Journeys with ‘The Waste Land’ A community curation journey with Karen Parker
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f ever a project had your name on it Karen this is it!” Is it because I love poetry, enjoy T.S.Eliot, find delight in art, or I am an organiser? Yes to all these things, but it is my desire to promote the arts in general, to be inclusive, but mainly to engage with people, sharing my knowledge and learning from others, that drew me to the idea of a community curated art exhibition based on Eliot’s poem The Waste Land. Find a community of interested volunteers was the directive. Tricky finding willing volunteers from a diverse background, centred around Coventry and who enjoyed those same precepts of poetry and art. A widespread email to community groups and invitations through Warwick Arts Centre, Mead Gallery and social media brought a mixed group of people to the first meeting. Over time this initial group settled at around thirteen people who became the Journeys with ‘The Waste Land’ Research Group and stayed the course of the project (Fig. 1). This was in contrast to
Turner Contemporary, Margate, the project starting point, where around fifty-sixty volunteers were involved. Community is a difficult thing to identify and define. Is it defined by profession, knowledge, interest, place, age, nationality, experience, local or worldwide, virtual or in person? In the end it was a self-selected group of individuals, with many personal reasons for being involved, including prosaic considerations of time, availability, geography, commitment and expense, as well as philosophical, educational and visionary ideals. Professor Mike Tooby, the lead on the project, wanted to challenge the notion of the omnipotent curator, declaring the audience must see a definitive interpretation of a subject. The project aimed to challenge stereotypes and preconceived notions of an audience, and to encourage dialogue, harness local expertise and enthusiasm, using “socially engaged practice as outreach.” (Tooby presentation 16.11.18). This was a plea to the
PHOTOGRAPH: KAREN PARKER
Figure 1. Left: Coventry Research Group
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