INDEX:
#1 THE IDEA #2 AIM, OBJECTIVES AND APPROACH #3 PROCESS AND CONTENT #4 THE AUDIENCES #4.1 QUALITATIVE vs QUANTITATIVE #5 CONVERSATION #1 #5.1 AUDIENCES’ ENGAGEMENT #5.2 CHALLENGES A relational project curated by Barbara Mulas
#6 CONVERSATION #2 #6.1 AUDIENCES’ ENGAGEMENT
Bath Spa University 314808 - Curatorial Practice May 2016 Words: 2464 [Index, References and Notes excluded]
#6.2 CHALLENGES #7 NEXT STEPS #8 REFERENCES | AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
#1 | THE IDEA NEST Conversations is an ongoing relational art project, started in April 2016 and taking place in Bristol – UK. The idea came from a double necessity: at the very beginning I was working on a sound project with the sound-artist Ellen Southern; the project’s aim was to transform the bridge’ passive audience in to active through an uncanny ten-days-long sound performance. The project was supposed to take place at The Control Room, a Bristol City Council’ venue on the Bristol’ Redcliff Bridge but -surprisingly and sadly- Bristol City Council changed the venue’s opportunity, offering it only for a two-months period, which impeded me to apply. Time was going fast, I was feeling angry and apprehensive for not having anymore a live project to show. After meditating for few days on which audience I was interested to reach, I realised that I was lacking of artists and creative people to work with and involve in my practice; because I am new to this Country, whatever the project would have been, I couldn’t think of anyone to work with; I recognised I lacked of network here. Under those circumstances came the idea of NEST: from my personal need of making new creative connections and broadening my relational network.
NOTES
ELLEN SOUTHERN: Bristol-based visual artist, singer-composer and performance maker artist website
THE CONTROL ROOM: The Control Room sits on the north side of Redcliffe Bridge in Bristol’s docks area and houses the controls that move the bridge. [...][It] is available for use for creative projects that can only be viewed from the outside, as the public aren’t permitted to enter[it] (Bristol City Council)
#2 | AIM, OBJECTIVES AND APPROACH N E S T Conversation has been conceived as an occasional series of informal social events taking place in Bristol, involving early-career individuals interested in creative practices of different types. It aims to be a round table, an informal gathering both to start new and strengthen old relations; a forum to converse and to get new ideas and feedback. The name is inspired by the Italian literate and poet Giovanni Pascoli’ s nest, and by the historic value and cultural power embodied by places such as the Futurist Bar Jamaica in Milan and the Dadaist Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. NEST wants to become a new platform for the city and stimulate creativity among people. Every event features a different project, which represents the focus of the conversation and also the catalyst to actively engage people which are invited to interact with what on show, and stimulated to have a reaction, give feedback and share new ideas. The informal and spontaneous atmosphere is obtained and kept by the act of sharing an afternoon tea or coffee all together, which helps forging a comfortable atmosphere and contributes to create an aura of conviviality.
NOTES
GIOVANNI PASCOLI: Pascoli introduced the concept of nest in his poetical stance, which he called “poetics of the child”. The nest represented a safe, familiar, small place where the poet could live and work in peace. Wikipedia page
BAR JAMAICA: Historic Milanese cafe in which Futurists artists and literates used to meet. Official website
CABARET VOLTAIRE: Historic cafe and club in Zurich in which DADAISTS used to meet. Wikipedia page
#3 | PROCESS & CONTENT The first move to launch the project has been online: commissioning a logo to the graphic designer Camilla Facco, spreading the idea and stimulating curiosity about 30 days before the first event; I opened a Tumblr blog, a Facebook page, an Instagram and a Twitter profile. I’ve been supported from the very beginning by my small network of University peers and Bristolian friends, whom appeared very excited by the idea of NEST and helped me from this early stage with word-of-mouth . Two conversations have been organized so far. I selected both of the artists, but I also launched an open call for project proposals on the Tumblr and promoted it through social networks: I want people to have the possibility to submit ideas, which means, thus, for me giving and receiving stimulations. The conversations took place on Sunday afternoons at Café Kino, a small, vegan and cozy café in Stokes Croft, a very dynamic and strategic district overflowing fresh creativity. I opted for this day and time because I believe it represents a down-time for the most of my generation, which would be interesting to activate. Every conversation is three-hours long: since there isn’t the possibility of procrastinating, it somehow forces people to make the decision to come and, nevertheless, it concentrates energy and attention on a small window of time. For every conversation I prepared a simple and easy-to-read press release, which has been launched twenty days in advance through the Tumblr, the Facebook page and newsletter. A Facebook event was created fifteen days before the gathering. As a reminder, regular contents have been posted on the Facebook page, event and on Instagram.
NOTES
CAMILLA FACCO: Class 1991 from Italy, currently London-based Online portfolio NEST LINKS: Tumblr Instagram Twitter CAFE KINO: Official website STOKES CROFT: Official website
#4 | THE AUDIENCES As said before, my audience is represented by my peers: emerging, earlycareer individuals from different fields interested in creative practices. Furthermore, I divided the macro group of peers in to other two micro categories: a so-called first audience and a secondary audience. The first audience is the artists showing a project. My purpose is giving an opportunity to emerging creative minds not only to go public, but most importantly to get useful feedback and external, neutral suggestions. As a starting point I work on creating a relaxed and exciting - yet professional - way of working, which I tried to obtain by developing an open dialogue, planning regular but not oppressive meetings and brainstorming’ sessions about the project development and also about the event organization itself – I want them to be fully involved: they are given a responsibility this way. The secondary audience are the visitors - also potential showing artists. My objective is to gather around twenty-five individuals each conversation: so to keep a friendly and familiar atmosphere, but also broaden people’s network by bringing a discrete amount of strangers together. I want the audience to actively engage with and become part of the show, but I also want to make visitors moved by the situation to naturally interact among them.
NOTES
So far, two people participated as first audience, and an overall of thirty people composed the secondary audience.
#4.1 | QUALITATIVE vs QUANTITATIVE Firstly, to stimulate audience to participate, I developed a double strategy: a qualitative one and a quantitative one. The qualitative strategy involves people I have been talking with about the project and their word-of-mouth with their closest acquaintances. Two limited-edition, handcrafted, teabag invitations are given to each person – it can change depending on whether I consider they would be able or not to bring someone to the conversation. The purpose of the personal teabag invitation is to make people feel pivotal for the event success, and also to give them a light responsibility, which is to share the project with someone new they think could be interested by the initiative. The quantitative strategy points on involving early-career strangers via a newsletter - mostly direct to the majority Art and Design’ course leaders in Bath and Bristol, asking them to forward it to the students-, via Visual Art South West and viral communication. Participation has been, and will be, different every time depending on the artist’ need and requests, and on the nature of the project on show. Moreover, NEST Conversations approach to its audiences is destined to change and evolve every time: it is a progressive/always-evolving project, which adjusts itself after every attempt.
NOTES
VISUAL ART SOUTH WEST: From the website, “Visual Arts South West (VASW) is part of the national Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN)* [...] the purpose of the overall network is to connect people working in the visual arts with each other, and with professionals in other fields around the world, in order to share information, ideas and resources. Conversation #1 Conversation #2
#5 | CONVERSATION #1
The Conversation #1 took place in Bristol on April 17th, from 12 noon to 3pm in the basement of the Stokes Croft’ Cafe Kino. Cristina Arctor has been the first person presenting a project. For NEST #1 she showed the prototype of her socio-aesthetical illustrated book, titled “The Cyber Nomad” (2016), which was available in two copies: one complete and one divided in to five separate chapters. The show also featured the author’s notebook and calendar, the original illustrations and a sketchbook from 2014. People was asked to actively interact with all the items, and with the artist herself; they were invited to touch what on show, pick a copy of the book and take some time to read it. Feedback, ideas and suggestions were collected in the artist’ notebook. Them, an informal and intimate conversation about the book started at 1:15 pm, and it is available online. The complete version of “The Cyber Nomad” is available on Arctor’s Issuu.
NOTES
CONVERSATION #1: Tumblr archive
CRISTINA ARCTOR: class 1990, Londonbased researcher and illustrator, interested in socio-esthetical trend’ analysis and forecasting. Online portfolio THE PODCAST Dropbox link THE TALK: Mix LR showreel THE BOOK: Issuu link
#5.1 | AUDIENCES’ ENGAGEMENT My first audience this time was Cristina Arctor; she demonstrated to be extremely interested by the initiative, and she has been greatly responsive to my way of working in co-lab situations. We could establish a dialogue very easily, which helped the production of the book itself and the planning of the show. The Conversation’s purpose, on the artist side, was to give her the chance to show her book in a small and not competitive situation, and thus to receive new, external yet pertinent perspectives that could help her developing it. The secondary audience proved to be highly responsive to participation, which started with the request of filling a register with some personal data – such as name, age, provenience, field of interest, type of invitation and email. Subsequently, a question on a blackboard invited them to write down name and places have been living in: this stimulated a great curiosity about the book, and surprisingly all the people did it spontaneously. The completion of the board prompted small talks among participants and the artist even before the conversation started. As stated before, everything on show was touchable, and it demonstrated to be a good way to engage people on delving deeper the subject, and also a way to break the ice before the talk.
NOTES
ARCTOR’S FEEDBACK: Can you give the project a feedback sharing your perspective with NEST? I believe NEST is a great example of an exhibition taking place outside institutional places as galleries. The informal characteristic was key item to create an outgoing conversation between strangers. I was enthusiast that people could touch preparational parts of my project and feel the whole mood of it. How did you find the project itself? and the event? The project was inspiring, during the event Barbara was very helpful and organized, it was smooth and flowed exactly like a conversation would do.
#5.1 | AUDIENCES ENGAGEMENT I considered to provide, next to the prototype, an i-Pod playlist with some concepts taken from the book which would have needed a clearer explanation, mainly for those people who don’t appreciate to ask direct questions or take part in talks and conversations. This idea appeared to be successful: more than one person brought the i-Pod and listened to the recording they needed while reading a book’ chapter. I wasn’t expecting a great participation during the conversation – young people usually get shy; although, thanks to the laid-back atmosphere Cristina and I could generate, more than a half of the audience surprisingly intervened, asking questions or giving opinions. Furthermore, Arctor’s notebook counted nine pages of feedback, ideas and suggestions. Arctor has gained from NEST new stimulations: not only she collected new topics for her book, but admitted she was also given a fresh energy to move forward. After the event, the artist was asked to give NEST Conversations a feedback, which was extremely positive – check the project folder to read the full feedback. To conclude it could be said that both the audiences –first and secondarywere successfully reached.
NOTES
There was a strong creative vibe and collaboration around the project while building it and the event was successful, I wasn’t expecting that so many could be so curious. Has your perspective on it changed somehow after Sunday? Was it useful in the end? NEST has encouraged my perspective. I am now very inspired and looking forward to attend to the next event. It was definitely better than I expected upfront, and the participants contributed with many useful and creative ideas. I am looking forward to complete the book including every contributor’s name.
#5.2 | CHALLENGES
Beside the event can be largely considered successful, some negatives have been found indeed. Firstly, eighteen people came, while twenty-five participants at least were expected. A big part of my closest peers –qualitative audience/direct invitationwho couldn’t come told me that it was because of the early time; I decided, therefore, to postpone the second conversation from 12 noon to 2pm. Secondly, nobody proposed a project to show. In addition, I realized that people reacted more to word-of-mouth and direct invitation than through social networks or emails: only two of the participants, up to eighteen, came after seeing a Facebook event; as a consequence, from the Conversation #2 onward, I am working on a more direct, personal and unmediated strategy to engage people and broaden my audience.
NOTES
Hishimura (class 1992, sound engineer from Italy currently Londonbased, ) created for the Conversation #1 a 90” ambient set inspired by the “The Cyber Nomad” aesthetic line. Online portfolio
#6 | CONVERSATION #2
The Conversation #2 took place in Bristol on Sunday May 8th, from 2 to 5pm in the basement of the Stokes Croft’ Cafe Kino. Essie Valmadre, postgraduate student at Bath Spa University, was the artist featuring; for NEST#2 she proposed for the first time to the public some fragments selected from the Novel she is currently working on, “Cheap Chinese & Bad Poetry”. The aim of this conversation was to stimulate a shift of perspective about literature, poetry, writing and reading, by concentrating people’s attention on sensations, rather than on rational understanding. The setting was composed by hundreds of book fragments spread all over the floor, a corner recreating an adolescent room, an i-Pod with a short unofficial conversation titled “4:30am chitchat on Cheap Chinese & Bad Poetry”, and an over voice going in loop. Entering the room people were asked to grab a kit made by a pencil and four pieces of paper. Every 30 minutes the over voice stopped and the author read a chapter from the manuscript; people were invited to write down their feelings and sensations about what just experienced. Every read has been streamed live and it is available on NEST’ Mix LR profile.
NOTES
CONVERSATION #2: Tumblr archive
4:30am CHITCHAT ON “CHEAP CHINESE & BAD POETRY”: Dropbox link
THE READINGS: Mix LR showreel
#6.1 | AUDIENCES’ ENGAGEMENT
NOTES
As first audience, Essie demonstrated from the beginning a big curiosity about the initiative; she has been responsive enough to my way of working in co-lab situations, even if I found sometimes difficult to get in touch with her. The Conversation’s purpose, on the artist side, was to give her the chance to show her book in a small and mixed situation, and receive divergent feedback compared to the one she’s currently receiving from her University’ peers: she wanted subjectivity and senses to be involved this time, rather than objectivity, reason and understanding.
SOME QUOTES OF PEOPLE’S SENSATIONS:
Again, participants demonstrated to be exceptionally interested and responsive. Also this time, participation started with the request of filling the register with few personal data. They were asked then to grab a kit from a shelf: everyone took one and wrote on it. Moreover, participants demonstrated to be interested about the book’ content: the venue’ floor was covered by the Manuscript’ pages, which the most of them took and read, and eventually took home; some of them also paused on the i-Pod’ conversation. Furthermore, everyone mentioned the set up: they described it interesting and well curated, really moody and immersive, a perfect atmosphere for Essie’s book.
“your head is messy! I feel chaos, I like diversification, it gathers my attention”
At the end of the day Essie told me she was really satisfied by the project: she gained more confidence on reading in public, and reading her book loud for the first time gave her a new perspective on what she was writing, how, and how she was feeling about it.
“Intimate” “Familiar” “I have had a mobile phon since 10 years old”
“Facebook induced jealousy” “Naughty” “Involved adventure” “I cannot write in English this: legami” “Apnea / Embarassing” “Queery”
#6.2 | CHALLENGES
Even whether the overall conversation was successful, some negatives occurred. The biggest one was the few people participating. In terms of number, the event failed: only twelve people came, and none of them was a stranger: the word-of-mouth didn’t really work this time. A positive note within the negative was found though: during the conversation the participants and I had the chance to talk about it, and some interesting ideas to spread the word came out.
NOTES
SOME QUOTES OF PEOPLE’S SENSATIONS:
“Shameless” “Memory of younger self, good and sad” “Curiosity” “Feels like home”
Again, nobody proposed a project to show: I am selecting the artists to show, and I am still figuring out a way to encourage people. Last negative: the venue; the stuff demonstrated to be really unprofessional – I was told last minute I could not use the amply and they were coming down all the time making noise, which I find disappointing and not respectful in general. Moreover, I believe that during the summer a close basement with no sunlight is definitely not attractive.
“Warmth” “#Goals :)” “Friendship / Confusion / Tension / Release” “Memories floating in [...] all the occasions I’ve been too pissed” “Wonderous”
#7 | NEXT STEPS
The next steps to improve NEST Conversations are: Spread the word about the project by engaging more directly new people Look for another place in line with NEST’ aim and objectives. Find a way to fund the project
NOTES
S P A C E (Sound, Performance, Art, Community, Engagement), the latest project by The Island and Trinity Community Centre, has recently offered to NEST Conversations the possibility to hold the third conversation in the Old Market district’ venue. Official website
#8 | REFERENCES Arctor C., (undated), portfolio [online] available from: http://cristinaaguirrebis.wix.com/portfolio [accessed on March 2016] Bristol City Council, (undated) Bristol Creative Spaces - The Control Room [online] available from: https:// bristolcitycouncilcreativespace.wordpress.com/facilities/control-room-2/ [accessed on May 2016] Cafe Kino, (undated), Cafe Kino [online] available from: http://www.cafekino.coop [accessed on March 2016] Facco C., (undated), porfolio [online] available from: https://www.behance.net/CamillaFacco [accessed on May 2016] Instagram, (2016), NEST Conversations [online] available from: https://www.instagram.com/nestconversations/ [accessed on May 2016] Jamaica Bar, (undated), JAMAICA [online] available from: http://www.jamaicabar.it/storia/ [accessed on May 2016] Southern E., (undated) portfolio [online] available from: http://www.ellensouthern.co.uk/index.html [accessed on May 2016]
NOTES
AKNOWLEDGMENTS: I am exceptionally thankful to all the people who have supported, and still are supporting, NEST Conversations. Without every single contribution NEST Conversations wouldn’t have been possible.
Stokes Croft, (undated), Visit Stokes Croft -Bristol’s Cultural Quarter [online] available from: http://www.vasw.org.uk/ search.php?keyword=conversation+%231&search.x=0&search.y=0 [accessed on May 2016] Tumblr, (2016), NEST Conversations [online] available from: http://nest-conversations.tumblr.com [accessed on May 2016] Twitter, (2016), NEST Conversations [online] available from: https://twitter.com/nestconv [accessed on May 2016] Visul Art South West, (undated), VASW [online] available from: http://www.vasw.org.uk/search. php?keyword=conversation+%231&search.x=0&search.y=0 [accessed on March and April 2016] Wikipedia, (2016), Cabaret Voltaire [online] available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabaret_Voltaire_(Zurich) [accessed on May 2016] Wikipedia, (2016), Giovanni Pascoli [online] available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Pascoli [accessed on April 2016]
VOICE CREDITS: Essie Valmadre Bill Durack Max Armstrong-Blake Molly Aitken Barbara Mulas