Creativity

Is a fairly meaningless term in my view, and I prefer to talk about Instances of Practice or art practices, which I am beginning to theorise for this seminar series .
But it is a great word to get people together.
yesterday I went here (only a bus ride away tra la) and met Pat from here who knows everyone in Sheffield.
I learned that this organisation is wonderfully open and vague and muddly (Yes!)
The blog also says good-bye to the wonderful Amy who SINGLE HANDEDLY has been running Creative Partnerships in BDR for MORE TIME THAN I CAN REMEMBER (this is getting tearful but it is Friday).
I also met with someone who is also interested in socially engaged artists (my current research obsession) and has worked with these two which is amazing.
And this week I managed to get the JeS form in for this scheme with Steve
and he wants to DISRUPT our practice if he gets it.

Now I have to start writing up my findings for this project and thinking about sustainability and what it actually means when teachers and artists work together.
Now I just have to work out which way to go.
I think I will have to ask Pat.

Everyday life

Inspired by Dr Joolz's post on the eternally improving television we have and bored by endless media views of Other People's Perfect Lives and in an eternal quest for ephemera I went in search of the mundane.
I found it here, lovely Flickr.
I also found it here ( I have ordered one yippee) and you can find all about this magazine here.
All this activity is to avoid doing my tax.

A score for a hole in the ground

Today the blog celebrates this project.
It is interesting that it should have been done down a mine.
Due to logistical problems this didn't happen.
It has been created in a wood in Kent.



THis is what the artist says about it:
The original idea was to use a found hole; a mineshaft, a well, a natural fissure, an old bunker . . .
The idea was to use the hole to make a noise, like a Tibetan bowl.
You can see more about the actual hole here.
My mother is going to see the REAL THING tomorrow.
I am so jealous.
Also, I am celebrating the role of art in shaping thinking which is what Steve and I have been working on all week as well as wrestling with this dreadful system.
I think there should be a Support Group for all those who have had to do JES this week.
Horrible.

Transforming objects

has always been an interest of mine.
So I was excited when Zahir showed me how this Church had been tranformed into a mosque in the middle of Rotherham.
Can you see the Crescent moon on the Church spire?
I was there for the launch of ROAR - ROtherham Arts Renaissance which is a brilliant project and involves the Open Minds Theatre Company which is also amazing.
here is the Church again.

Did I say Church?
I meant Mosque.
I was also doing fieldwork for this project.
Watch this space.
PS Dr Joolz and Vic would love this.
Go there now.

From a different eye

Elsa
Originally uploaded by herongirlz.

I loved Elsa's pictures of Greece.
Mostly they showed things on the ground like
menus,
buggies,
luggage,
or parents seen from below, squinting tiredly at the sun.
They remind me of the children whose images I am studying, who look at pavements, slides, trees from below and small domestic objects.

Autumn listening

I have been at the BERA conference with Dr Joolz which was notable by the extreme strength of my hangover.
Everyone was very Kind.
Musing on the train back, I decided Cat Power had got me through the experience.
Also, the kind advice of the person I sat next to at the conference dinner, that Modern Times is actually quite good.
So here is my Autumn list of favourite music to get you through till Christmas:
Lou Rhodes Beloved one. Cheesy but brilliant
Lucinda Williams Essence I love her
Ali Farka Toure Savane The Estonia must listen experience
Jose Gonzalez Veneer
not forgetting the lovely Laura Cantrall.
I feel better already.

new courses!

When I was at a meeting here yesterday, Adrian from this marvellous organisation was saying how hard it is to find arts professionals who understand working in communities but also have an intuitive concept of what they do.
Obviously I immediately thought we should run an MA in being an intuitive arts professional alongside the new exciting course we are offering this year called Working with Communities I am running with Anita, Michele and Jennifer.
This got me thinking about other new MA courses we could run which could supplement our existing ones and bring in new and diverse students
(always a good idea).

Here are my suggestions:

1. An MA in understanding and using the Midland mainline website, together with additional modules on: Trainspotting, Industrial Landscapes and Arts-based related work in railway carriages: an ethnography.

2. An MA in how to navigate complex department stores while not spending too much money. Includes optional modules on Make Up buying without pain and orange foundation, Fashion without feeling guilty, and, Contemporary ethnographies of craft and needlework.

3. An MA in surviving the school holidays while appearing to work. This could include modules on Ways in Which to Multitask effectively, Delegation skills and a module on the Ethnography of time, space and motion in domestic homes, an internal economy of small domestic objects (pictured here).


Any more suggestions?

Invisible buildings

Inspired by Dr Joolz' post on East Berlin, I have begun to muse on invisible buildings.
That is, huge buildings which nevertheless, the local inhabitants simply do not see.

They are unmarked on maps, have no signs attached and remain invisible to those who live amongst them.
The collective farms in Estonia were invisible yet every five miles or so we would spot one and the cry would go up 'Collective farm' and we would photograph it.
When we asked our Estonian friends about them, they said they were invisible because they were not part of Estonian History and therefore meant nothing.
But they then revealed they had spent time working on them as students, under Soviet occupation (illegal).
Now they littered the landscape, rusting and broken.

Ofcourse, I wanted to immediately apply for a European grant and get massive funding to do a cultural geography of collective farms, with narratives of identity, and make a cutting edge new museumology exhibition of narratives of identity, or resistence (in Estonian terms) and the buildings of the collective farms.
Now I just need to find a partner.