ARTISTS TALKING

# 11 [25 June 2008]

To round up this rather rambling blog I will summarise, and thereby explain the title.

To begin with the project was rejected by the institutions that I had wanted to work with through a twist of fate, this was the project that never was. 

It 'was again' when I realised that I had become set in my ways. I realised that I could produce everything that I wanted to do simply by talking to people and remaining independent.

It changed three times from palimpsests to audio guides in museums to a virtual gallery experience, and even then this doesn't cover the range of writings and other connections that the project created. 

And this way of working, which I keep referring to as fluid, is the way that I intend to carry out future projects. Where the outcomes are not set and the work comes about from the way in which people chose to interact with you. Of course it is up to me to position my self in a way that people would want to interact with me, but I mean that unexpected things can come out of the tiniest slant on ideas that we all have in common.

# 10 [25 June 2008]

This was not the first 'spin-off' from the project.

Through interviewing lecturers at each of the main Universities I had also secured a seminar/lecture for mixed subject PhD students at De Montfort University, as well as a 5,000 word chapter about the project and its themes for a published textbook on Materiality, and one of the palimpsests was to take part in complexity theory research at Nottingham Trent. The seminar at De Montfort had further ramifications when one of the PhD design students explained that he wanted to create a virtual exhibition, and I will explain more about this later.

Time passed, and it had been almost a year since I started the project, that the New Walk museum got back in touch.

“I have just been finalizing our Business Plan for 08-09 and we have had to make a lot of cuts to our proposed work schedules.” 

A little less surprised this time around, the exhibition was not on, again. But I was not particularly bothered by the news. This way of working felt quite liberating. Sure there wasn't going to be any big macho exhibition for people to come gawp at, but so what? It was creating interesting relationships between otherwise unrelated academics and the religious representatives. It was creating debate and stimulating the creation of new research areas. I felt all warm and fuzzy about it.

I still had the problem of audience figures. Despite no exhibition, there were figures of people I had spoken to, presented to, had taken part, would read the chapter, had visited the museumcabinet.com website, and then experience other aspects of the project. The audience was monting up almost virally!

About this time the PhD design student also got back to me explaining that he had formed a group of experienced design students that would like to produce the virtual gallery. It would involve cutting edge 3D virtual modelled versions of each of the palimpsests existing in a purpose built virtual space, and existing as a permanent online feature. Online visitors would be able to manipulate the object and even experience the affects of light across it's surface as they moved it. It would even be possible to have the audio guides for each artefact set to play as you experienced them.

I began thinking about two things: the virtual exhibition (especially the virtual artefact) would be the natural successor to the re-made artefacts (the palimpsests); and also that I wondered if the New Walk might want to have these virtual versions of their archaeology displayed in their museum somehow... but I felt I had already had enough of them, and probably them of me. 

# 9 [24 June 2008]

The palimpsests were interesting enough in their own right, but after the success of the focus group I felt that it was their interrelation with the recordings that created the most interesting body of work.

I even imagined that instead of objects forming a final exhibition, it might simply be audio. It would probably be in the form of an audio guide, like you would find in a museum which would affect the way you would experience the museum artefacts you saw. It seemed reasonable that the diversity of experts I had already recorded would form a striking collection of voices making their comments.

With this new idea in mind I  met with Chris Slowe, a representative for Secularism and repeated the interview process, tweaking it from what I had noticed from the LCoF. I went on to interview representatives from Visual and Material culture studies, Interpretive studies, Ecology, Folklore, an artist working with Complexity theory, and even a representative for transport. In total I created more than eight hours of audio material, which was to cause many a throbbing headache during editing!

Another headache was that the quality of the recordings was poor. It is the bane of most artists that we are jack-of-all-trades, and in my case I had little experience in audio recording before I set out. I had bought a decent studio condenser mic, but the ambient noise in the LCoF recordings, and the microphones inability to hear distinct voices if someone is speaking in the background made it all but a write-off. I had been aware of this after the first experience and had first gone to quieter and more 'sound proof' spaces with lots of soft furnishings. But the recordings were already inconsistent, so I went ahead and recorded the later interviews in public places like in parks or again in the New Walk Museum. After much thought on the subject and though seeking advice from several colleagues (including Jennie Syson who was most helpful). I decided to create a museum audio guide of either my own voice or that of an actor. It would probably have a certain dead-pan quality, but would involve 're-expressing' the comments made by the recorded experts, but where the personal and cultural identity and the emotions of the original commentators are anonymous.

Another stroke of luck was that the head of the New Walk Museum (and in fact responsible for all of the museums) was an ecologist, and he had agreed to be interviewed for the project. This was an uncomfortable process for me, and he was the man who had said 'no'. Despite this he helped to produce a really interesting set of recordings, and showed great interest in the issues the project raised, especially concerning the LCoF input and the way the general public can relate to their own archaeology. To my bemusement it was also agreed that I would submit an exhibition application form as it fitted well with the museums future plans.

# 8 [20 June 2008]

Through an uncomfortable series of emails with the same institutions that I had earlier had difficulties with, I ended up interviewing the Leicester Council of Faiths in a meeting room in the New Walk Museum.

My reasoning for this was two-fold: I wanted to show the LCoF that I was serious enough about the project to rent out an important space within the city, and one that was relevant to the project; and I hoped to have positive dealings with the New Walk, so I wouldn't continue feel like a leper when I came to visit in the future.

To my relieved the focus group went very well indeed. There was a great range of comments and observations that came from individuals and in group discussion. Each representative expressed comments that they thought I would want from them, and I appreciated their desire to be helpful. I didn't want to lead the responses, but I was always going to be present during the process, so the question "what would you like me to say?" came up quite frequently. But it was after the formal responses had finished that interesting things started to appear. Individuals would be excited by some aspect of the imagery or of the their own frame of reference. 

(Sikh representative) …(Palimpsest 1) a seahorse, isn’t it? and here is a…(Palimpsest 2) deer.

(Christian representative) …I don’t know what that one is at all (Palimpsest 11) I mean it looks like it should be a face or something, but maybe its not.

(Sikh representative) …no it is something you know with the seas. You can see some sort of insect which is floating on the water.

(Christian representative)…What about the rabbit here, or hare, is it a hare or a rabbit?

(Hindu representative)… (Palimpsest 2) Oh and it looks like a camel’s face as well.

(Christian representative) …(Palimpsest 1) It’s gotta be a fish hasn’t it? It’s an underwater deep fish thing, because these are the scales, and this is, this a funny head that it’s got. A mythological fish out of the deep, so it’s a lot to do with time, apparently not a lot of these things are representational. It’ll stand for some deep see creature that’s…part of the underworld. Could be threatening looks like it could be missing a bit.

(Muslim representative) …No matter what we say, this is an impression of our own upbringing within our own culture. So we are bringing it from that point of view and not certainly from the civilisation that came with this idea.

(Christian representative)Yes fairly indistinct isn’t it…

It was also the first time I had interviewed a group before. I was nervous and I had wanted to give them all of my attention during the recording, expecting that the desire would be for everyone to talk at once. To help this I hired a photographer for the morning, and this took a lot of pressure off of my documenting the event and hosting it simultaneously.  

# 7 [19 June 2008]

I spent a joyful part of early July drawing in the Jewry Wall Museum. The staff were marvellous, and brought out boxes of ambiguous artefacts as well as 'themed' boxes of animal patterns and human/god forms. I was even given a desk to work at for the duration. 

There was a fair blend of artefacts with and without known provenance, and when later that month I started to consider what I might do with these observations it became clear that there was an impossible amount to choose from.

I'm not sure that I could explain my initial selection process, but it involved picking one or two items from distinct historical periods in Leicester, and every artefact had to come from within the city. I choose some items that were easily recognisable but also other images that would be unintelligible. I settled on thirteen, but later dropped it to twelve, which was also the number of experts I intended to interview (six cultural and six academic representatives).

I had a dilemma still to solve. In the original project I had intended to create objects, and eventually display them amongst actual artefacts when they were being examined. I no longer had this freedom, nor did the object idea appeal. In previous studio work I had being playing around with palimpsests, and I had already created a set of written on, scraped away and written on again pieces. The idea came to me to create 'icons' on parchment of this set of twelve artefacts to suggest their 'original splendour'. But then to create palimpsests by scraping away at the images to represent the wear and tear on the artefacts as they are today. This process felt like a suitable metaphor for many of the ideas behind the project, and also created bizarre collection of irregular-shape animal hide pieces to show to interviewees.

 

# 6 [19 June 2008]

There are six museums in Leicester, the main attraction being the New Walk Museum on New Walk. This pillared marvel, reminiscent of a by-gone age of empire and neoclassicism, was my museum of choice, it looks like the museum in your head. Another of Leicesters six museums is the Newarke Houses, which is a preserved set of buildings and a garden. It is only speculation, but I wonder if a typo, or a carelessly pronounced word in a telephone call might have addressed Newarke museum instead of New Walk museum. I will probably never know.

 

At this stage you see the project was at a halt, defeated and thoroughly discredited, the project that never was.

Just to add salt to the wound my girlfriend left me and my Nan died all in this same month.

 

But…before you start declaring “can this text get any more depressing?” hold fast dear reader, for a series of positive steps followed this apparent oblivion.

 

I had previously sent out feelers to cultural groups, Universities and individuals that I had wanted to involve in the project, and this had formed much of the research for the original ACE application. At the time I had simply expressed an interest in involving each party and in turn each had expressed their provisional support.

An email appeared in my inbox at the beginning of the Summer of 2007. It was from the Leicester Council of Faiths, belatedly expressing their interest in the project and offering to take part in the research. I thought about this for a couple of days before writing to the Head of the Jewry Wall Museum, and asking if it would be possible to gain access to the stores as a researcher. This request was accepted, and I began re-thinking how I might be able to produce the same project, but without the support of the City Gallery or the New Walk. Another stroke of good fortune, ACE offered their support for the project second time around. I suddenly had a budget, but an uncertain future if I could not produce an audience in the thousands! I felt that this audience issue could wait, being that I would have a year to achieve this before ACE would come back to me for results. I restructured the project around the idea of interviews and focus groups being the medium whereby experts could feed into the project and arranged to meet the LCoF the following month.

# 5 [19 June 2008]

Several more weeks passed and my connection with the City Gallery all but dried up completely. I still went in a updated them every now and then, but their enthusiasm for the project had withered along with their own funding. They agreed to get me the contact details for someone in the Jewry Wall museum who could grant access to the archaeological stores, and this marked the last act of kindness on their part. Whilst in the meeting one of the other City Gallery staff came in and said that she had heard a rumor that the project had been rejected at the highest level. This was both unsubstantiated and ludicrous. The project had been provisionally agreed to and no formal proposal had been submitted to them that anyone could have objected to!

I waited a few more weeks for some kind of confirmation. Finally the City Gallery called me to explain that there had been some mix-up in communication between the gallery and the museums. It was put down to a re-shuffle in management, or perhaps a change in priorities and policy. Either way, it was still not clear what it was that had been objected to.

I emailed Renaissance East Midlands to find out if they would be interested in moving the project to Derby (though this was the last thing I wanted to do) and was surprised to get an email reply stating that a situation had occurred and that they no longer wished to support the project, and that they had sent me several emails stating the fact (which I never received, for whatever reason). I phoned them and was told that they had made contact with the head of the Leicester museums, who had never heard of me or my project. His response was almost certainly that this ‘show’ would never take place. Renaissance East Midlands response was also clear cut. In one meeting (at which I was not present) I lost two years of funding, two regional exhibitions and was branded a liar. But I was no yet run out of town, and I had a few questions to ask of the City Gallery about this ‘miscommunication’ that had occurred.

 

# 4 [18 June 2008]

Suddenly the pressure seemed on to create a project with huge audiences to justify even the tiniest sums of money. I bit the bullet and re-applied stating that I would make sure the exhibition was suitably exhibition-like and well attended within the museum (my original ideas had involved displays and interventions in the much smaller store rooms of Jewry Wall, and giving tours to a relatively small audience), quoting the walk-in audience figures on the New Walk Museum (which had provisionally agreed to exhibit the work) as several thousand over a 6 week period.

I was invited to Derby by my contact at Renaissance East Midlands, to have a look around the Derby museum and art gallery, as a possible location for the second stage of the project. Despite a show in Derby not being relevant to Leicester archaeology, they proposed that the project should get the needed support if I exhibited there in Late 2008. They suggested that the project could be created from museums across the region. It was my turn to nod and provisionally agree.

# 3 [18 June 2008]

This broad set of benefits was the projects undoing. When I met with numerous potential museum, heritage, culture and visual arts funders each in turn said that it did not meet their criteria because it sounded too much like heritage work, too much like visual arts, too much like the museums responsibility, too much like community art, too much like MA or doctoral research, and on, and on. It seemed that it met no funders aims completely besides ACE who are by far the most open minded and centralised funder of the arts, and despite the projects relevance to all of the other groups, no one else would support it. As usual though, all of them wanted to be kept informed and would be interested in benefiting from any potential research.

Then almost out of the blue, Renaissance East Midlands made a provisional offer to part fund the project if it formed a research document that would go onto a much larger regional project that they would fund the following year. I sent them a formal proposal and waited for confirmation. It seemed to good to be true.

In the mean time I put in a basic ACE application to cover things like travel costs and a small fee to cover the time I intended to spend working within the museums, and later interviewing. 

Several weeks past and the debacle of the Olympics draining funds from ACE hit home, with many of my peers having funding bids turned down on the basis of lack of funds in ACE. The Leicester City Gallery had to let some of its staff go, and among other losses was an offer of limited financial support for my travel, plus a few paid lectures that I had been relying on for some staple income. This also brought about a change of the off-site team, and a completely different attitude towards the project. This came alongside my own ACE application being turned down on the basis of financial restrictions and lack of perceived benefit, being that I had posited the project purely as research. 

# 2 [18 June 2008]

 

Do not get me wrong though, I am not an embittered or rejected artist holding a grudge against the art world, nor am I a non-conformist telling you that everything is shit. I have successfully run arts projects and shown work for the past four years, and it is also my main income. What this project has shown me is that the form of a working practice can be incredibly fluid and creative in its own right. One day you might expect to be working towards a major regional exhibition, and then two weeks later you are writing for a publication instead, or creating a different show, or different work in an entirely different way, each outcome either replacing or complimenting the others. This way of working surprised me. It showed that in the past I very often adhere to what I 'said I would do', and perhaps this is an unhealthy hang over from numerous Arts Council England applications, that when granted must be carried out with precision and to a timetable (though in truth none have ever gone completely according to plan). I am a project maker: I imagine, arrange, and undertake projects.

At the beginning of 2007, I began contacting institutions in Leicester. I wanted to create a project that would draw together diverse cultural and academic groups so that they would create a dialogue about something that crossed all of their fields of expertise, but that because of their distinct fields they would each produce a different interpretation upon the same subject. I quickly latched onto the archaeology in Leicester collections that has labels like "unknown artefact" or "bird? ornament", and decided that these fragments were the perfect visual vehicle for multiple interpretations.

 

Initial contacts went well, and I quickly learned about the points of connection between the arts and the museums within Leicester's cultural sector. The City Gallery off-site team encouraged and aided my contacting several big-wigs who had the power to say yes or no on projects of this type, and the consensus was a 'yes' with all the usual provisional elements around access, health and safety etc.

 

As my own project manager it fell to me to write applications and go to meetings with potential funders, and it was here that I met the first resistance to the project. In many ways the project would benefit and endorse Leicester archaeology, and in particular encourage new ways for the general public to engage with and relate to their own heritage. It would also provide a broader approach and outlook for visual arts in the region and create an original way for non-art audiences to engage with contemporary visual art.