DIY: 2019 – Fox Irving & Eva Peskin: Step One! Sharing

A two-day workshop on the art of sharing in collaborative encounters for artists in the North West and beyond.

Deadline for applications: 2pm, Thursday 4 July
This DIY is supported by Tate Liverpool

Project summary

From childhood, sharing is one of the most foundational human skills we are tasked with learning, and yet social conditioning, power hierarchies, and [tender human feelings] make it difficult to share generously and with ease. Step One! Sharing invites artists, creatives and cultural producers to participate in a 2-day workshop to cultivate ways to share that can be applied in a range of creative and collaborative practices.

Each day of this two-day workshop will invite participating artists / producers practice different modes of sharing, developing a group dynamic and shared vocabulary in order to create a collaborative art work. Workshop participants will explore how to create conditions for the trust, vulnerability, listening, and collective action required for honest and open sharing through a series of collaborative exercises. The group will create a public offering to share a reflection of the process as a culmination of the workshop.

Over many years Tate Liverpool has embedded within the programme an examination of different modes of collaborative practice. Through the Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme, this workshop participates in Tate Liverpool’s ongoing support for artists in their professional development in this field.

How to apply

Please submit a proposal for a creative offering that you would want to make in honour of someone who taught you an important lesson about sharing. Offerings can be textual, performed, poetic, edible, speculative, etc., but they must be able to be shared in person for 8 people in no more than 5 minutes.

Proposals of no more than 250 words must include:
Name and location you call home
Nature of art practice
You do not need to address these directly, but may consider these questions to guide you: What media or forms do you use? What big questions motivate you? For what audiences do you make work? Who inspires you? Why do you make art or call yourself an artist?
Description of creative offering
May include images / sketches / diagrams

We would particularly like to hear from people of colour, disabled, neurodiverse, unemployed and low income applicants, and people who have been discouraged from pursuing art based on class, race, gender, ability, etc.

Preference will be given to artists based in the North West, but applications are open to anyone with connections to the region. Lunch will be provided on both workshop days, and each participant will receive a £100 stipend to use as they wish. Participants are asked to contribute to a potluck on Saturday. Contributions may be in the form of food or beverage, but they may also be stories, decorative flourishes, mealtime rituals, etc.

Dates, times and location

Dates: 27 – 28 July 2019, 11am – 5pm
Location: Liverpool, Tate Liverpool

The artists

Fox Irving’s art is shaped by the liminal, precarious identity they inhabit as queer/femme/working class. They ask: what keeps people in place, what affords fluidity, and what kinds of assembly can be transformative? With a playful, D.I.Y approach informed by activist strategies and centering collaboration, Fox investigates how art can be used by marginalised communities that they are part of as a tool of empowerment. Eva Peskin’s projects are always collaborative and span many disciplines including performance, pedagogy, and social practice. In any medium, her work illuminates questions of value, care, understanding, and power: Where are we and what has happened here? How do we know what we know? What motivates and sustains our care as we make the world we want to live in, together?

Fox and Eva began an artistic collaboration in 2018, inspired by their mutual investments in practices of care, intuition, and assembly. Facilitation of the workshop will be informed by Fox’s background as a mental health nurse and Eva’s background as a teacher.

For questions about this DIY, please contact the artist.