Drop'In - Documentation

23 — 30 Oc to be r 20 15 Ac co mp an yin g pu bli ca tio n fo r th e 3 mo nt h res id en cy wi th in Ac cri ng to n Lib ra ry fo r BL AZ E Fe sti va l 20 15

with artists Oli Blight, Antonia Hennerley, Fern Nicholas, Sophie Skellern, Hannah G Stringer, Katie Suthers & Alex Ware

curate d by Amy Lawren ce

Amy Lawrence is a freelance artist, curator and workshop facilitator, founder of LEGROOM, member of TOAST, a curatorial collective formed alongside Castlefield Gallery’s New Arts Spaces (founded 2013) and curator at FrancoBritish project MUTO (2015).

Amy has an interdisciplinary approach to installation, live art and visual arts with a strong curatorial and engagement focus. Projects often incorporate audience alongside both performers and 'nonperformers' and explore the possibilities of collaboration. A focus on process is seen within all threads of her practise alongside site specific intervention, gestural choreography and an awareness of the organic and non-organic features of objects and bodies within space. legroomblog.wordpress.com vimeo.com/amylawrence

Blaze is a cultural Olympiad Legacy project working with young people from across Lancashire and Blackpool to deliver a diverse programme of creative opportunities, supporting young people to take the lead as producers and innovators through training and development with strong links to the cultural venues and creative industries across the North West region. blazeonline.org.uk

supported by

About DROP ’IN A three month residency process culminating in a week long repossession of Accrington Library. The space became a temporal arts platform in which interventions and ephemeral art works were formed, noticed and unnoticed. An attempt to open up dialogues between the public, staff, structure and resources that typically inhabit the library.

The group of young artists challenged the perception of public space and the societal boundaries associated with the quiet but abundant library ecology; creating a series of situations within the space over the course of the week for Blaze Festival 2015.

One Process

Exploring the library with workshops by visiting artists

Two Intervention Week-long event within Accrington Library.

Three Reflection

The artists discuss their experiences with a conclusion by the Curator.

Foreword

by Amy Lawrence From August-October 2015, DROP’IN took over Accrington's (Lancashire) small, public library with a sitespecific, process-focused residency. Invited by BLAZE to curate the work of young local artists into an exhibition within the library, this original brief became more about working creatively with this space. I was struck by the possibilities of this multi-faceted building and how it may be used as a resource and community hub in durational processes.

Over the months, we explored the dialogues possible with this simultaneously energetic yet isolated community.

Our reflective work highlights the library as a shifting space that has reassessed its function within a digital age.

Coming from a live arts background, physical exploration of space has become necessary for the creation of site specific works. The artists were asked to consider this space and their body as a catalyst, using performance, workshop as artwork, intervention, collaboration and research as process to react directly to the space and the people within it.

The 3 month process of investigation culminated in a 7 day intervention of reactionary works and a public programme of interventions, talks and artist tours.

The artists placed within this public space had no intention of creating a work to sit upon the surface of the library as an aesthetic object but instead created situations to question use and purpose, a process that could intercept the everyday of this space. The public therefore shifted between the role of audience, artist and library user.

This publication archives DROP’IN through a selection of texts contributed by the artists, BLAZE, participants and workshop artists. It charts our process and outcome created within Accrington Library in October 2015.

One Process

� I put a picture on a wall. Then I forget there is a wall. I no longer know what there is behind this wall, I no longer know there is a wall, I no longer know that this wall is a wall, I no longer know what a wall is.

I no longer know that in my apartment there are walls, and that if there weren’t any walls, there would be no apartment.

The wall is no longer what delimits and defines the place where I live, that which separates it from the other places where other people live, it is nothing more than a support for the picture. But I also forget the picture…� (Georges Perec: Species of Spaces (1974), p.39 - Apartment)

Weaving Intervention: Installation by Alex Ware: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

Physical Intervention in Public Space: Workshop by Juliet Davis: Sept 2015

Research Methods and Arrangements: Workshop by Lauren Velvick: Sept 2015

One Process On Process

by Amy Lawrence Manchester based workshop artists from varied backgrounds brought new methods of working in public space allowing for new approaches.

Lauren Velvick, of the »Exhibition Centre for the Life and Use of Books«, explored the possibilities of visual research display, curation of research and creative problem solving. The Artists were encouraged to collect and arrange visual stimuli.

Laura Jane Atkinson, a textile artist and facilitator, provided creative and practical methods to create a wide range of found textile interventions within the library space, using the textures and shapes the artists could see around them.

lifeanduseofbooks.org

laurajaneatkinson.com

Juliet Davis of LEGROOM also an interdisciplinary artist and educational facilitator asked the artists to use their physicality in reaction the library space, creating both disruptive and harmonious interactions.

Sarah Hill, »Video Jam« Curator and video artist, introduced technology to our site specific processes. The artists created collaborative interdisciplinary reactions to the library space using projection, video and photography.

cargocollective.com/julietdavis

sarahrowlandhill.co.uk

Tactile Textiles: Workshop by Laura Jane Atkinson: Sept 2015

»Libraries reimagined as cultural venues.«

Tactile Textiles: Workshop by Laura Jane A

Sophie Skellern BLAZE Accrington Coordinator and DROP’IN Artist Libraries are being re-imagined as cultural venues, not just places for quietness and books, the creative imagination shows no limits. Libraries are under almost constant threat of cuts and closures and are having to re-invent and adapt the meanings of their iconic institutions to keep up with the societal and economic changes in the 21st century. It is this innovative thinking of the spaces owned and inhabited by communities that is so crucial to the futures of these spaces. [...] DROP’IN is just one of many ways that people are challenging the library system across the globe.

Forcing people to interact with their library creates a new dialogue around what purpose a library COULD have and it is this juxtaposition between »un-expecting people« and unexpected art that is truly fascinating.

Atkinson: Response by Alex Ware

One Process

Laura Jane Atkinson Tactile Textiles The act of making or »tinkering« with materials is one of many great tools in the process of unleashing the materiality of ideas, regardless of the idea. Material »tinkering« requires a certain depth of observation and deconstruction - of a structure, of the texture of an object or surface, of how »stuff« behaves, of how »stuff« doesn’t behave. Material »tinkering« particularly with a limited and unfamiliar set of materials requires you to look at things in a different way than you might normally, and adapt methodologies to perhaps put you in uncomfortable territory.

This process of looking, thinking and doing, and finding a voice in unknown territories whilst simultaneously seeking a solution to communicate ideas, is a process that is both challenging and generative.

Materiality is everywhere, and is everything - what we stand on, what we wear, what we walk under or between and what we eat with, and as a result feeds in to all disciplines. The joys of delivering a workshop to a group in the process of realising a project are endless. Accompanying individuals on a journey of finding their voice through an unfamiliar set of materials and unpicking this process.

Tactile Textiles: Workshop by Laura Jane Atkinson: Response by Alex Ware

Sarah Hill Interdisciplinary Processes My own practice unravels in the space between very conscious decision making and pure intuition; rationality and impulse; head and hands. My process typically entails ÂťfindingÂŤ a film or collage during making it, one image suggesting another and so on.

In effect, my actions comprise of a series of responses.

Though I am never interested in making work purely by chance, I have always been drawn to the role that

uncertainty and improvisation may play in the process of discovery keeping a door open to the potential of chance to take my ideas further. It is essential during the process of making to be open to discovering things.

During my workshop, I touched on these ideas, asking participants to think about chance as process and analyse their actions and intentions.

Lauren Velvick Research Methods and Arrangements [...] Through diagramming and diagrammatic thinking, the practicalities of drawing and image making are brought into dialogue with theory. This is done systematically using a method that is employed in many disciplines and is used to visually represent ideas about engineering, sociology, mathematics and computing, not just artistic concepts, and as such sidesteps pervasive negative ideas about art that position it as frivolous.

Physical Intervention in Public Space: Workshop by Juliet Davis: Sept 2015

One Process

Research Methods and Arrangements: Workshop

by Lauren Velvick: Sept 2015

Juliet Davis Physical Intervention in Public Space When I started creating site specific work in public spaces (usually involving a physical modification of the sites through drawing or painting) I progressively realised that what mattered the most to me was the unplanned encounters and exchanges I could have with passers-by and other users of those spaces.

By using contextual approaches to spaces, artists are able to intervene on situations and directly impact on elements of the public realm whilst also engaging with people who wouldn't necessarily go to galleries, but most importantly when people are not expecting art to happen.

After all, art and artists are part of society and places (and react to their environment and situation) During the »Physical Intervention in Public Space« workshop we focused our attention on human movement in the library: the way people move from one place to the other, how they move differently in different environments, how they sometimes seem not to be moving at all, but are using certain parts of their bodies…We then devised »interventions« in reaction to those observations, to be carried out in the library with a strong focus on the notions of audience and how they can interact (physically but also mentally) with the works.

Physical Intervention in Public Spa Juliet Davis: Sept 2015

Tactile Textiles: Workshop by Laura Jane Atkinson Response above by Alex Ware

ace: Workshop by

Two Intervention

Two Intervention Intro DROP’IN - Accrington Library 23rd October - 30th October 2015

the intervention took the form of a public and private programme of

family events alongside talks and discussions around educational and site specific issues. »DROP’IN and SEE« facilitated a casual opportunity for visitors to meet with the artists.

Weaving Workshop and Performance: Durational performance, open to participation by Alex Ware: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

All activity happened within the library, we shifted temporary gallery walls around the space, moved furniture and removed books to create workshop areas, inviting the public into our process.

Alongside the events, artists works, interventions and performances existed throughout the library. The artists responded to explorations of »invisible artworks«, as a means of collaborative creation and intervention to alter the function of the space to allow for conversations.

Each work was social in artistic intent and not always visually obvious, some appeared as though merging within the book shelves, others existed within an artist rearranging the books systematically and opportunities to engage were sent to the homes of the vulnerable, each exploration created a situation.

The artists took the space and created open ended responses in reaction to their observations.

Embroidery Workshop in collaboration with »Knit and Knatter«: Open Workshop by Alex Ware: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

A Place to B

Y/Our Library - Durational Storytelling: facilitated by Sophie Skellern: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

Two Intervention

Conversation - Durational process and installation:

by Hannah G Stringer: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

Breathe: Installation by Fern Nicholas: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

Embroidery Performance: Performative Installation by Alex Ware: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

D

R O

A week long repossession of Accrington Library

I N

Curated by Amy Lawrence

Artists Oli Blight, Antonia Hennerley, Fern Nicholas, Sophie Skellern, Hannah G Stringer, Katie Suthers, and Alex Ware

Preview Friday 23 October 2015, 7 - 9 pm Open until Friday 30 October 2015

P’

Two Intervention

Den building between the bookcases: Suitable for all! w ith Antonia Hennerley Embroider y Work shop

by Alex Ware Monday, 26 October DROP’IN LATE

Meet the artists in the librar y and explore the work s.

Weaving Work shop

by Alex Ware

P’

4 - 4.30 pm Introduction to DROPʼ IN by curator Amy Law rence and ar tists 4.30 pm Y/Our Librar y Durational Stor ytelling

by Sophie Skellern 5 - 7 pm In Conversation with Pol ly Brannan from Li verpool Biennial

Painting the Souls of Books painting intervention

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Skellern takes over the library computer as a place for suggestion through her durational video piece in the space throughout the week.

D R

(Bring your own!)

by Antonia Hennerley

Ch@nce screen intervention

12 - 4 pm

12 - 4 pm

Painting the Souls of Book s

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Thursday, 29 October DROP’IN - and SEE

O

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Your Safe Place

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Meet the artists in the librar y and explore the work s.

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N -

P

R

O G R A

M M E

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12 - 4 pm

w ith In-Situ Gain an insight into the prog ramming and ethos behind In-Situ with conversations surrounding site- specif ic practices and the Lancashire arts ecology

Ono-mato-poeia sound

Saturday, 24 October DROPʼIN - and SEE

5 - 7 pm In conversation

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DIY Music Boxes sound inter vention

by Oli Blight

12 - 4 pm The Collection - OPEN Bring your collections into the librar y to share with photog rapher Katie Suthers

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Y/Our Librar y Durational Stor ytelling

by Sophie Skellern

by Antonia Hennerley

THE ARTWORK

Painting the Souls of Book s (Bring your own!)

by Antonia Hennerley

2 - 3.30 pm Energ y Reading A spiritual reading of the librar y

ENTRANCE

Embroider y Work shop & Weaving Work shop

by Alex Ware

The library sees hundreds of people come through its doors each week.

Skellern re-tells the individual stories, memories and experiences of the space as told by the visitors and staff who inhabit it.

1.30 - 3 pm Embroider y Work shop with Knit & Knatter and Alex Ware

12 - 4 pm

Y/Our Library storytelling

Launch and preview of all artwork s and inter ventions, meet artists and curator.

7 - 9 pm

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Tuesday, 27 October DROP’IN - and SEE

A sound intervention in response to the audio presence of technology within the library space.

Friday, 23 October DROP’IN Launch

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♡

✏

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⦁

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⌣

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⦁

⦁

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Question Everything text projection

Embroidery Workshop workshop

Weaving Workshop intervention

Embroidery Workshop collaboration

The Collection photography installation & social

Conversation participatory intervention

A Place to Breathe library within a library

Nicholas creates a micro-library that provides a range of books chosen by the artist encouraging reflection upon communal existence and sustainable living, an oasis for learning and observation.

✏

Stringer invites you into an active exploration of the current arrangement of morality within the library. »Good« – optimistic and accepting expressions; within each book are picked apart. The books and their categories give and exchange to find common ground.

♡

Using the bookshelf as platform for display, Suthers documents collections, volunteered by the public, presenting these collections as unconventional portraits in the »space between«.

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around silence and conserved Blight explores the societal shift DIY music boxes with the public. box reflects a person’s unique

DIY Music Box installation & workshop

»The traditional library ethos revolves interaction with other library dwellers« of this social environment by creating Using textures within the space, each experience.

▶

Join Ware as he embroiders reflective surfaces recreating library textures alongside Knit & Knatter, the resident library knitting group!

⌣

Ware creates a large scale weave in the communal space of the stairwell, creating an interruption that invites the public to participate.

≈

Ware invites participants to join him in the embellishment of reflective material to recreate patterns and textures found within the library’s environment.

⌣

A series of questions posed to the visitor on entrance to the library as Hennerly asks the public to notice and observe how they inhabit the space.

?

Hennerley attempts to visualise the connection, spiritual story and illustrate the invisible thread,the invisible feeling and an invisible aura that books may hold.

Two Intervention

The Collection: Photographic Installation

by Katie Suthers: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

Three Reflection

Painting the Souls of Books: Workshop by Antonia Hennerley: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

»I heard from my fellow members of »Knit and Natter« that they enjoyed their participation in Alex’s project. I wish I'd been there to take part too.« Margaret of Knit and Knatter Community Club

Embroidery Workshop: Open Workshop by Alex Ware: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

Alex Ware, Artist Every Tuesday afternoon at half one until three o’clock, situated at the back, out of the way, were the creative mess of arts and craft workshops won’t interrupt the library’s traditional day to day function sit a group of female knitters. They gather over English tea and shortbread for an indulgent, 'good old bit' of knattering over their knitting projects.

For DROP’IN I invited the group to let me interrupt their knitting session with some embroidery and sequins. In an hour an a half we chatted about; the finical strains of death and funerals of families, the understated intimacy of low key weddings, how to entertain grand-kids at the weekend, errands to run, Ted Robbin’s cast as a romantic new interest for unlucky in love Mary on Coronation Street.

The Coll

by K

Antonia Hennerley, Artist (...) I gained a fuller picture of who I am as an artist, a mother and a person. The combination of the right kind of questions with inspiring new information and space to ponder and let the awareness rise has given me a new sense of self. I found a connection to people/friends/artists venturing in to the same unknown that I was presented with. I gained answers to the questions I usually ask.

»A combination of the right kind of questions.«

Embroidery Workshop: Open Workshop by Alex Ware: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

Three Reflection

Fern Nicolas, Artist (...) I have improved my ability to think about things from different perspectives whilst accepting and overcoming »problems«. Working in a public space is quite challenging as you are faced with a group of people who didn’t necessarily come to see art, know anything about art or even care.

lection: Photographic Installation Katie Suthers: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

I feel like this experience has helped me to understand who I want my art to be directed at and how I could make it easier for the general public to be more engaged in creativity in daily life instead of it being segregated into unknown »gallery« territory.

»I have opened my mind to possibilities.«

Painting the Souls of Books: Painting Intervention by Antonia Hennerley: DROP'IN: Oct 2015

Conclusion by the curator

DROP’IN is the name given to the final week culminating our process. This experience was not about finalities but a conversation with space, the staff, public and the arrangement of knowledge. The artists were positioned as investigators, intervening in the space, moving it, disturbing it and interacting with all of its features and functions.

The artist persona within the library allowed this public space to continually shift in state from community hub to gallery, to stage or artists studio and back to educational centre. Explorations involved shifts in focus from the collection to the collected, using the community frameworks and relationships for new participatory experiences, awakening non-spaces and highlighting the systems of categorisation.

For me, the library should be present in an ongoing conversation about its future in order for it to continue to develop as a community skills centre and accessible educational hub that may allow all members of society to engage with knowledge as a tool in a variety of ways.

Site-specific situations allow artists to highlight the possibilities of these functional public spaces with the intention of learning about new approaches, not only for the artists but those who inhabit the space.

Amy Lawrence

A special Thank You to the wonderful artists for their dedication, Oli Blight, Antonia Hennerley, Fern Nicholas, Sophie Skellern, Hannah G Stringer, Katie Suthers & Alex Ware; Blaze Director Mathew Wilde & Accrington Coordinator Sophie Skellern; all of the invited artists & speakers, the staff at Accrington Libary for your involvement & all those who attended & participated. to Frau Lorenz for the visual design of DROP'IN & the creation of this publication.

Design by www.fraulorenz.com Typeface �Nassim� by Debakir