Working with communities
Today it was interesting to stumble across MK Arts Centre’s FB watch post which directed us to a festival programme being live streamed: Peer to Peer UK/Kong Kong
We tuned in to Panel 2: Working with communities chaired by James Green (Newlyn Art Gallery and The Exchange, UK) to hear from:
Charlotte Frost (Furtherfield, UK)
Liz Wewiora (Open Eye Gallery, UK)
Bruce Li (Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile, HK)
Ivy Lin (Oil Street Art Space, HK)
Stuart Tulloch (Firstsite, UK)
The session is part of a four-day festival as part of Peer to Peer: UK/HK, a digital programme and platform encouraging meaningful cultural exchange and forging enduring partnerships between the UK and Hong Kong’s visual arts sectors.
This particular panel discussion sought to reflect upon how arts organisations in the UK and Hong Kong connect with communities in a rapidly changing political and social world. The panel each presented their work with different communities, followed by discussion that began to tease apart the set of requirements for meaningful representation and engagement. It was interesting to learn about ‘DIWO’ - Do it with others - a word termed by Furtherfield - and their work in Finsbury Park which includes methods for bringing together organisations and communities to make decisions together through block chain technology; the use of textiles as agency through the art of touching, making and experimenting led by The Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textiles; and to better understand the transformative nature of the co-curation model through the work of Open Eye Gallery and their recent project ‘Lockdown’ a project with photography group Clickmoor, local initiative MyClubMoor, and photographers Emma Case and Katherine Monoghan. Despite restrictions for meeting person to person the project successfully managed to connect meaningfully with communities remotely through online, phone calls and post to produce a collection of photographs, stories and printed publication being distributed to partners - not supporting biggest reach but the biggest impact.
The full festival programme can be viewed HERE