DIY: 2002 – Call for Participants

Our Call for Participants is now closed.

More info about DIY.

More info about DIY 1: 2002.

Announcing…

DIY – Live Art training
October – December 2002

A chance to take part

DIY invites artists working in Live Art to take part in a unique series of short training and professional development projects conceived and run BY artists FOR artists. The projects are for both emergent and experienced practitioners.

Six projects across London

Between the end of October and mid December six innovative training projects will take place across London. Led by Barby Asante, curious.com, Richard Dedomenici, Richard Layzell, Howard Matthew and Joshua Sofaer/Duckie the programmes will, between them, cover practical and conceptual issues and take in city centre adventures, creative expeditions to the suburbs, studio visits, artists’ retreats, debates, skills swap shops and much more.

Journey into the Suburbs

Hosted by Barby Asante

Saturday 30th November to Saturday 7th December 2002 (time commitment: 2 Saturday mornings and the time it takes to do your journey)

Guerilla Retreat

Hosted by Leslie Hill and Helen Paris of curious.com

Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th December 2002

The Perfect Point Of Percy Passage

Hosted by Richard Dedomenici

Tuesday 3rd December 2002

Deprivation and Overload

Hosted by Richard Layzell

Thursday 12th and Friday 13th December (and Saturday 14 December tbc) 2002

Studio Sessions

Hosted by Howard Matthew

October to December 2002

Swap Shop Work Shop

Hosted by Joshua Sofaer and Duckie

Thursday 31st October 2002

Further information, bookings and applications

Full details on each DIY project and booking information are listed below.

For further information on the projects and application procedures please contact the lead artists directly.

Journey into the Suburbs

Hosted by Barby Asante

Saturday 30th November – Saturday 7th December 2002 (time commitment: 2 Saturday mornings and the time it takes to do your journey)
Locations and schedules will be organised in consultation with participants

Environments for creating and siting work are constantly being defined and redefined. New spaces are always being discovered and explored. The Suburbs are a man-made comfort zone, on the edge, the outskirts of the city. The complexity in defining precisely what Live Art practice is, seems to connect with the complexity in definition of the suburbs. The borders and boundaries of both spaces are constantly shifting and changing.

As an artist have you ever considered the Suburbs? The detached houses, shopping malls, leisure complexes, the quiet streets? Barby Asante invites emerging artists and those beginning to take the journey across the border into live art practice to take a Journey into the Suburbs. Explore your inner Suburbanite, experience something different, be part of a creative and theoretical dialogues, explore your personal space and possible limitations., expand ideas of practice, space and audience, make new friends and expand the boundaries of your practice. Come on down to Theydon Bois. You might surprise yourself.

Journey into the Suburbs – Bookings/Applications
Costs: To get to the suburbs takes commitment and hard work. We would need a refundable deposit of £10 from all participants.
Location/dates/times: Saturday 30th November – Saturday 7th December 2002. Each participant will be asked to commit to 2 Saturday mornings and the time it takes to do your journey.
Applications/selections: Places are limited to 10 and will be selected on an application basis. Please email [email protected] for an application form and more information.

Barby Asante is an artist and project co-ordinator. She recently had her first solo exhibition Journey into the East at The Showroom Gallery. This exhibition explored the British relationship to tea, as its national drink and also as a symbol of Britain’s colonial past and globalised present. Other projects include, DARE CD ROM Digital Arts Resource for Education, (inIVA 2002) , I Accept Your Image. I Am You. (residency, exhibition and series of interventions in Brixton and The 198 Galley, 2001). Unplanned (collaboration with Malika Booker and the desperate optimists, Supermodel Studio (Push 01, 2001), Wig Therapy (City of Women Festival, Ljubliana, Slovenia 2001), HEADRUSH:urbanactivearts2000 (Mannafest 2000).

Guerilla Retreat

Hosted by Leslie Hill and Helen Paris of curious.com

Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th December 2002, 12 noon – 6pm daily
The Court Room, Artsadmin, 28 Commercial St, E1 6LS

The Guerilla Retreat is designed to revitalise, inspire and tone artists who are interested in taking a weekend out to re-examine or re-define the politics of their practice as the first step to assessing their current skills base – (i.e. is it more important at this stage in your career to get the Final Cut Pro upgrade and learn how to use it or is training in how to hot wire and drive a fire engine more pertinent to your forthcoming work?). This is the starting point of the retreat – the micro-lectures, brown bag workshop sessions, strategic planning sessions, shopping guides and parties all follow on from this central focus.

We want artists to make some significant progress on their work by 1) fleshing out ideas and getting feedback on current ideas and projects and 2) by getting help with technical or communication issues that have been holding them back (i.e. software expertise, grant writing or writing a treatment etc.). We also want the participants to do something that artists never ordinarily have the chance to do – make spectacles of themselves at a Xmas works do.

Note: The Saturday session will include ‘brown bag’ sessions from 1.30pm – 5pm tailored workshops & troubleshooting in small groups with expert reinforcements brought in to respond to needs expressed by participants – for multimedia training bring your own gear if possible so the training can be aimed at the equipment you work with.

Guerilla Retreat – Bookings/Applications
Costs: The retreat fee is £40 and includes tuition, a guerilla pack containing a copy of Guerilla Performance & Multimedia (retail price £14.99) and other handy items such as wire cutters – and of course Xmas works do snacks, wine and fizz.
Location/dates/times: Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th December 2002, 12 noon – 6pm daily. The Court Room, Artsadmin, 28 Commercial St, E1 6LS
Applications/selections: Applications can be sent by post to Helen Paris, Associate Artist, Artsadmin, Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial Street London E1 6LS.
Deadline: Guy Fawkes (5th November). Notification: 15th November.
Places are limited to 15 and will be selected on an application basis. To apply please provide the following information (4 sides A4 maximum):
1) your name & address
2) a personal manifesto OR an answer to this question, “What do you believe in strongly enough to make a spectacle of yourself for?’ (no more than one side)
3) identify two or three skills training areas you would particularly like help in including software applications, video production or post-production, writing proposals, marketing strategies etc.
4) a CV.

Leslie Hill and Helen Paris are internationally commissioned artists of solo and collaborative works including live performance, installation, film, video and web. Their company, curious.com, has been supported by institutions such as the Arts Council of England, London Arts, the ICA, the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the National Endowment for the Arts (USA), the National Centre for Biological Sciences (India) and the Australia Council. Hill and Paris’s recent book, ‘Guerilla Performance and Multimedia’ is published by Continuum and demonstrates their commitment to creative and idiosyncratic support for artists by artists.

The Perfect Point Of Percy Passage

Hosted by Richard Dedomenici

Tuesday 3rd December 2002, 11am – 8pm
Tottenham Court Road/Charing Cross Road corridor of London

A day-long exploration of the Tottenham Court Road/Charing Cross Road corridor of London. This guided tour aims to promote new ways of interpreting and navigating the built environment. Along the route Richard will reveal countless nuggets of useful information designed to aid survival in the unforgiving city.

Participants will be required to take part in a number of group activities, some of which may result in funny looks from passers-by. The day’s activities will be documented by each participant in written form on worksheets, which will ultimately be compiled into booklets. Though most of the journey will be undertaken on foot, participants will be required to bring a Zone One Travelcard.

The Perfect Point Of Percy Passage – Bookings/Applications
Costs: Free (except for the aformentioned Travelcard)
Dates/times: Tuesday 3rd December 2002, 11am – 8pm
Eligibility: Participants should feel their work is located (or partly located) within the Live Art area.
Applications/Selections: Places are limited to 10 and will be selected on an application basis. To receive application details, please email ASAP [email protected]

Richard Dedomenici is a one-man subversive think-tank primarily dedicated to the development and implementation of innovative strategies designed to undermine accepted belief systems and topple existing power structures. By approaching the limits of conventionally accepted behaviour, Richard Dedomenici’s poetic acts of low-grade civil disobedience forcibly ask pertinent questions of society, while his subtle anarcho-surrealist interventions create the kind of uncertainty that leads to possibility.

Deprivation and Overload

Hosted by Richard Layzell

Thursday 12th and Friday 13th December 2002, with a third day to be agreed in discussion with the group (possibly Saturday 14th December 2002). 10am to 5pm each day.
Specified locations across London

Deprivation And Overload aims to give/ share/ experience ways of working / surviving / perceiving / thinking / organising / selling as a live artist in London. Deprivation And Overload will be three-day experience divided between stimulation, receptivity, location and mentoring. The aim of Deprivation And Overload is to build a strong group identity over the period, hopefully leading to ongoing contact and support between participants into the future.

How do ideas develop? How to operate with and without a studio. Pushing yourself to the edge, putting yourself on the spot, getting the mind in gear, taking time.

Designed as a three-day experience, Day 1 will be a visual and sensory overload – travelling to many locations and meetings all over London, with verbal deprivation (the day will be spent in silence). Day 2 is spent in one or two locations only and is entirely verbal, with various invited non-art guests (e.g. from industry, education, architecture), raising issues about the place of live art in their worlds. Day 3 is a pragmatic day of information giving, pulling the stands together, and individual mentoring, using the same venue all day.

Deprivation And Overload – Bookings/Applications
Costs: A travelcard each day and three lunches (approximately £35.00 per person for the 3 days)
Dates/times: Thursday 12th and Friday 13th December 2002 and a third day to be agreed in discussion with the group (possibly Saturday 14th December 2002). 10am to 5pm each day.
Eligibility: Participants should feel their work is located (or partly located) within the Live Art area.
Applications/Selections: Places are limited and will be selected on an application basis. Would people interested please send a CV and an answer to the following two questions: 1. How do you think you would cope with a day in total silence? 2. How would this project be useful to your artistic practice? These should be sent as simple text or in the body of the email by early November to: [email protected]

Richard Layzell has experienced the widest range of Live Art practice and survival, including gallery, fringe theatre, cabaret, the street and outreach work. He taught in art schools for several years and has recently completed an extended residency in the software industry. He’s currently resident artist on a new arts centre project in Didcot, designed by Dominic Williams, architect of the Baltic, and is developing new performance work that overlaps with manual labour. He’s a Research Associate at Middlesex University, investigating the creative process, and regularly runs workshops in performance. He is the author of Enhanced Performance (1998), Live Art in Schools (1993) and The Artist Directory (1985)

Studio Sessions

A series of Collaborative Workshops hosted by Howard Matthew

October to December 2002
Locations and schedules will be organised in consultation with participants

Howard Matthew is looking to recruit five Live Art practitioners to participate in six workshops that will run throughout this Autumn. The workshops will form a series of ‘day trips’ to different studio locations across London including, for example, a film studio or hair studio. The aim is to explore these approaches and ideas in relation to that of the ‘artists’ studio’ and to challenge the definitions of a studio and what constitutes a session. Each participating artist will ‘host’ one session in a studio location of their choice. As part of the preparation the artist will be asked to produce a statement or citation that the other members of the group can respond to. Participating artists will be expected to attend all six sessions.

Studio sessions will develop as a series of recorded conversations. Studio sessions does not have a set agenda and will not attempt to define what constitutes a Live Art studio practice. However, it will address and try to frame some appropriate questions to this discursive practice.

Studio Sessions – Bookings/Applications
Costs: The fee for the workshops is £40 including travel for six day trips.
Locations/dates/times: The studio sessions will take place from October to December. The structure of the programme will be flexible and organised in consultation with the participating artists.
Eligibility: Studio sessions is aimed at London based artists whose work engages with notions of live presence. It is expected that each artist will have produced at least three pieces of funded or supported work and/or be able to demonstrate and articulate their practice in a manner which makes them suitable for a project of this nature.
Applications/selections: Places are limited and will be selected on an application basis. The aim of the sessions is to bring together six artists’ whose practices of and approaches to live art are divergent. The final decision will therefore by informed by this as well the artists’ ability to articulate their ideas and contribute to each session.

To make an application please submit the following information:
1) An up to date CV.
2) Brief description of the nature of your practice. and in particular its relationship to Live Art and time based work.
3) A short, succinct statement about why you feel these series of workshops are relevant to your practice

Applications should be sent as simple text or in the body of the email to: [email protected]
The deadline for applications is Monday 28th October 2002.

Howard Matthew works in performance, video and sculptural activity and has shown extensively across Britain and Europe over the last five years. Commissions include Untitled Experiments for HTBA’s ROOT festival in 1997, A Monumental Object for 1999 for work&leisure International and Designs That Don’t Work a series of dysfunctional slapstick furniture funded through Home and London Arts. He received an Artsadmin bursary in 1999 to archive cine footage of Untitled Experiments. His studio practice is based in a garden shed in North London.

Swap Shop Work Shop

Hosted by Joshua Sofaer and Duckie (Invitation only)

Thursday 31 October, 10am to 6pm
Artsadmin, 28 Commercial St, E1 6LS

A one-off experimental ideas-lab and performance making workshop for ten specially invited solo artists looking at new methods of collaborative practice. The day is led by Joshua Sofaer for a mix of long time Duckie collaborators and artists new to the organisation. Framed as a Swap Shop, the programme will involve sharing practical skills, personal objects, stories, and a few of our favourite things.

Swap Shop Work Shop – Bookings/Applications
Participating artists will be selected by invitation only.

Joshua Sofaer is a live artist, writer, educator and Co-Director of Spread the Word, Literature Development Agency in London. Duckie is an outfit of post gay performance peddlers keen on developing new forms of Anti-Theatre. They run nightclubs, live art shows, pop concerts and experiments into event culture. [email protected]

Why DIY?

DIY aims to support artists in the continuing development of their practice by offering a framework to imagine new possibilities and explore new ways of working.

Most professional development schemes aren’t geared to the eclectic and unusual needs of artists whose practices are grounded in challenging and unconventional approaches, forms and concepts. DIY is a pilot project developed to offer alternative approaches….. creative, critical and unconventional explorations into the nature and processes of Live Art that are directly informed by the experiences and enquiries of practitioners.

DIY is an initiative of the Live Art Advisory Network. Artsadmin, the Live Art Development Agency and New Work Network have joined together to create the Live Art Advisory Network. Together we are partners in Creative Capital, which is one of the ten consortia that make up the national Creative People pilot. Creative People is working to help artists to identify, prioritise and implement professional development activities. Visit www.creativepeople.org.uk for more information.

DIY is funded by London Arts through the Access Unit’s Training Programme and Professional Development Programme.