Partners
During the course of the development and production of the WORK films, the commissioning partners and artists met regularly - in reality and online - to share progress, thoughts and experience. Vivienne Reiss joined these sessions, and spoke with the artists in between times, to consider how the artists, in their distinct approaches, set about working with the people who feature in and contributed to the making of their films.
Vivienne Reiss is a creative producer working with artists on site-specific commissions and participatory programmes. She has led participation and learning programmes in a number of galleries including Tate, National Portrait Gallery and South London Gallery. As a visiting lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London she developed the visual practice module on the MA in Participatory and Community Art and she has written for and edited a number of publications including Art of Negotiation which explores artist-led participatory initiatives. She currently develops art strategies and managing art commissions in health contexts and the wider public realm.
Introduction
To accompany another person is to walk beside that person; to become a companion; to be present…we are implicitly saying: your life is important. It’s worth my time to talk to you. It may be worth your time to talk to me.
The WORK programme, devised by Animate Projects, in partnership with four other Midlands arts organisations, has at its core the exploration of contemporary working lives through the engagement with workers, places and situation. For the commissioned artists, this quote by Staughton Lynd [1] has resonance with their approach and the way they involved participants in the creation of these films. The line between artist and subject in the traditional documentary sense has been blurred; conversations and getting to know one another have been a fundamental part of the overall process.
During the year in which the projects were developed and made, I joined a series of meet ups with: the artists - Esther Johnson, Jenny Holt, Dryden Goodwin and Adam Lewis-Jacob; representatives from their host organisations - Junction Arts, Fermynwoods Contemporary Art, QUAD and Vivid Projects; and Animate Projects, who devised the programme. My role was to help guide the participatory process and together we shared and discussed work in progress along the way.
We talked about their approaches to working with participants, the notion of authorship, ethical issues and the challenges in some instances of working with vulnerable people, the impact on the artists’ practice and the legacy of the programme. In order to consider and clarify the role of the participants we interrogated terms such as social, participatory, collaborative and dialogic art, and looked to theorists [2] to shed some light on these, and their appropriateness to WORK.
The projects grew through encounters and conversations with people in relation to their experiences of work. Participants moved beyond that of subject, playing an active part in informing the process and the way they are represented. This has been achieved by the artists taking an open and responsive, and working alongside the participants in an empathetic way. They talk about a process of discovery, shadowing, mirroring, familiarity, connection, friendship and exchange. This approach has affected the content and form of the films, which are shaped by the evolving relationships.
The theme, ‘work’ - the connecting point for all the films - is explored through the working lives, or the lack of work, in relation to a range of individuals and communities. Lynd’s quote comes from his interest in the notion of ‘history-from-below’, and similarly, the artists focus on people who may not be celebrated in history books and who have untold stories; they are interested in the narratives of ‘real’ people and in humanity itself.
Each of the projects, in different ways, engages with the minutiae of the personal and the everyday reflecting or revealing social concerns, some giving voice to marginalised people and communities. They address the right to work and workers’ rights, and they raise issues about the nature and value of work, either directly or in more nuanced ways.
A significant aspect of the WORK programme is the recognition that time needs to be taken to develop relationships and build trust between artists, partner organisations and participants. The projects build on local connections and established relationships and these will continue through the partner organisations and the programme comes to an end.
The following texts describe each of the projects, focusing on the participatory process under three headings - context, process and legacy - providing a structure for the narrative. However, building the relationships and the deep connections with participants’ working situations have been created over a period of time and are revealed in more poignant ways through the films themselves.
[1] ‘Oral History from Below’, The Oral History Review, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring, 1993). This quote was introduced to the WORK programme by Esther Johnson who referenced Staughton Lynd in her initial proposal.
[2] See Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, Grant H Kester, University of California Press 2004; Participation: Documents of Contemporary Art, ed Claire Bishop, Whitechapel and MIT Press 2006; Art of Negotiation, ed David Butler and Vivienne Reiss, Arts Council England, 2007Don’t Look Now! Art after the Viewer and beyond Participation, Dave Beech, in Searching for Art’s New Publics, intellect 2010, ed Jeni Walwin.
Alongside
It’s about tuning in and being responsive and creating the situation through conversations and the conduit of drawing and video for intimate exchange.
Context
Dryden Goodwin’s proposal was to create an expanded portrait of a local healthcare worker, and Jane Hardstaff, Creative Wellbeing Officer at QUAD, introduced him to Paul Johnstone. Dryden worked primarily with Paul and also with his clients from Community Links, a day centre for adults with disabilities. The focus of the film is Paul’s working day, through the prism of his activities with his clients Jack, David and Rob. Paul Calderwood, Director of Community Links, helped manage the involvement of clients and their families.
Process
Paul J and Paul C were instrumental in acting as intermediaries and communicating with the parents and carers of the clients. Interestingly, both of them have a background in art and Paul J continues to be a practicing artist. This had been a key factor in them being open to the project and their support in the process to make it possible. Dryden talks about there being a huge amount of goodwill extended from everyone involved and Paul J was an integral part of helping to establish the necessary degree of trust and communication to make the work.
Over a six-month period, Dryden spent time with Paul, shadowing him while he worked, observing, filming, and reflecting with him on his working practices and the joys and challenges of working with those he supports professionally. Drawing is a part of Dryden’s practice both as a way of observing and also in creating another space for conversation – he talks about the intimacy of drawing which also echoes the intimacy of relations between Paul and his clients. For both Dryden and Paul how they work is "all in the looking and the observing and building a bigger picture of the person."
Paul spoke at length to Dryden about the power of “mirroring” in his work with his clients. Paul uses speech patterns, a melodic voice, whistling, and repeated turns of phrase, to "mirror" the client’s communications, creating a framework of reassurance, constancy and security for the clients. This way of working also supports communication between them to fulfil their plans for a day. Dryden has taken this notion of “mirroring” into his own approach to the film: “through the in-situ recording of my drawings I have created my own type of reflective surface with the film - with the aim of pursuing a real insight into this type of work.”
Dryden describes Paul as a type of muse for the project. He commented on Paul’s persona, temperament and generosity to open up about his thoughts and feelings in connection to his work. Paul has acted as an on-going inspiration or guiding light in relation to the development of the project. His experience as an artist is explicit within the film; he talks about observation and looking for cues, and there’s sensitivity in relation to his attention and engagement with people.
Qualities such as Paul’s attentive subtlety of intervention, gentle energy, vigilant alertness, enabling but being careful not to disempower the clients - all of these have had an influence on the type of atmosphere that I am endeavouring to communicate in the edit of the film and through a carefully crafted soundtrack.
Dryden talks about the particular challenges in developing an aesthetic that acknowledged the complexity of representing a person and their relationships with others with vulnerability at the core. He describes the language of the film as being non-intrusive and constructing the imagery through fragments engaging the imagination and thus evoking more than we can see.
Legacy
Alongside has led Dryden to new ways of thinking about drawing and live action in relation to creating an empathetic space and he is planning to extend the project into a new VR work at a later point.
At the heart of the film there’s a questioning about the value and status of healthcare work and Paul talks about being at the “coalface of humanity” and the impact of cuts to the service. In creating a portrait of someone who is a care worker, Peter Bonnell, Senior Curator at QUAD, comments on how an artwork might offer insight into the social care system. The commission follows a yearlong season at QUAD focusing on wellbeing and is part of an on going work and wider debate around creative wellbeing.
The Great Bear
We’re working in this dance of filming, doing, acting, talking and describing.
Context
Situated in Thrapston in rural Northamptonshire, Jenny Holt’s project explores the interface between historical farming culture and the more recent development of the distribution industry, the two dominant economies with parallels in their rootedness in the area’s place identity. She met and consulted with a wide range of individuals and organisations to gain introductions to local workers with support from James Steventon at Fermynwoods and colleagues who come from and live in the area. The film centres around four people - Erin Dorward, Rowan Routley, Joe Wood and Morgana Onofri - and explores the connections and their different working relationships with animals, the environment and produce from the land.
Process
Initially Jenny spent time getting to know people and the place; she describes a process involving “creative research enquiry” and engaging with the different working communities, for example, the Thrapston Young Farmers’ Club. She was able to immerse herself within a local farming community, which involved meeting and chatting to people, observing and taking part in daily working situations. She talks about shadowing the working processes and being responsive to what is going on at times “jumping from filming to being an active part of the work taking place.” Gaining an understanding of each other’s work and sharing related skills, including those of photography and filming making, became part of the conversations with participants. This became a means of gathering knowledge and beginning the collaborative process. Sound and image recording, sketching and writing were all part of the creative research.
This process has made my practice more participatory, and experiential. Filming and recording is not simply about looking and listening: there is a tactile and active materiality to the filming process that is generative and dialogic. It has made me more alive to the fact that each of the participants expresses their character through their working practice.
Jenny talks about building a rapport and asking questions - importantly, knowing what questions to ask. She commented that the participants were intrigued about her interest in their work and it has made them reflect themselves on their working lives. Focusing attention on the everyday and what is often overlooked, throughout the process, Jenny set about making visible their daily work. She shines a spotlight on human gesture and interaction against an expansive backdrop of landscape and industry.
The project had complex production issues, as there was a disparate group of participants in very different working situations. Sometimes communication was tricky, and with farming working times, weather dependent. Meeting people at work in the distribution companies and getting a foot in the door involved lengthy negotiations, over many months, with three different global corporations to negotiate access. Jenny refers to the more “accessible and visible work in the English countryside to the hidden labour of an international work force”. She was taken on tours of distribution centres and was able to take photographs, and in one company she organised a photography workshop as a way of meeting people who worked there. It took a year; however, her perseverance 80sresulted in permission to film in one location.
Jenny describes the form of the film being generated from the dialogue about working practices. There is an echoing of the process of the skills being performed with her own process of filmmaking. A further dimension is created through “to-ing and fro-ing” - and the collaboration with Felix Weldon on the improvisational percussion sound piece.
Everything is this melting pot of producing, directing, editing, music, sounds, being there. It's so reflective of these active working lives of the people that I'm working with.
Legacy
Jenny has begun to work on an international partnership project in Sweden working with people from the agricultural industry. She is planning to develop a methodology based on her approach to her WORK project to explore ideas around food and innovation. She is also developing a proposal for a new project with the Forestry Commission in the Lake District.
There are plans to curate and exhibition of work by Erin and Rowan who have been taking photographs during the project and to show this with the work from the workshop at the distribution company. Jenny is interested in finding a way for the participants to represent themselves through this process. Connections between staff at Fermynwoods and participants have been established and James is exploring opportunities for their longer-term involvement in the work of the organisation.
People Meeting in a Room
Context
Birmingham’s Trade Union Resource Centre (TURC) archive provided the starting point for Adam’s commission. Yasmeen Baig-Clifford, Director of Vivid Projects, talks about the initial brief for the artist as “activating” the archive, creating a contemporary response to workers rights, campaigning and legislation. Vivid has an on going associated programme of residencies and events to make the archive accessible to a range of audiences and Yasmeen and her colleagues have supported the commission by introducing Adam to people linked to the archive, and sharing knowledge and ideas. The participants are people that were involved with TURC as well as curators, artists, activists and artist friends with experience relating to the research themes.
Process
Adam Lewis-Jacob describes people’s contributions in different ways. Marian Hall, Muhammad Idrish, and Ranbir Bains, are all TURC associates, having been involved with the archive in the 80s - Marian more recently as an archivist. Through conversations with them Adam has been able to explore the archive and connection with the WORK themes.
Over a year, Adam built strong relationships with people involved with the TURC archive, which really helped shape and guide the research and development process. He took his cue from their collaborative approach in working with communities, building trust and friendship to convey collective issues. Muhammad Idrish talks about the way they worked in the 1980s, “turning the camera around” and referring to the close relationships between people in front and behind the lens and “a conversation in a room, a gang of friends sitting together and having a chat”, thus inspiring the title of the film.
A series of workshops have been an important way to bring people together to create collaborative re-interpretations of the archive. These included two screening events of films with Muhammad Idrish and Ranbir Bains and a film and sound/dance collaborative performance with artist Susannah Stark. Adam describes this approach in resulting in a more critical, creative and inclusive process of development, with more diverse representations of subject matter.
The involvement of other creative practitioners – animators, cinematographers and performers - extends this collaborative approach. They include Jason Kerley, an animator, who has re-worked the Steve Bell’s original animations in work that he made with the TURC in the 80s. Adam also collaborated with Christane Noelle Charles and Alicia Mathews, who contribute performative elements of the project that were developed through workshops exploring ways of presenting the research and key themes raised by the archive.
This rich tapestry of relationships, creativity and activism across generations has come about through conversations, exchanges, workshops and events. Adam talks about friendship and “people coming together” as key to the project. The film is an embodiment of ideas from the themes from the archive rather than a literal interpretation of workers' rights. Whilst the initial focus was on Trade Union activism in the 80’s, Adam also refers to later content which includes music video, as a means to providing an interpretation of the earlier content.
Legacy
Throughout the project Adam has also been working with other activists making documentaries for a range of exhibitions and screening events. He has plans to continue working with Muhammad Idrish on a new project that will involve filming in Bangladesh. During the project he received a LUX Scotland/BBC commission to produce a short animation, which involve some of the collaborators from the WORK project, and he presented elements of the project in an exhibition at CCA, Glasgow.
Adam continues to curate a programme of films from the archive. Yasmeen talks about how the project has enabled Vivid to discover more people and stories and connections and engaged wider audiences that they will continue to work with.
a ROLE to PLAY
I believe the filmmaking process is not only a technical and creative process, but is a social and embodied act.
Context
The setting for Esther Johnson’s film is the community of Bolsover, and she was interested in exploring the impact of economic changes brought from post-industrialisation and also the unique landscape, topography and layered history of the area. The Freedom Community Project, which was established in 2008, driven by local need, is central to her project. It acts as a nexus for local residents struggling to find work, or suffering from in-work poverty. The centre is based at Bolsover Methodist Church, and runs a food bank, free café, advice service and classes, including a literacy group. Amy Smith at Junction Arts played a key role in introducing Esther to people at the centre and have been part of developing on-going relationships with centre visitors, staff and volunteers and gathering their stories of work and unemployment across generations.
Process
Esther’s initial exploratory trip took place almost a year before she began filming, and early on in the project she went on walks around Bolsover with various people as a way of finding out the place. She also organised several local trips and a visit to the Houses of Parliament, hosted by Dennis Skinner, previously MP for Bolsover, who also features in the film. She spent a substantial amount of time meeting people at the centre, ‘hanging out’ and having conversations over tea in the café and taking part in events. This established different situations and environments to enable participants to consider and share their stories.
I very much wanted to grow and learn alongside project participants in this project, and for contributors storytelling to be privileged over question answering as in traditional documentary or journalistic interviewing.
Over nine months Esther contributed to the literacy group course, taking on an active role devising creative projects and resources. She talks about this group being key in the development of the project and the importance of having the time to develop relationships and building trust with participants and contributors, and she describes the openness and generosity of the group. It has created a space for people to tell their stories and reflect on the nature of work. Responding to being involved in the WORK programme, one of the participants commented “It made me think about my value and work in a different way.” And another participant who has dedicated much of her life caring for her parents said: “It made me realise that that is work and I am valued for that.”
Esther has developed her own practice through WORK, exploring new methods of documentary and verbatim theatre and developing new ways of story telling based on concepts from theatre for social change. She talks about her “interest in working in partnership with people to tell their stories.” Esther developed a film script from oral testimonies and also written work generated in the literacy group sessions. Some members of the group appear on screen in the film, whilst others remain anonymous but have their stories integrated and woven into its fabric. Responding sensitively to personal disclosure and respecting people’s vulnerabilities have been part of the conversations about the ways in which participants’ stories are portrayed.
The film has been created with a range of participants with multiple roles as collaborators, storytellers and also performers; it features Bolsover residents Stephen Cotton, Adrian Drury, Jeanette Haigh, Serena Hammond and Dennis Skinner.
Legacy
Esther acknowledges the huge amount of support from Amy Smith, Project Coordinator at Junction Arts, and colleagues at the Freedom Centre who have enabled her to explore new territory and “follow her gut” in a looser way than previous projects. She describes the project as “motivating me to challenge my practice and innovate storytelling methods that mix testimony, documentary and reverie.”
Esther is bringing together the many strands of research undertaken throughout the project process with the publication of a newspaper including sections that double as posters that highlight literacy group individuals’ stories and poems of WORK. Amy has commented that the host organisation’s role is to ensure the legacy of the work continues.
