Conjunction 12

Conjunction 12 opened on Friday.  I am one of the curators of the biennial, and this year we are exploring the theme 'The Art of Survival.' There is a lot of information about the programme and events on the Conjunction website, but I thought I would include details of the Artist Soup Kitchen, which I have been leading on.


Each Saturday during Conjunction a special Artist Soup Kitchen will take place from 1-3pm in the AirSpace gallery resource room, and the first took place on 3rd November. We were keen to develop a platform of critical debate and support for creative practitioners during Conjunction, and felt that it was important to create a situation which would be more than the average artist talk, but would be more participatory, and that those present would feel able to contribute. I find that sharing a meal can create just such an environment, the right amount of distraction and enjoyment to be conducive to meaningful discussion.

The first of our soup kitchens took place this Saturday, this week’s soup was Carrot and Ginger. The recipe is below, and the feedback from the hungry artists was that it was great, with a few writing the recipe down from the wall, in order to make it again.

This week was aimed at artists working with communities and the public, and we were exploring how we can ensure our projects are sustainable, and that as practitioners we have the resilience to keep going.

The Creative Soup Eaters were: Chris Oldham, Grega Greaves, Deb Rogers, Anneka French, Gemma Thomas, Robert Cochrane, Tony Jones, Penny Vincent, Maria Whatton, Anne Kinnaird, Jane Howie and Emily Charlton.

The session was lead by Penny Vincent from The Creative Communities Unit at Staffordshire University. Penny works in creative community development, and introduced one of her own projects Parklive! as a way of exploring the idea that we should not wait for permission to do something, or hope and wait for someone else to do something that we would like to see done. The Parklive! project came about, as Penny had been thinking that she wished someone would organise a series of events on Hanley Park bandstand. She thought to herself, hang on, I am someone! and that is where it started. It also leads to another consideration, and that is the question of sustainability. How to involve others in the project, to ensure that all of the energy does not have to come from you.

Penny had also invited Grega Greaves from CANS to discuss The Woodlands Road Mural project that he worked on, which was a partnership with Sir Graham Balfour School, Tillington Manor Primary School and Stafford and Rural Housing. The project worked with a huge number of local people, and the mural has been very well received and looked after. This lead to a discussion about impact measuring, and how difficult it can be to prove the impact of participatory activity of this kind.

We then heard about Tony Jones' involvement as lead artist on the Happy Mandays Photography Group. Tony has been instrumental in setting up and sustaining the project for years, which works with men with Mental Health care needs. The group work with a variety or photographic approaches and tools, as a way of looking out at the world, and as a therapeutic activity. When Tony first got involved, he could not have envisaged how long his involvement would end up being, and also how beneficial the project would turn out to be for a number of the groups members. We also discussed sustainability, Tony has now decided to stop leading the group, but far from folding, the group will continue (self-managed). We considered what the magic formula might be, what is it that makes some projects continue once the artist/developer has left? It seems that of course there is no one magic formula, but making real attempts to understand the context and people you are working with, and confronting problems that necessarily occur with relational projects, and taking a clear stance in terms of ethics and rules, and also establishing and managing expectations can all help to ensure sustainability, as well as creating a space where participants take ownership (and feel like co-producers, as with Tony's group.)

The Practitioners in the room discussed how difficult it can be to keep going as a creative practitioner, and what we each do to survive (both in terms of maintaining energy, and economic stability).

The Survival Bread, delivered to The Artist Soup Kitchen that morning by B Arts Susan Clarke, helped the soup to go down marvelously  and provided a model of how to survive: help and support each other where we can.

Throughout the session, the participants around the table were recording their responses to the discussion on the table cloth, which is now on display on the wall of the resource room. The doodles and notes have been recorded below, and some of these will go into The Artist Soup Kitchen Zine, which will be created at the end of the series, including notes, thoughts and recipes.

After the success of this weeks session, we are really looking forward to next week's kitchen, which is lead by Professor David Manley, and explores self-publishing, and asks the question, is it enough to survive rather than thrive? We will also be tucking into some Russian Vegetable Soup.

Brownfield Ikebana

This summer while on my research trip in Osaka, Japan I went to an Ikebana demonstration. It gave me an idea, to research ikebana while I was on my mountain residency at Headspace in Nara.

Aiko and I did a bit of ikebana practising, and I purchased some books and read up about the Japanese art of flower arranging. It gave me an idea about the ABC site next to the gallery.

For some time myself and other members of AirSpace studio have been considering these Brownfield sites as places of potential. They are not being recognised as such, but in other cities people are using interim sites as interim community growing space. One example is NVA's fantastic SAGE (Sow And Grow Everywhere) project.
On my return to UK the AirSpace studio artists went to Low Parkamoor - Grizedale for a retreat, which I used as an opportunity to practice my ikebana skills.
The AirSpace studio show opened on Friday, where I presented my new work - Brownfield Ikebana - the week before the ikebana's I made on 3 Brownfield sites were presented in the AirSpace window. The three sites chosen are interesting, as they are at different stages of non-development. The Abbatoir was only demolished about a year ago, and yet is surprisingly diverse in terms of the wildflower species to be found there, then the ANC site is a few years older, and the old greyhound track even older still. I hadn't planned to show the ikebana arrangements in the window - I was making them in order to create a new 'works instruction' for the studio show - and then it turned out the window was empty for a week, so we put them in to fill the slot.
The statement accompanying read:

In Brownfield Ikebana Anna presents part of a new series of works, which aim to draw attention to some of the brownfield sites that can be found throughout the city, in the wake of various now defunct or collapsed regeneration programmes. The schemes saw the demolition of buildings and homes all over the city, but with the funding to rebuild seemingly swallowed up with the changing political climate, the interim period between demolition and development seems set to grow.

Empty spaces are now populated by wildflowers and other wildlife, and in some places citizen activism has seen the local population scattering wildflower seeds, improving the environment in the intervening period. Brownfield Ikebanacelebrates these impromptu wildlife havens, using the Japanese art of flower arranging, but replacing the vase with items of  rubbish salvaged from 3 brownfield sites close to the gallery  replacing the flowers with 'weeds.' 

Perhaps Brownfield Ikebana can act as a call for the council to nurture these sites, and see their potential in the short-term, rather than allowing them to become fly-tipping zones.

Then on Friday for the studio show I presented my new works instruction, and revisited the ABC site to create a Brownfield Ikebana live during the private view.

It was a very different thing to do the ikebana in front of people, and was not such an enjoyable experience as previously. I was quite pleased with the vessel which I found this time, which was an empty scotch egg packet. 

I think the ABC site is particularly awful, as the cinema was knocked down to build TESCO - and this bit of land in between the gallery and Tesco has been in limbo. Shoppers sit on the wall which has been built around the site, and throw their rubbish over the wall - so there is plenty of choice for ikebana - and also plenty for the local rat population to eat. Such a big company as Tesco should do something about making the site better - potentially becoming a community asset.

On the last weekend of the studio show (06/10/12 from 2 - 4pm) I will be running a Brownfield Ikebana workshop - showing the participants some of the techniques I have picked up - but mainly as an opportunity to explore the Brownfield Sites of our city, and talk about their interim potential.

Sideways Festival of Art and Walking

A while back I joined the (WAN) Walking Artists Network: a network for artists who walk, or walking artists or other practitioners who consider walking a creative act. 

I was really pleased when, through my connection to the network, I was offered a travel bursary to go to the Sideways Festival of Art and Walking in Belgium. I had seen the call for the festival months back, and had wanted to apply, but didn't in the end, as it would have been difficult with my already scheduled Japan and Lake District residencies in place.

Sideways involved a 4 week expedition of artists, anthropologists, sociologists and other practitioners walking together - 360 KM across Belgium. The walking was punctuated by Festival Weekends, where the walkers would stop for the weekend for a series of events and symposiums, culminating in the final festival weekend and symposium in Zutendaal (the bit that I went to.)

Members of the network met up at St Pancras station to take the Eurostar, our journey to Zutendaal was set to coincide with the arrival of the Walkers - who would be coming to the end of their journey. We were excited to meet them and hear all about it...We arrived at Zutendaal Mooi, a strange log cabin camp, which would be our home for the weekend.

On reflection, it may not have been the best timing; very weary travellers needing to bathe feet, regroup with those that had shared the experience colliding with the Walking Artists Network, who had taken a train, and then a bus to get there, and who were keen to ask questions and find out about the experience. The Walkers did not know who we were, or what we were there for. 

The first night we found ourselves whipped off to a beautiful farm, to share food together, and the next morning the Sideways Walkers had a debrief. 

While that was happening Clare and Mark from WAN organised an Open Space workshop - something I have never come across before. This created a space for the WAN members to get to know each other, and then make some work around walking and the Sideways Experience. 

It started with introductions, and one that struck me the most was Katie Etheridge, discussing a project she had just completed with Wrights and Sites, involving the Pendle Witch trials, Katie brought along some tiny wax and plaster feet, like talismans or relics which she requested people could hide/bury or take away to become future archaeology. I brought one back to put in my reliquary (above) I like to collect something for the reliquary wherever I go. Once introductions were over everyone posted up their ideas for what to do in the workshop on the window - then people would elect to do something, and then 'vote with your feet' and do it.

This resulted in myself, Glen Stoker and Phil Smith from Wrights and Sites going on a perimeter walk - exploring the boundary of the camp, picking up on signs and rhythms. The holiday camp had a strange, clinical atmosphere I felt, I think producing a feeling of 'cabin fever' surprisingly quickly. The perimeter walk took 3 and a quarter hours, and helped in exorcising the feeling. While walking the perimeter, I made a piece of documentary writing, as well as photographing the route. (See Bottom of post.) 

 On the Saturday, there was a symposium at De Leiteburg - a nature reserve. The symposium was a fantastic opportunity to find out about the experiences which the walkers had - starting with a beautiful happening: each of the walkers presented an object which summed up the Sideways Experience for them,

it was very moving, to hear these snippets of feeling - some people said nothing, while others explained their choice of object.
The symposium talks were being illustrated/documented on camera - a man (unfortunately I did not find out who) was making notes/diagrams and using objects to track the points and conversations made.

Some people said they found it distracting, but I found it very helpful, and also interesting to see what he picked up on. The morning contained a number of academic explorations of walking - one of which by Jan Masschelein talked about walking lines in cities to get to know place. Not going to tourist attractions, but literally drawing an a to b line, and asking participants to walk it - as closely as possible. This sits with the Dog Walk which I did back in 2008 - trying to understand the 'regeneration zones' in my city, and has also given me an idea for a class with my students. There was a very short space for discussion, and I think that bit could have gone on a lot longer. In the afternoon around De Leiteburg woods there were a number of tents - we were given maps to where the tents were, but we did not know who would be in them, we had to go there to find out.

We had less than two hours to get about - and it felt a bit pressured, as I was keen not to miss anything! Anyway, I thought this was a fantastic way for the audience and the participants in Sideways to interact. In each tent practitioners who had done the walk were waiting to present in a variety of ways about their own practices (which brought them to Sideways.) These included:

Wrights and Sites, who decided to have a conversation with each other about their Sideways Experience. Phil Smith talked about his idea to carry a plinth on his back, and the shocking physical impact it had on his body, and also very interestingly, the way the project necessarily had to change when faced with the real, as opposed to the imagined/proposed context when planning the work. Phil said he had aimed for the plinth to become a mobile fourth plinth, where he would invite people to stand on the plinth and give speeches, but in reality, when it came to it, in the real situations Phil had realised it would create a mockery of the person standing on it in some way, and so he had to change his idea - somehow the plinth could not operate as an elevation device, and in fact was a subjugation device - drilling Phil physically into the ground. Phil's experience of Sideways was obviously extremely difficult, both physically and mentally, but he was very philosophical about what could be learnt.
We talked a lot over the weekend with various walking practitioners about the difference in walking with a purpose (to get from a to b) and walking with a desire to understand a place - we discussed drifting and getting lost techniques - and that for many of the practitioners the Sideways Journey meant that their usual methodologies had to be quite violently interrupted. This was uncomfortable for many, who felt their original ideas had been compromised. It would be interesting to discover if, on reflection in a few weeks time, something new might have emerged from this new way of operating.

A different approach saw Peter and Giulia from Stalker - they barred the path and said 'you cannot pass' until we had explored the words stuck to trees nearby, there were words and thoughts which we were asked to ask questions about in relation to the group that they are in's activities: Stalker. Stalker Walking School lead walks in Rome and other places, taking participants into usually forbidden/barred areas of the city - exploring and trespassing as a political act. It was a great way to explore the forest, and have some great and interesting conversations.

After this we all met up to go on De Leiteburg's Barefoot Trail. I really liked the idea of the trail, where at the beginning of the walk you left your shoes, and went off into the forest.

I somehow had not expected it was really a walk through the woods, up log ladders, through gravel, and mud.

And even through some quite deep rivers. The walk took an hour and a half, and was incredibly sensual, making you suddenly aware of how the foot make contact with the ground, and every muscle in the body is involved in that connection.

After that we went to the farm (with the marvellous sound system caravan and Bar on a Bus) for tea, before heading to the local school for a performative tour of Zutendaal. This project by Orquestina de Pigmeos took us around Zutendaal - with the 100 plus audience silently walking as dusk fell, discovering the sounds, people and places that make Zutendaal what it is.

We heard the football team practising, and sneaked under the football field sprinkler system, before finding ourselves silent voyeurs of the local dance class practice session.
We explored a forest populated by what sounded like dinosaurs, and discovered a lone stone mason, carving out a letter A. It went on, a silent procession of strangers, traipsing through the darkness of the woods - no torches allowed, senses prickled.

The tour continued and ended up in the barn for a shindig and a glass of locally grown and pressed apple juice. That evening the Sideways Walkers let their hair down, and it felt like a big sigh of relief, and burst of energy as well. Sunday, saw a few sore heads, and more interesting talks and presentation and opportunities to hear about the projects by participants of Sideways. There was a chance to look at the results of some of the works made en route. Reg Carremans had strapped canvas to his feet, physically documenting the connection between his feet and the earth. Then at the end of the journey, the canvasses were put together.

I went along to the Walking Library's Reading session, which gave the Librarians a chance to talk about their project, and also read from some of the fabulous books in the collection.

Participants had suggested books that they would take on a walk. I also went along to a talk by Susanne Kudielka and Kaspar Wimberley, who did the entire walk with their baby (who was mainly carried - but did take her first steps during the month.) The were doing a project based on the Belgian tradition of Ruitocht (tradetrip) where you start with an apple or an egg - and then swap it and swap it and swap it. They used it as a way of meeting people and creating conversations on the route. Kaspar was swapping objects (starting with an apple) whereas Susanne was swapping stories. They found that the experience of Sideways really affected their ability to carry out their project in the way that they wanted to.

With dialogical work of this nature, in order for the exchange to be meaningful, time must be spent. But the specific context of the Sideways walk meant that time was something that most participants struggled to find. Some days the walkers had 36 km to cover - which left no time for other activities - and there was a sense from many that this led to a head down and get it done approach. We heard this a lot over the weekend - librarians had expected to have time to read, and share readings on the road - but this had to be done at the same time as walking, Susanne and Kaspar knew that if they did a swap there was a good chance that they would be left behind and get lost, walkers who were used to 'drifting' as an exploratory method found their drifts were limited to minutes and sometimes seconds.
Over the weekend, the way that the participants described the experience of Sideways changed. At first, tiredness and sore feet saw people being very critical of the organisation of the festival - of the conditions which they had to walk under, but by the time we left we were being told about an amazing, once in a lifetime, not to be missed experience. And on the Sunday a sense of melancholy, and dread of morning seemed to be in the air - people were ready to return to their lives, but with a feeling that something important had taken place - a pilgrimage completed.

I saw and heard so much over the weekend which I know will feed into my thinking around waking practices, and hopefully my research for the Saje Project - exploring walking as a conversational tool. I cannot even get down here all that I saw - but there is one project which really stood out for me: and that was Peter Ankh's Donkijote project. Peter walked Sideways with Beagle, a local (and very beautiful) donkey. The donkey had a lot of high tech equipment strapped to him, which took a photograph every few minutes, measured pollution, as well as recording lots of other information on the journey.
A description of the project from the Sideways Website: 'The donkey will function as a living and walking browser that will produce information, geo-tagging knowledge, mapping route, collecting things, asking questions, searching for answers and share this content, bringing the Sideways journey online 'in real time'. The project aims to be a cocktail of ethical, tactical, educational and psychogeographical meaning; while walking at human speed new methods are explored to map the complex assemblages of humans, plants, animals, artifacts,  technologies and physical landscape features.'
Peter talked about his experience, and described how the donkey is a fantastic way to connect the public and create a space for conversation. He said that people are not able to mediate their reaction to the donkey, before they have meant to they are putting out their hand to make a connection, the donkey is an interruption in our modern lives.
Sideways - I am do glad to have been able to come and hear about the experience - but I wish I had gone on the walk. Thanks so much to WAN for the travel bursary. I hope that we will be able to work on something together with some of the fantastic walking artists in the network.

The Art of Survival

Life is crazy busy at the moment: but very exciting. I am one of the curators of Conjunction 2012 - a partnership project between AirSpace Gallery, The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent Council, Staffordshire University and Jelly Arts. Conjunction is a contemporary art biennial for the city and this year's theme is 'The Art of Survival.' The exhibitions and projects kick off on November 2nd 2012 - and we currently have some exciting Calls to Artists for the exhibition, public realm projects and a residency (see web link above). I am really looking forward to seeing what comes in.

TROVE: 3rd Birthday

I received a letter in the post at the end of last week from Trove.
It was a lovely handwritten letter, thanking me for my contributions to the Trove exhibitions and projects over the 3 years that they have been going, and asking me to send a birthday card, and perhaps a present for an exhibition they will be holding to celebrate the anniversary.

I have been involved in a few of Trove's projects: POST at Trove in 2010 Paris Correspondence School in 2011 and then the Allotments project at MAC 2011-12.
They have always been really enjoyable projects to get involved in, usually connect artists in innovative and enjoyable ways - and although there has never been any funding attached to these shows (in terms of being paid as an artist to be involved) neither has Charlie Levine the curator of Trove ever asked me to pay to be involved. I like what they do, and that is why I am happy to submit my work under those conditions.
Artist led activity like this is, I think, important for artist development, but also development of the arts in the West Midlands, I think Trove have been giving emerging artists great opportunities to exhibit over the 3 years that they have been running, and so in the studio today I thought I would make a birthday badge which sets out exactly what I think of Trove. So, Trove: YOU ARE GREAT.

I have ordered some badges to send to them, plus I have made a card. I wish Trove a very happy birthday, and many happy returns.

Low Parkamoor: Artist's Retreat

This summer 6 of the AirSpace studio residents went off to Low Parkamoor: a cottage in the hills above Lake Coniston, managed by Grizedale Arts.
The cottage has no electricity and a well for water, as well as a composting toilet and some of the rooms have been designed by artists. All water heating and cooking has to be done on an ancient range. It is off-grid living.

I decided that while there I would practise the art of Japanese flower arranging - an interest that I picked up during my residency in Japan. It is something that I have always had an interest in from afar, but never had the time to properly consider. It was only seeing a demonstration while in Osaka, that got me thinking about the idea of 'site-specific' flower arranging.
I decided that each day I would do an arrangement, and aim to create one for each room. One of the things I like about Ikebana is that it is important to select the site for the arrangement before selecting the vessel or the flowers.

The first one I made was for the work room. I selected the rowan berries to compliment the yellow of the cupboard, and used a can that was leftover from lunch. I also chose to put the rowan with some Scots pine, as they were growing next to each other, and I have noticed that selecting plants which grow together seems to work well.

The next day I decided to do an omission variation. I was focusing on what is known as Keishin Ikebana - which has 3 main lines Shin the biggest, representing heaven, soe, which is 75% the length of Shin and represents man, and hikae, which is 50% of shin and represents earth. In the omission variation Soe is left out, and is therefore a display of modesty. I used a shallow bowl, and hid the kenzan (spikey thing which makes the flowers and plant stems stand up) using pieces of slate. 

Next I created this one, which used some wooden ornaments from the house, and this one is a split variation, where there are two vases - with a pool of thought space in the middle.

I made the split one for the window sill overlooking where Kate Lynch was building a den outside - an escape space for quiet time.

I went on to make one for each of the bedrooms, this one called 'The Kill' was made to go with the tiles in the middle room.

One for the end room, where I matched up the colours of the chamber pot to the flowers selected, and one for the room I was staying in.

The room  I was in had delicate blue shutters, but the main thing I was responding to was the view of the fir tree moving against the sky, which I could see from the bed in the mornings.

The feeling of lightness, and movement was what I was trying to pin down, and also - from the window I could see harebells blowing in the grass.

One of the days it poured with rain, which made it quite difficult to collect flowers, but I rushed out during a break in the rain to collect some rowan and fir cones, and decided to create a mobile ikebana. Ikebana is all about balance, and this one was even more challenging. The last one was made for the kitchen.

CAMouflage: Salzburg

A documentary photograph from my Chambermaid Performance, from the Platform P event in Plymouth last November is currently on display in the CAMouflage exhibition, curated by Antonio Manfredi at Stadt Galerie, Salzburg.
As part of Antonio's continuing CAM ART WAR, his current activity involves exhibitions which show artists work on low quality, photocopies, which will not survive past the exhibition.

Helga Gasser (an artist from Salzburg, who has been helping Antonio with the show - and who I met on the Harlech Residency) sent me some documentary images of the install and events. I am really pleased that documentation from a performance has been exhibited in this way - as I have never shown documentation before. It demonstrates how important good documentation is, I am lucky that I have a good documenter, that I can trust to get the shots I need, in Glen Stoker, he took this image, and has documented many of my events and performances over the years.

Japan residency, drawing to a close

My residency in the mountains ends the day after tomorrow. I will have been in Japan about 3 weeks by the time I leave and I think it has been a great visit. I have made some fantastic connections to build on for the Indefinable City project, I have found out quite a bit about practising as an artist in Japan, I have had a chance to reflect on and evaluate my practise over the past few years, and I have learnt to make gyoza.

In the U.K. we are talking a lot about cuts to the arts, and what impact that might have on arts activity. In Japan everyone I have spoken to has said that there is not a lot of funding available here, and what there is, is so difficult to get hold of, that most people don't bother - I have heard more than once: 'the energy put into applying could be spent on making more work.' I have also heard that being an artist here is hard - everyone that I have asked has an extra job, and also stark differences in how artists and art activity is viewed have surprised me. Jamie told me that most people regard art as something that you do as a hobby, and like most hobbies in Japan - this hobby is expensive. Jamie took me to Tokyu Hands in Osaka - a department store which seems to be dedicated to hobbies - it seemed that there was a kit or a tool for everything there (one which stood out was a kit for making a kaleidoscope). So, artists wishing to show their work can not only expect not to be given a fee from the gallery, but on the whole will be asked to pay a hire fee themselves for the space - something which is often obstructively expensive. This might be OK if the art market is strong, and the artists can expect to make money back on sales, but a few people told me that it is relatively difficult to sell work - one person told me this is because on the whole, people do not have a lot of space for showing work in their homes, so don't buy it. I recall going to the Tokyo: DesignFesta when I was in Japan in 2003. It shocked me that there was such a lot of talent in this enormous warehouse thing - and how cheaply people sold their work and skills - I had a small (A6) portrait sketched by a lovely artist called YUMI, it cost me 100 yen which was 50p at the time. DesignFesta also run a gallery in Harajuku, where artists can hire space for the day - current price is from 525 yen (about £5 in today's money) for one piece - and walls are split up like the image below - so there is no telling what your work will be exhibited with.

This was really interesting - I advocate a policy of (almost) never paying to apply for an opportunity or to show my work - so how would I get on in Japan, where I would be expected to pay someone else for the privilege of showing? Also, a lot of my work would not fit in one of those spaces (being performance, intervention etc) and most of it is unsaleable, so the situation for artists like me would be quite difficult. In fact, I didn't meet many artists who are like me while in Japan, and when showing people my work, or talking about it I was told, no, we don't have work like this here.
I met a very interesting artist, Keijiro Suzuki at an opening at Galaxy Gallery in Osaka on Friday night. I felt that of all the artists, his ethos and approach to practice was most akin to mine, so no surprises that he didn't study in Japan. We had a long talk and it is even harder for an artist to practice here if there work is like his. He creates situations as art practice.

While I have been here I have been trying to write a descriptive text as an introduction to Indefinable City II - the idea being to write about and plan a city. I had thought about the city being designed by artists, and that urban planning - if designed by artists, would be much more effective and better. I have begun to plan a city: called Mountain Island City probably inspired by the amazing community feeling here on the mountain.The idea has developed that this was a previously undiscovered island, and that 50 years ago at a world summit it was agreed that the new island would become a testbed for a new way of living, embracing all things sustainable and ecological - and populated by artists and other creative people. I started writing, but it got me thinking - would this be the worst place to live? All these egos on one island - and maybe we would end up being uninspired - having nothing to rub up against? That will have to be something to come back to.
Also, on my second day here I happened across an ikebana demonstration in Takashimaya, Osaka. I was struck by how beautiful the displays were, but in particular the arrangements which surprised me, were the ones using more natural looking plants (weeds), of which there were only a few. It got me thinking about the story that Michael told me. We were at work, but we had gone onto the street, because the Olympic Torch was due in the city that day, and to celebrate a parade was planned, so we went out at lunch time to have a look. The parade passed, and we noticed a man who didn't look quite right, moving along the street with the other parade goers. He looked quite drunk, and was wrapped in a tattered looking St. George Flag. Michael told me that he saw him a few days later again, but this time by the site of the old ABC Cinema, next to the gallery - the site that we have been looking at and making work about for some time.

Since TESCO was built, and the land there turned over, an amazing array of flowers have appeared in just over a year, the man was foraging about on the site, and when he emerged from the other side, Michael was amazed to see that he had collected the most beautiful bouquet, wrapped in newspaper.

This got me thinking about an ikebana class on the ABC site. I have bought a couple of great books on Ikebana for reference, and though they are in Japanese, they are very useful. One of the things I like about Ikebana is that it celebrates all forms and states of nature, so as much as the new bud is cherished and presented, so is the old dead form, with moss growing over it. I would love to do a wild ikebana class, using found and salvaged 'vessels' instead of fancy vases, as I think that this really represents the other aspect of Japan that I really like (as described by Yoshida Koh in a previous post - all about how objects are being more cherished and rubbish recognised as potential resources since the earthquake. So, for our studio show in September, I plan to explore using Ikebana on the ABC site, and perhaps do a workshop there. (Below and above: Aiko and I collecting plants and flowers from the mountain to do some ikebana training.)

Of all the residencies I have done, this one has seen me do the least in terms of making new work, and the most in terms of reflection and thinking. Also, I feel I have seen a lot of new things, and learnt about a different context for how artists survive. When I get back, I know that there is so much to do at AirSpace with Conjunction coming up in October, plus I start my new job as joint course leader of the BA Fine Art at Staffordshire University - so I think maybe what I needed was space to get my head round all that, and a break from the rollercoaster of practice, job and gallery that has been the past 5 years. Thanks to Jamie and Aiko for providing this amazing retreat space. I get the feeling that a residency at Headspace is whatever you need it to be. There is an enormous studio room, a small two storey gallery space, lots of outdoor space, and a whole mountain to explore (and that's just in the immediate vicinity.) I recommend this residency to anyone. Click here for details of how to apply. There is funding available from Anglo-Daiwa, and the new arts council international funding stream looks promising, if you are also making international connections alongside the residency. Jamie can put people in touch with Osaka based galleries that could lead to an exhibition: for example Galaxy Gallery, Soho Gallery and Tsukiyo to Syonen (I met the Directors from each and they are great - and all of these spaces will hire their gallery out.)