DIY: 2018 – Ania Bas with Sally O’Reilly & Kit Caless: A New Career In A New Town

Explore the performative potential of co-produced text in the context of a new town

Deadline for applications: 5pm, Mon 18 June
This DIY is supported by Whitstable Biennale

Project summary

This DIY is about fulfilling a dream. In two daylong sessions we will explore through text some of the ‘what-ifs’ that cross the mind of those who question life and practice in the metropolis. What if I left city? What if I bought/rented my own place? What if I got to know my neighbours? What if I worked less?
 What if I prioritised my wellbeing? What if I commuted?

This DIY is an invitation to experiment and create text-based responses through writing and editing in the context of the new development in and journey to Ebbsfleet Garden City.

During this DIY you will:

• go on a guided tour of the Ebbsfleet Garden City development;
• work with archival and promotional material;

• write, co-write, edit, co-edit;
• commute to and from Ebbsfleet;
• take part in a guest session run by writer Sally O’Reilly;
• take part in a guest session run by writer, publisher and editor Kit Caless
• receive daily writing provocations via e-mail between the two sessions

How to apply

This DIY is aimed at practitioners (artists, curators, producers, writers, cultural workers) who already work with text and wish to explore collaborative approaches.

Practitioners with a minimum of 3 years of experience of working with text are invited to apply.

The online application asks:

• why you would like to be involved and how this DIY is relevant to your work 
• what you can bring to the project and what you hope to achieve through attending
• for up to 3 examples of text-based work (PDF or URL)
• and a CV (up to 2 pages A4)

This DIY can support up to 10 participants. It is important that participants can commit to attend on both days. A travel allowance of £30 per person will be provided.

Dates, times and location

Dates: 24 Sep and 1 Oct 2018, with daily contact in between
Times: 10.30am – 5.30pm, both days
Location: Ebbsfleet Garden City (and your commute to/from)

The artists

Ania Bas is an artist and arts project producer. Her work spans text, performance, publishing and social engagement to create situations that support dialogue and exchange. Through her work Bas explores ways of working, making and thinking together that can challenge modes of participation, bring together people from diverse communities and make art relevant in everyday life. Her work has been commissioned by the Tate, Whitechapel Gallery, Art on the Underground, Radar, Yorkshire Artspace. Bas is a co-founder of The Walking Reading Group. 
She is Open School East Alumni (2013- 2014) and Faber Academy Alumni (2018).

Sally O’Reilly writes for performance, page and video. Publications include the novella The Ambivalents (Cabinet, NY, 2017), the novel Crude (Eros Press, 2016), a monograph on Mark Wallinger (Tate Publishing, 2014), The Body in Contemporary Art (Thames & Hudson, 2009) and the interdisciplinary broadsheet Implicasphere (co-editor, 2003-8). She has also written libretti for the operas The Virtues of Things (Royal Opera, Aldeburgh Music, Opera North, 2015) and And London Burned (Temple Music Foundation, 2016). Her short fiction has been published by Cabinet magazine, Various Small Fires, Artenol, Contemporary Art Society, Picpus and London Underground. 

Kit Caless is a writer and editor based in Hackney Downs. He co-founded and runs Influx Press, a highly influential independent publishing house. He regularly contributes to magazines such Vice and The New Statesman and is the author of best selling humour book, Spoon's Carpets: An Appreciation (Vintage/Square Peg 2016). 

For questions about this DIY, please contact Ania.