Hide and Seek: What is obvious and what is not in public space?
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Six workshops, a postal chain, and permission to play.
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The video below is a short snippet into these workshops, our practices and how we come together as a collective.
Accessible versions of the videos click here
themes / what we did / postal chain / documentation of individual actions / accessible versions of above video
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THEMES EXPLORED
Collaboration
– Getting familiar with each other’s practices
– Establishing modes of fair collaboration within our artistic group
– Making our work accessible
Shared time in public space remotely
– Finding renewed ways of remotely engaging and creating with each other (online and offline) within the different cities we find ourselves in
– Making time and space for creative experimentation and play
Exploring questions in public space:
– What are the things we disregard in the public realm?
– How can we creatively affect our own perception and
that of others?
– How can we interact and give space to what (or who) is
usually overlooked?
WHAT WE DID
Six workshops (zoom calls and offline explorations)
Each member of the group facilitated one workshop which included:
– sharing practices online
– exercises that interrupt the mode of sitting in front of
the screen during a zoom call
– prompts: invitations for action that entail specific
instructions and, simultaneously, allow for
individual interpretations and adjustments
– offline time to explore the prompts in the six cities
– documentation of prompts (audio, video, text, image)
– discussion/reflection: sharing documentation of
prompts, observations, thoughts, feelings
– sum-up: articulating each workshops highlights,
noticing the points that reappear, accumulate or
are transformed during the step of reflection
Modes of engagement included: synchronous exchange in shared online space (zoom call) and synchronous experimentation with public space in six different cities.
POSTAL CHAIN
The postal chain started in England, and made its way to Germany, Greece, England (again), Wales, and Canada before making its return to Neta!
Each artist responded to the theme “Hide and Seek: What is obvious and what is not in public space” with an action in the public space. They performed and documented the action; then shared the documentation and prompted the next artist with a letter. Each member had no idea when they will receive a prompt or what it will be, thus they were unable to plan, forcing them to be still.
Mode of engagement: asynchronous exchange of prompts via post, one member at a time. Reusing what could be called an ancient technology pushes back against the dominant, often celebrated, compulsion towards business in today’s modern world
UNBOXING VIDEO
DOCUMENTATION OF INDIVIDUAL ACTIONS
Members of the collective engaged with ideas of what is hidden and overlooked in public space, as well as taking inspiration from the previous works and interventions documented through the postal chain.
Neta Gracewell | England (UK)
Rik Fisher | Germany
Foivi Psevdou | Greece
Lou Sarabadzic | England (UK)
Jenny Alderton | Wales (UK)
ACCESSIBLE VERSIONS of documentation video- BSL translated, Captions, and audio description.
With thanks to Wales Council for Deaf People
Generously funded by-
The Four Nations International Arts Fund
Creative Scotland – Alba Chruthachail
Arts Council England
Arts Council of Northern Ireland
Arts Council of Wales – Cyngor Celfyddydua Cymru
Wales Arts International – Celfyddydua Rhyngwladol Cymru
[per]mission to Play 