Constellations is a research and development programme for artists who are working with socio-political issues, community-oriented practice and/or public contexts. The programme, run by UP Projects and Flat Time House, supports artists to develop their practice, collaborate with others, access new networks, and spend time at Flat Time House as a place to study and research between monthly workshop sessions.
During the programme, we were invited to devise and present three public events across London.
Art Night, 22 June 2019
Gasholder No.8, Handyside St, King's Cross
We were invited to produce an artwork for Gasholder Park, and, uncomfortable creating an artwork in a private space owned by Argent (a large London property developer), decided to occupy the space through our absence. We posted a yellow 'Planning Notice' around the park to inform the Art Night audience of our decision to leave the space, with a map to direct them elsewhere. Some Constellations members moved to the Cock Tavern, me and Miki Holloway spent 6 hours on a street corner in Kings Cross, inviting the public to collaborate with us, to investigate the methodologies and expectations of collaboration.
Barbican, 30 October 2019
Life Rewired Hub, Barbican Centre
Over the course of two days the Constellations group were based at the Life Rewired Hub exploring ideas of collaboration, co-creation and peer-to-peer learning through a workshop and series of participatory activities. I collaborated with Amanda Ramasawmy and Dunya Kalantery to devise the workshop Show me the face of your digital voice, in which we considered the digital voice in public space, asking: who does it belong to, who does it speak for and what imprint does it leave on us? This practical workshop allowed us to test the strategies of these machines, inviting participants to record their own digital voice and hide it in the Barbican, observing how this impacted visitor behaviour.
Flat Time House, 18 January 2020
210 Bellenden Rd, Peckham
Children from Belham Primary, the school opposite Flat Time House, visited John Latham’s studio home. In explaining Latham’s thinking to the group, Curator/Director Gareth Bell-Jones focused on how, to an eight year old, each of the rooms of the house relates to different states of being: rational, instinctive and intuitive; ‘doing your homework – eating your dinner – drawing a picture’. We decided to follow the same approach. Marking the end of ten months working together, our event considered modes of collaboration in relation to public and private space within the context of FTHo as both a living sculpture and a domestic setting. We screened films from the London Community Video Archive, held a communal meal served, and assembled a publication dealing with themes of public/private, the domestic and socially engaged practice.
