitation.
The initial catalyst for TAC came from an invitation to make a new work for a group show that Melanie Oliver was putting together for Enjoy which was later titled Every Now, and Then. The curatorial premise of the show focused on the nature of the relationships formed when artists invite varied kinds of participation to realise their artwork. Melanie was particularly interested in foregrounding the problems and politics involved in the claims made by and for relational practices as being (among other descriptions) inclusive, participatory and democratic artforms; “Rather than designing happy, harmonious projects, the artists featured in Every Now, and Then develop and maintain social tension within their work, addressing the political aspects of communication that are often overlooked” - Melanie Oliver quoted in the press release for Every Now, and Then.

I’ve been making projects that contain relational elements since art school, experimenting with various tropes and degrees of participation to provide subject matter for, enact, and demonstrate concerns and propose questions through my work. I was particularly interested in the critical context that Mel was creating because I have experienced the challenges inherent to these encounters – both as an artist, participator and critic of these works.

These challenges have included questions like: who is the author of this work? Are artists exploiting a participating audience for their own proffesional gain? Are artists prescribing the audiences participation in a way that prevents their role from having any real affect on the work? How can the audience see the results of their efforts? Isn’t the artists role always priveleged in any exchange that they have set up? What is the role of an artist in this kind of work? What is the role of the institution in this kind of work?

These kinds of questions have always been present in my practice but only existed in my work in a backgrounded way, so it was exciting to be given the opportunity to make work for a show that had this very pointed focus.

The following text is a piece of writing I sent to Melanie Oliver during the idea proposal process;

“The politics of human communication are at their most perceptible in group dynamics.The desire to create a project that utilises the structure of collaboration to address these politics is also a desire to imbed the project in a practical and collective experience of a structure which operates by working decision making processes through the problematics of human interaction.
Imbedded in the value system of collaborative structures is the belief that a common goal can be found and achieved in a group setting. Their ability to operate effectively is reliant on the productivity of human interaction, participation and goodwill”.

In retrospect I think part of the motivation for the initiation of the collaboration and its attendent values was to respond to the tone of the show. I felt the critical framework had a slight but perceptibly pessimistic edge, that its review of contemporary relational projects was proposing to be a more ‘realistic’ view and that this de-romanticised de-throning of relational practices presented a challenge to their potential to do more good than harm.

Every Now, and Then’s curatorial framework and the platform of Enjoy’s institutional support provided me with an opportunity to engage a selected part of Enjoy’s ‘audience’ (those that had previously responded to an open call through email) at a much deeper and more generative level than my projects had previously allowed for, and in the continued life of The Association of Collaboration I am able to ask the questions I am most interested in within a group that is similarly interested in discovering the answers - together. (sorry ending is cheese factor high!)

Hope that this goes some way to answering your question Andie! and please respond to any of the ideas raised every one, Im sure you have some questions/challenges of your own too. . .

Some subjective answers

Hi there,

before the meeeting just thought I would post some totally subjective individual thoughts on the questions that Andrea asked.

I feel good about my involvement with TAC so far. I have found it is a hard thing to find people to work with in artist groups. I have so far had two unsucessful attempts at setting up artist groups where my aim was to be able to give and get feedback in a post-art school critique kind of mutually beneficial way. Both of them ended in disaster - collaborations which failed before they even started. First failure due to mismatched expectations and practices. I faced a table of blank painterly faces at the mention of the word 'installation'. The second one failed because the group just didn't get it together to keep meeting up. The writers groups I know which I hoped to emulate have enough members so that there is always someone at the meetings even if not everyone is there. That's something I think we have done well. Somehow there is a shared need which is bringing us together regularly even though that need may vary within the group.
So I feel good and excited and reinvigorated in my faith in collaboration.

I think we have done working together well and agreeing by consensus. I think we have been good at being flexible. I think we do well at everyone expressing their opinion and differing opinions being able to be heard and discussed. I feel like it is a pretty equal collaboration.

In terms of the show, I think we could have maybe made more of an impact on it in terms of visibility, but I think that would have taken more meeting up and I feel like we have done pretty good especially at this time of year. I also quite enjoyed the set up at Enjoy with the chairs because it seemed obvious that we were a bunch of people talking and trying to work things out together rather than setting ourselves up as experts. Which was continued on the wall with the process.
I wonder if we could have done better at encouraging people to contribute to the wall....more porousness?

I think one of the challenges for TAC is to define some ways in which we will determine sucess. I think we are all having a nice time and good conversations but I also wonder whether we are in danger of falling into one of the potential traps of collaborating which is meeting new people and gaining from the group but not necessarily producing anything. I wonder whether that is one of the things to be gained from collaborating though, to appreciate a slower and more organic process. Like when you are single you can be a much easier high achiever go getter cos it's just you doing your thing but when you are with someone you might not achieve so much but you learn more because you have to negotiate with another person. Does collaboration make you a better person? Does collaboration teach you about social engagement? Is that what makes it important? Is collaboration like a relationship where you choose someone who is different to you so that you can be challenged and thus grow somehow?
Now I feel like I am that woman in Sex in the City who writes in questions. Sorry about that. But maybe that's another point, does collaboration make you a better artist because you have to be more rigorous in deciding what you do because there is another person involved?

Now that the Prospects show has come along, sucess could be gauged somehow through our working process with that. Like we have been talking in the abstract about what collaboration is etc and it's easy in a way because it's abstract, but my feeling is that we will be able to learn more by doing an actual project and seeing what happens. In that case we maybe need to document / think about it through the process, which is what this blog is so good for! Yay for cyber presence.

Hope that's useful for the thingy Andrea, Sian

A question for Liz...

Hello Liz,

just a quick question I wondered if you wouldn't mind answering so I can have it in writing ;-)

Why did you want to start the association of collaboration?

thanks, Andie

p.s. what time zone is this blog set in I wonder? I didn't actually post my previous comments at midnight!

Some questions

Hi again!

I was planning on producing an edited transcript of our discussion for the writing I am submitting for publication in Hue and Cry, but, it wasn't quite like the roundtable discussion I had envisaged. Also to be fair it wouldn't have done justice to our cause as not all members were present during our meeting and did not have the chance to speak up! I'm pretty confident I can use some quotes from the recording ( I promise not to use them out of context) but I was hoping I might be able to additionally ask some questions of you online, to be included in my/OUR co-authored work(!)

How you feel about your involvement with the association of collaboration so far?


What do you think we have done well?



and what do you think we could have done better?



What do you think will mean success for the association of collaboration?



Please post your comments in response to these questions asap! Thanks!!

Welcome

Welcome to The Association of Collaboration's blog, our first foray into cyber space!

Liz and Andie have set this up, as discussed, to be a place for posting between meeting discussions, storing and archiving the documentation of our activites and sharing our findings...

This is also a porous initiative that is able to be accessed by everybody. So welcome everybody else too!