DIY: 2017 – Bridget Floyer & Susan Merrick: Your Neck Of The Woods

“Why should anybody listen to you if you are not a good neighbour?” – an investigation of the idea of being an ‘Artist in Residence’

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

Project summary

“You can stand in the street with your megaphone campaigning, but why should anybody listen to you if you are not a good neighbour?” – Alisdair McIntosh

We are angry and frustrated at the world. We want to have an impact on those who see our work, and to try and change things for the better. But just shouting will do nothing: we need more meaningful connections. Should we start with our own communities, our neighbours, people with whom we might have nothing in common but proximity, with whom we have a relationship whether we like it or not? Living in a self-reflective world where online algorithms only help confirm our own opinions, we want a broader perspective. Let’s engage with the people we live amongst, whether we find each other boring or profound, engaged or disengaged, happy or desperate. Each of us will create or perform a piece of art which is actually or figuratively a map of our own neighbourhood or town.  It will be crucial that we do not just shout. The power of language and communication is in everything we do. We will explore the balance between holding core values, valuing experience and expertise, but allowing influence, admitting vulnerability, and staying open, to discover new possibilities. We will try to connect better with the places where we live, trying a range of tools. We didn’t invent any of these ideas, but we’d like to share them together.

6-10 participants will be invited to two workshops in Colchester. We will explore our understanding of community and socially engaged practice, take challenges together, and, with friendly scepticism, share skills, experience and basic tips and tools. In between the two workshops we will each conduct a creative mapping action in our own location.

How to apply

We welcome participants from any level of experience who are interested in developing or questioning their practice and its relationship to their own community, and the methodologies they might use. We are particularly interested in people who live in places which might not necessarily be viewed as a richly inspiring artistic community, where the idea of being an Artist-in-Residence might feel more challenging (and this doesn’t necessarily mean areas which would be seen as having low cultural engagement).

The application (via the link below) requires you to describe your community and suggest an action you might undertake there in response to being asked to make a literal or figurative map of it, influenced by the people you live amongst (if you are selected, this can be changed later!) You will also be asked to give a bit of detail about yourself, your practice and experience level. This can be written or in the form of a short video.

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

Dates, times and location

Dates: Thu 21 Sept, Thu 19 Oct
Times: 10am-5pm in Sept, 11am-3pm in Oct
Location: Colchester
Refreshments will be provided. We hope to make a contribution to participant expenses – please let us know if you have any particular requirements or needs beyond travel expenses.

The artists

Bridget Floyer is a producer who is currently exploring more personally creative territory through what it means to be a ‘Producer-in-Residence’. She specialises in unusual projects which often experiment with discipline and form, but which prioritise people, and has worked with artists and organisations including Emergency Exit Arts, Emma Frankland, Fuel and Little Soldier Productions. Her company, Larking Arts, is an associate of Farnham Maltings. www.larkingarts.org.uk

Susan Merrick is an Artist and Sign Language Interpreter. Often influenced by her sign language background, visual communication and translation methods play a large part in her work and materialise in the form of film, performance, installations and print. She has recently focused on obstruction of understanding and the subversion of power through translation with specific relation to social relations and feminism. Currently finishing an MA Fine Art at UCA Farnham, she is Artist in Residence with FiLia (Feminism in London) in which she is running Statements in Semaphore, an ACE funded artist led project. susanmerrick.co.uk

If you have questions about this project, please contact Bridget.

This DIY is supported by Colchester Arts Centre.

Banner image credit:

image credit: Susan Merrick

Part of DIY: 2017

Professional development projects by artists for artists across the UK

DIY: 2017

DIY

Professional development projects by artists for artists across the UK

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Bedfellows: SEX TALK MTG (Sunrise to Sunset)

DIY

It’s about sex. Sex as education. Sex re-education.

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Call for Participants

DIY

Professional development projects conceived and run by artists for artists

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Call for Proposals

DIY

Apply to lead a DIY project in 2017

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Catherine Hoffmann: Maybe Jumping Is Enough

DIY

A human flea circus 3 day residency with the StenchWench

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Daniel Oliver: Max DYSPRAXE’S performance world neurodivergent revolution fun-time

DIY

Destroy and rebuild the world of performance and make it weirder and awkwarder and wonderfuler, just like you

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Daniella Valz Gen & Jade Montserrat: From a Creative Case to an Ecology of Care

DIY

A two day research and sharing retreat investigating definitions of ‘diversity’

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Documentation

DIY

Images, films and feedback from the 28 projects in DIY14: 2017

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Fabiola Santana: Houses of Decay – An Intervention

DIY

Let’s explore together the potential for connection and humanity by creating new rituals to deal with death

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Gareth Cutter & Paul Hughes: Men From Behind

DIY

a creative enema of filthy writing, subversive image making and public interventions ‘via the back door’

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Giovanna Maria Casetta with Helena Waters: Help The Aged

DIY

A traditional seaside weekender for ageing artists with a punk/anarchic ethos

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Jack Tan: Law In The Limelight

DIY

Developing insights on law through performance and theatre practice

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Jessie McLaughlin & Jo Chattoo: We Are Family FC

DIY

Queer people exploring our queer bodies by chatting, kicking footballs, gentle boxing stuff, rapping, running, dancing…

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Johanna Linsley & Rebecca Collins: The Felixstowe Affair – a sonic detective story

DIY

An acoustic investigation of the Suffolk coast for composers and sonic artists

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Katherina Radeva: On Otherness

DIY

Identity is a complex thing. Difference is beautiful.

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Lizzie Philps: GPS Embroidery

DIY

Scrawling ideas of home across the landscape

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Marikiscrycrycry: THE T R A P LAB

DIY

A dance workshop series, curated club night, open laboratory, and curated self-care night to dance our dreams into reality

Read more

DIY: 2017 – max+noa: How to Build Boats and Influence People (to build boats)

DIY

Five days making your own skin-on-frame coracle somewhere outside in Northumbria and thinking about things quite a bit

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Network 11: Sounding In, Sounding Out 2.0

DIY

A workshop for artists working with sound and performance using the black diaspora as their centre of navigation

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Peter McMaster: Performing Landscapes

DIY

A 4-day retreat exploring eco-centric approaches to performance making

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Rachel Mars & Greg Wohead: Locating Your Own Audaciousness

DIY

A reckless retreat exploring the possibilities of audaciousness culminating in a strictly one-off performance

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Sara Zaltash: Approaches to Embodied Islam

DIY

A curious, performative invitation towards embodied practices of the Islamic faith

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Tara Fatehi Irani: Her Eyes Under the Bridge

DIY

Entangling personal stories of leaving behind and moving ahead

Read more

DIY: 2017 – Zoe Czavda Redo, Tuuli Malla, Xavier Velastin: Water Bodies

DIY

A symposium, on land and in water, for adapting to life on an inundated planet

Read more

Also

DIY 2020: José García Oliva – White Vinegar

DIY

White Vinegar Workshop revolves around the quote from leading New York artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles “After the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?”.

Read more

DIY: 2018 – Nigel Barrett & Louise Mari: Tiny Revolutions

DIY

How to make a working political theme park for babies and early years

Read more

DIY 2020 – Gillie Kleiman: Fat Performance

DIY

A six-week collectively-generated course on and in Fat Performance for fat people.

Read more