What IS it?
It's important to create a context for what you do, for 'how you choose to waste your time', as the wonderful artist Tsing Tzhe once said to us. For us at Friction what we do, how we do it, who we do it with and why we do it are all equally important. We are utterly committed to making the kind of work we do, in the world and with people, and convinced of it's relevance in everyone's lives.
Miss-Stories
'Community Arts' as a label is rather misleading. It lends one to think of workshops, face-painting and, God forbid, murals. This is not what the Test Bed artists, or Friction for that matter, are about, we aim to challenge our audience/participants. For example, we might be asked to deliver some DJ workshops for young people. We would normally refuse and, rather suggest some music composition workshops or performance poetry or any number of more creative options. In my humble opinion we need fewer DJs and more perfomance poets...
For too long art made with people has had a reputation as not being 'proper' art. Proper art is what you find in a gallery or a museum, not on a housing estate or in a shopping centre. We see galleries and the like as 'zoos' for art and are concerned with freeing it, so it can be experienced properly, instead of merely being examined by a minority of 'enthusiasts'. Indeed we talk about 'trainspotter' art, i.e. art that is only enjoyed by a small group of initiate hobbyists, these are the people that inhabit 'private' views. An interesting use of language in itself that is inherently exclusive - only an initiate can go to a private view, no mere member of the public would be welcome, for sure.
So, we often use the term 'participatory' when describing our work. People are always involved in our work, beyond the ego of the artist, perhaps in the making or performing of the work, perhaps there is an interactive element to the fininshed piece, whatever, they are rarely passive observers. Perhaps a better term might be that we make 'active' art.
This is the kind of work we are intending to promote via the Test Bed project.
Hello. Harry Palmer here. I am one of the artists commissioned to work on Test Bed. The work I do is eccentric eclectic from performance activity in rowing clubs to allotments to bridges, car boots, village Halls, the streets - lots of collaborations in lots of different art forms. I currently co-publish The Eccentric City - The world's first dedicated eccentric newspaper.
Like Lee, I am interested in the atomic nature of the person - that is, I work with people not as a community artist, but as a potential for ordinary explosions - that which is conveyed with tremendous ordinary conviction - is far less mediated than attempting to out-do someone or something for the sake of reinforcing 'the powerful'. I talk alot at present about ethos and ethics - they are key to the work that I make.
For Test Bed I am creating four new short films about peoples 'signatures' - what meaningful and resonant pieces of paper have they signed for in their lives? From my initial conversations and recordings - these films will feature inner city inner worlds...I look forward to my exploration with the people of Birmingham (a place where I live and work).
-Harry Palmer.