Hi Sarah and everyone,
I drafted this a few days (AKA an eternity) ago but never got to finish reviewing it. It seems better to send this before too many other messages come, as what is below was really intended to help set the scene. It seems to me it is better to get this off now rather than wait further.
I thought I would respond on the subject of "the conditions necessary for a successful weaving together of artists and curators, set within a specific locality."
Some time ago I did some consultancy for an education project, which involved looking at worldwide examples of successful recent institutions (in that case) and one perhaps surprising element was that of scale: relate the things done to the scale of the environment in which they occur. This has stuck in my mind. The notion of environment here refers mainly to human environment, but this is related to locality or place.
The notion of environmental response is part of our heritage from Solar and Polar Circuits, and at the Tasmanian Solar residency the appropriateness of scale to type of residency was apparent. When I moved to New Plymouth it struck me that this was a good place for a residency of the scale of Solar and Polar Circuit. Indeed, the first SCANZ aimed at the same number as those in Tasmania.
Now considerations of scale and environment also directly involve consideration of the occupants of the territory. This land is one shared and there have been contestations in the past. One facet of embracing the tangata whenua (people of the land) means simply going and asking what tangata whenua would like. And what was expressed was to be involved at important boundary moments such as beginnings. This provides an important space of acknowledgement and inclusion, from which to build further interaction. This has borne fruit in both residencies.
A second important aspect of SCANZ is community. I like to think that Trudy and I built a network first, and then landed a residency. I think readers of this list will be familiar with the necessity to build networks so won't elaborate on this point.
The final important point is sense of community which goes to the personalities of those taking part, but again I feel this is familiar to the list.
I do have a query to ask of the curators of this list: we are thinking that the next SCANZ would only involve projects that take place in the local botanical garden, or at least in the environment. What would the consequence be for curatorial process and selection? What happens when art is released from the gallery institution and is located in a space without walls? I hope it doesn't diverge too much from Sarah's purpose to ask these questions. I'm curious, and they relate perhaps in a prospective way, to "the conditions necessary for a successful weaving together of artists and curators, set within a specific locality.".
Thanks Sally Jane for the description below of sense of place and Te Huirangi's involvement.
Ian M Clothier
Director
intercreate.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org on behalf of Sally Jane Norman
Sent: Thu 2/5/2009 3:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] raranga tangata
Dear all
Questions Sarah raises about weaving together artists and curators within a specific locality are particularly poignant here in Taranaki, a region which embraces the unique cultural resilience of Parihaka, a place that has survived the direst of colonial clashes to become a centre for cultural preservation and development.
They are also particularly poignant now, on February 5th. Tomorrow is Waitangi Day, nationally and very diversely celebrated - or not - for the signing in 1840 of the highly conflictual Treaty between North Island Maori and Pakeha / UK colonisers, which has subsequently and especially since the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal in the nineteen seventies been revised to (begin to) address grievances and anomalies.
So here and now at SCANZ is a loaded moment.
We've moreover been privileged with the presence of an elder, Te Huirangi, spokesperson for our group at the powhiri, the formal welcome we received upon arrival at the meeting house, the wharenui, of the beautiful Owae marae here in Taranaki. Te Huirangi's message is one of respectful dialogue, of carefully opening up spaces where difference can be articulated and perhaps resolved, of creating social protocols in which we can develop trust and interaction. He was with us again this morning so our ears and minds are resonating with this commitment to shared knowledge building, perhaps epitomised by a group of people in the room now who are learning to weave freshly cut harakeke - flax - under the patient guidance of a friend of Te Huirangi's. Hands-on knowledge sharing. And it smells really good.
So maybe for me, the lesson from this and the link with Sarah's question, is of the same order: how one brings people up to speed under the constraints she's outlined, and in keeping with the ethic we're encountering on a daily level, seems to have much to do with this quality of carefully creating protocols in which we can develop trust and interaction. This is what we see Sarah and Mercedes and the team doing with dedication down at the Govett Brewster Gallery. It's what we see Dominic Smith and Brett Stallbaum and Andrew Gryf Paterson doing in order to engage effectively yet non-intrusively with the local participants who've joined their projects. A kind of unspoken maieutics or midwifery. It also resonates strangely with qualities we encounter amongst improvising performers and musicians at ICMuS in Newcastle, who learn early that silence does not necessarily mean passivity, and that open listening is integral to playing, to socially and creatively opening up spaces for interaction and exchange. As Te Huirangi repeatedly points out, awareness of and respect for difference, the distinctive ways and contexts for subjects and areas of interaction, is the starting point for moving together.
So I think this holds equally for the curatorial issues.
kia ora from SCANZ, Taranaki, Aotearoa, from a wiwi kiwi
sjn
Sally Jane Norman
Director
Culture Lab
Grand Assembly Rooms
King's Walk
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
www.ncl.ac.uk/culturelab<http://www.ncl.ac.uk/culturelab>
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