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Wapke and I collect each other’s best quotes. Normally Wapke wins with sentences like:
“ People think that if you’re from a big place you have big ideas, and if you’re coming from a small place, that your ideas can’t be big. That’s of course wrong.”
The thing I said during our week in Grizedale which scored for our list was:
“ The ambition ends once the story is finished.”
I had some of ours and other's projects in mind when saying this. Thinking of how many projects are prototypes and could be extended, but often finish their production once they're delivered.
They extend and survive as narratives and linked into networks, but are rarely continued as such. The term ambition refers to innovation in terms of "post-production".
I was thinking about how Grizedale initiates, produces and documents projects. In terms of production they also seem to come to an end once the project is published/presented/performed. And I think it’s worth thinking about the outcomes and how they could remain an active tool within the Grizedale network, rather than becoming just documentation or illustration of something that has been.
I’m mainly thinking of the range of produce that came out of the Seven Samurai residency in Japan, and the Grizedale programme and stalls at the A Foundation in Liverpool. How does the project and what has been produced remain exchangeable and relational within the network? How could the produce allow for an cross networking exchange, like a market, without necessarily interpersonal links.
When we did the Park Products project (www.publicworksgroup.net/pages/Park_Products_01.html) we tried to base the principle of the project on the idea of an informal economy, and trade as social space, utilising products as a tool to represent but also to initiate new social and cultural contacts and space.
Grizedale generates social/cultural space and numerous outcomes, and I think that Grizedale’s production can also be speculated as growing cultural space based on the exchange of “goods”. These goods can be anything, but need to be seen and established as a means to extend the spaces of cultural production and the networks linked them.
In a recent presentation by Jaime Stapleton (at one of Gavin Wade’s and Celine Condorelli’s Support Structure events) he talked about products as collective property and public goods. And I think many of the Grizedale “products” come out of collective and public production and are much more than individual commodities once the production process is over.
I’m phantasising about a powerful global rural economy, which exists outside of monetary market forces, and where goods are exchanged in order to make links rather than gather profit.
The idea of post-production.
What are those items?
Autonomous, in the sense that they're active, not just documentation and representation.
They "speak for themselves” and can be traded.
Have the qualities of a product which communicates itself.
Our blogs:Grizedale Arts Blog, Seven Samurai, Creative Egremont, Farmyard Radio, myvillages.org, Lawson Park Blog
2 Comments
To imagine that Grizedale projects have an end is completly erroneous. The essential element in all the projects is suggesting a future and in most cases that future is realised. For example the Coniston water Festival set about restarting a village festival, the intention from the start was to ensure that the festival continued and had a significant impact on how the village percieved themselves and how they took control of thier future as a community. Nearly all Grizedale projects continue to feed into new projects, it's a rolling programme, the water festival contributed to projects in Japan, and will contribute to projects in China and the Lawson Park land programme, all of these projects will be feeding into the TV project and so on. One of the strengths of the programme is that we are able to maintain long term relationships with contributors - artists and other participants. There is a great benifit in this approach allowing understanding, working methods and ideas to evolve. Many artists have worked consitently at Grizedale for 5 years +.
Adam Sutherland, May 10, 2007 13:23
It clear that Grizedale is a rolling programme. I wasn t suggesting that it sproducing project by project, but wanted to ask about the rolling mechanism. How do they roll into each other? It s clear that inter linked networks, continous narratives and long term relationships allow for the rolling. My suggestion was that produce from the individual projects could become more part of the rollong mechanism. Almost like a second range of players, besides the people involved.
My quote in the beginning doesn t refer to Grizedale. It came out of a conversation about
the number of cultural projects that have the quality of prototypes, but come too often to an end without a second stage development or further application.
I read the rolling programme of Grizedale as a rolling testing, assessment and adjustment of ideas. And that s where the idea of representation and activation comes up again, is it done through narratives and networks and which role do and could a
material outcome play.
Kathrin, May 12, 2007 12:44