Artists and Regeneration

I'm talking at 'Artists and Regeneration', an event organised by The Architecture Network at The Building Exploratory in Dalston tomorrow night. It features myself, Anna Strongman from Argent and Sam Wilkinson from Insite Arts. Tickets have sold out, but they're going to put a podcast online so I'll post once that's up. Should be an interesting conversation....

Linear

I went to the launch of Dryden Goodwin's stunning project, Linear, for Art on the Underground on Friday. He's drawn portraits of 60 members of staff on the Jubilee line, and recorded both the process of drawing and the conversations that took place. The results are 60 short films that give an incredible insight into the people that took part. There's also something really magical about watching their faces emerge from a blank piece of paper as you hear them speak. Funny, moving, gorgeous. Check it out.

Negotiate Your Place

A great conversation at the Know Your Place event at the German Gym in King’s Cross last night. I could have carried on for at least another hour!

Some ideas and themes that stuck with me:

1. The negotiation of power within residencies – how can and should a writer approach a residency? As an anarchist, a negotiator? Nick Mahoka made a good point that he thought organisations who asked for a residency were to some extent asking a question, inviting a line of inquiry. Lemn Sissay talked about the need for commissioners to take a creative approach.

2. The balance between structure and freedom, and the role of the organisation in supporting and enabling the writer to really work magic.

3. The need to accept that you can’t know what will happen in a residency, balanced with the need to draw boundaries (especially to do with resources), and then to measure and advocate for the work done.

4. Kat Joyce talked about her One Mile Away residency and how all of the stories and conversations amassed into something bigger than its constituent parts, and also the satisfaction she found in watching new connections being made within a neighbourhood as a result of her work.

5. Lee Mallet commented that within the field of regeneration there is a real need for work like this to deepen our (and specifically planners/architects/developers’) understanding of place.

6. Tamsin Dillon from Art on the Underground talked about their growing interest not just in the physicality of the Underground but also in ‘the people who animate those contexts’.

And so much more!

My Place Or Yours - another case study

The last case study before our event, Know Your Place, is now online. Apples and Snakes discuss My Place Or Yours, a series of 5 writing residencies exploring pioneering ways of presenting work on-line and live, engaging with audiences through a series of residencies on the theme of “Place”.
Emma McGordon chose to be a poet in residence in homeless shelters in Cumbria and Liverpool. Take a look at the case study to find out more....

One Mile Away

In the lead up to the Know Your Place event, a second case study is now online.
One Mile Away was a 3 month residency exploring the mile radius around Spread the Word's offices in Lambeth. Writer Kat Joyce, and theatre director Nathan Curry, brought together a disparate collection of narratives, collected through participatory workshops, into a promenade play, which started in an empty shopping unit in Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre and took audiences on a mile long walk, culminating in West Square, SE11.

New case study online, and get your questions in early....

In the lead up to Know Your Place – a panel debate organised by UrbanWords and Spread the Word to explore the role of value of place-specific writing residencies – we are collecting together a series of short case studies to whet your appetite and spark questions to put to our panellists prior to the event.

The first of these case studies is now online. Central line stories took place in 2009: a residency by Sarah Butler working with London Underground staff, commissioned by Art on the Underground.

Having read about Sarah's project we'd like to know what questions or issues you think it raises which could be a focus for the debate. What more would you like to know about this project? Are there others which you think are comparable? Please email Emma Hewett with your questions/responses at emma@spreadtheword.org.uk by Monday 25th January.

And don’t forget to book your place! Full details and booking here.

Free article on A Place For Words

Check out a new free article by Linda France on A Place For Words. Writing in Three Dimensions explores the difference between writing for the page, and writing for a place. Linda France is a poet with a huge amount of experience writing for public art commissions.