Gray’s School of Art

Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen

RESEARCH CONFERENCE: SPACE & SPATIALITY IN CREATIVE PRACTICE

Friday, 5 October 2018

ABS 223 1000-1640hrs

SPACE & SPATIALITY IN CREATIVE PRACTICES

This year we are hosting the first research conference hosted by Gray’s School of Art, in a decade.

The theme (broadly) is the idea of the spaces of and for creative practices; creativity and spatiality; considered in the broadest terms, from local activity in the city of Aberdeen, to international perspectives.

The theme is quite timely, as Aberdeen seeks to re-invent itself as a location for cultural consumption and production; where former peripheral spaces come into focus as “undiscovered /awaiting definition”; where ownership of public space and notions of the commons are contested and problematized; where identities are shaped by manipulations and multiple over-writings of narratives concerning locality and territory; where notions of space are disrupted by new technologies from drones to smartphones.

These are some of the questions the conference may consider- not an exclusive list, but a starting point for further development:

Space within creative practices : uses of space in individual artworks or design projects/ products

Spaces for creative practices : problems and tensions in access to space and running spaces

Spatialities : the end of the centre / periphery model; the bringing of former peripheries into focus

Capitalising space : tensions between the commons and capital; the privatisation by stealth of former “public space”

Space, place and Identity formation Space and Social Engagement Cultural Geographies and Ecologies

The conference features a mixture of researchers from Gray’s and invited external speakers from the city, and beyond.

Enjoy the day!

Jon BlackwoodResearch Lead, Gray’s School of Art

CONFERENCE TIMETABLE

Presenters have twenty minutes to speak. Ten minutes have been set aside for discussion at the end of each panel, other than the final panel, which will be followed by an open discussion of the presentations and associated ideas, until 1630.

0930 Arrival & Coffee (Atrium, ABS)

1000 Introduction & WelcomeProfessor Paul Hagan, Vice Principal, Research,

RGU

SESSION ONE

Chair : Dr. Jon Blackwood

1010 Nuno Sacramento (Director, Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen)

Spatialising Policy: Between a Fugitive Rock and a Technocratic Hard Place

1030 Rachel Grant (Independent Curator, Aberdeen)

The Space of Aberdeen: Tactics for Disruption in “ The Air we Breathe”

1050 Jim Hamlyn (Gray’s School of Art)

Space Represented and Experienced

1120 COFFEE BREAK

SESSION TWO

Chair: Dr. Andrea Peach

1140 Jacqueline Donachie (Loughborough University)

Like Every In-Between : Creating Space in a Medical World

1200 Jen Clarke (Gray’s School of Art)

Some Implications of Feminist New Materialisms for Theories of Spatiality

1220 Chris Fremantle (Gray’s School of Art)How Big is Here? Space in the work of the Harrisons

1250 LUNCH (ABS atrium)

SESSION THREE

Chair: Libby Curtis

1400 Andrea Peach (Gray’s School of Art)

Far Out Craft

1420 Josie Steed (Gray’s School of Art)

Unravelling Shetland Knitting

1440 Charlie Hackett (Gray’s School of Art)

Art, Homelessness & Social Engagement

1510 COFFEE BREAK

SESSION FOUR

Chair: Jim Hamlyn

1525 Dr. Sarah Tuck (Våland Academy, Gothenburg)

Drone Vision : Warfare, Surveillance and Protest

1545 Jon Blackwood (Gray’s School of Art)

Spaces of Protest: Class, Peripherality and Contemporary Art

1615 Closing: Open Discussion on Space

1640 Conference Ends

ABSTRACTS

NUNO SACRAMENTOwww.peacockvisualarts.com

Spatialising policy; between a fugitive rock and a technocratic hard place

This presentation will look at the Cultural Strategies for Aberdeen and Scotland and ask; how will these strategies be played out in the physical spaces of Aberdeen city? How will artists and independent cultural spaces engage with these new regulatory frameworks?

Nuno Sacramento is the Director of Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen. Between 2010-16 he was the Director of Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Lumsden. He is a graduate of the deAppel Curatorial Training Programme and has a PhD by practice in Visual Arts (Shadow Curating) from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee.

RACHEL GRANTwww.theairwebreathe.net

The Space of Aberdeen: Tactics for Disruption in “The Air we Breathe”

Aberdeen is a place in flux as its dominant image as an oil and gas city has softened, cracks for particular opportunities in the cultural field have emerged. Top down approaches to cultural development have created an ecology that arguably remains rigid and identity focused. As a consequence, situating disruptive, critical practice in the city seems urgent. Geographer Heather Maclean’s analysis of feminist efforts to contest neoliberal policies becomes a useful tool in how we might disrupt the above development. Given these conditions examining ‘space’ from an independent position demands going beyond physical access into potential tactics for disrupting existing infrastructures, with active questions of; Whose voice is not heard? Are their spaces to inhabit outside of this narrative and what challenges do they bring?

This paper will examine the space within creative practice through the authors recent curatorial project “The Air We Breathe”, framed by the ongoing narrative of a proposed incinerator in Torry, located

in the south of Aberdeen. It has operated on the geographical and social periphery of the city and the case study will be used to look critically at an alternative use of space in the city. I will examine the tactics used in the project to disrupt existing spaces, problematize its political narrative and highlight both the potential and limitations within this praxis.

JIM HAMLYN

Space Represented and Experienced

This presentation takes the form of a historical collage in order to illustrate some important and, I think, far-reaching observations about the representation and theorisation of space. As a city, Aberdeen has made its own unique but largely unacknowledged contributions to this subject. For this reason I will limit my principal reference points to several figures with close biographical connections to the city with the intention of exemplifying the scope and relevance of my research even within a restricted geographical context.

My account begins with the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher Thomas Reid who was strongly opposed to the Idealism of his more famous contemporary, David Hume. This is followed by an outline of the physicist James Clerk Maxwell’s contribution to the invention of colour photography which dovetails into a discussion of the work of Aberdeen born philosopher Dominic McIver Lopes, who in a paper from 2003, claims: “When we look at photographs we literally see the objects that they are of.” If this is true, then when someone looks at a photograph of Fittie, they literally see Fittie. With the help of the work of Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Aberdeen University, Jan Deregowski, I aim to show that Lopes’ theory, and the philosophical Idealism that underlies it, is founded on various misconceptions about resemblances and the nature of pictorial space. The implications of this research both for theories of representation and for educational practice will then be sketched out.

JACQUELINE DONACHIEhttp://www.jacquelinedonachie.co.uk

Like Every In-Between : Creating Space in a Medical World

Contemporary art is seen as an effective way of communicating complicated science to a range of lay audiences, particularly in the context of medical research. This is the premise of ‘sciart’. However this rationale can limit the cultural significance of artworks by overstating their illustrative capacity, an outcome that severely reduces the creative endeavour of the artist.

My research seeks to address the illustration problem by exploring new methods of working across art and science that challenge representations of inherited disability; previous doctoral work raised the issue of invisibility, isolation, loss and social decline that is faced by many families affected by a multi-systemic inherited genetic condition, through film, sculpture and drawing.

Many of these projects take time to develop and nurture, and they sit alongside my public works, which again develop from time spent within specific environments through residencies and fellowships. As an artist who has long engaged with the structures, platforms and spaces (both actual and conceptual) in and through which we construct and support ourselves in this world, this presentation will discuss the importance of developing a critical space within biomedical and healthcare research that supports and makes visible lived experience, and the role of the artist within that.

JEN CLARKE

Some Implications of Feminist New Materialisms for Theories of Spatiality

In recent decades, there has been a rise in interdisciplinary collaborations between Anthropology, the Arts and Design. Many of these collaborations have been based on the exchange of methodologies, such as ethnographic or visual methods. The aim of this paper is to explore how to move forward from interdisciplinary collaborations based on methodology by addressing fundamental theoretical concerns, here related to space and spatiality, which in turn raise broader questions about relationships between bodies, spaces and materialities, and thus agency, relationality, and ontology. Similar questions have also been important for Art and Design theory. These theoretical concerns have taken a new turn recently through the multiple "New Materialisms" that have emerged. This presentation will explore whether and to what extent New Materialisms can be seen as an 'intensification' of critical spatial theory, as has been suggested, considering new ways of thinking about the 'agency' of the spatial that this approach presents (Ewalt, 2016). In particular, it will consider the implications

of Feminist New Materialisms for discussions on space and spatiality by reading contemporary feminist theorists in relation to each other, primarily focussing on the work of Doreen Massey and Karen Barad.

CHRIS FREMANTLEhttp://chris.fremantle.org

How Big is Here? Space in the work of the Harrisons

Helen Mayer Harrison (1927-2018) and Newton Harrison (b 1932) (the Harrisons) are pioneers of the ecoart movement since they first committed in around 1969 or 1970 to do no work that did not benefit the lifeweb. Their negotiation of a contemporary art practice in relation to this commitment is articulated in works and also in significant critical writing. The work superficially looks like masterplanning, including texts and images (maps, plans, aerial photography and other spatially oriented imagery). In their critical writing they highlight key questions which underpin their work, including “How big is here?” and “How long is now?” These questions establish the frame or boundary of the work, and the Harrisons suggest that this judgement is the same as the painter makes in composing an image on a canvas, apart from the question of scale. Their conceptualization of the Force Majeure (sea level rise, heatwave and biodiversity loss) emerged through the imagining sea level rise as a redrawing of the boundary. Their underlying mission, to reposition the human within the ecological (rather than ‘above’ or controlling it) is also couched in painters’ terms, as a figure ground reversal.This paper will focus on the ways the Harrisons use methods recognizable in the canon of art history at ecological scales.

ANDREA PEACH

Far-Out Craft

In 1963 Sutherland County Council purchased a disused airbase from the Ministry of Defence. Situated on the remote northerly coast of the Scottish Highlands, it consisted of a series of derelict, flat-roofed buildings, deemed uninhabitable due to their lack of insulation and basic utilities. Nevertheless, the Council had a vision: to create a thriving community of craftspeople that would address years of depopulation and economic decline. It was called ‘The Far North Project’. A singularly utopian vision, it attracted opportunists and idealists from across the country and abroad.

This paper will examine the concept of the ‘far north’ as both geographic and existential space. The Far North Project presented

an opportunity for adventurous artisans and those hoping to escape from the rat race. But for many of these pioneers the dream was subsumed by the reality of producing souvenirs for tourists. Maker and consumer were search for tangible and intangible space. This paper will examine what became of the Far North Project. It will question the role of government in supporting craft communities, and the realities of economic sustainability in remote spaces.

JOSIE STEED

Unravelling Shetland Knitting

Knitting is an ancient craft and has a long history of connecting people with their environment. In Britain nowhere is this more pertinent than in Shetland. Here, hand knitting has been a prime and economic activity for generations. Today knitting continues to play an important societal role where due to the Island’s remoteness and links with Northern Europe the traditions and customs of knitting have adapted and been preserved, and are an important contributor to the Island’s heritage and identity where the living skills of knitting continue and evolve. Craft as knowledge such as seen in Shetland knitting has often been overlooked perhaps due to strong associations with the everyday and geographical remoteness. Foucault challenges this perspective of knowledge by advocating an insurrection of subjugated knowledge's that revalues indigenous and native knowledge's as a better and more meaningful language appropriate for the real world. Using Shetland knitting as an example, this paper examines the traditional and cultural boundaries of this particular handcraft formed by a specific place and aims to articulate the fundamental relationship between skill, meaning and identity.

CHARLIE HACKETT

Art, Homelessness & Social Engagement

This paper emerges from a collaborative socially engaged arts project between art students and post-homeless men and how the experience creatively, pedagogically impacted on both the post-homeless men and the students understanding of homelessness in Aberdeen. To question and gain an understanding of the sociological- epistemological relationship between the students and the post homeless men and unpack some of the creative practice the paper draws on Deleuze and Guattari ‘A Thousand Plateaus’ (2004) and their theory of “plugging in” and “territory”, this is used to gain insight into the social engagement where different activities take place; mapping arts projects and making art works. Analogue photography is used as a methodology of engagement and to theorize homeless lives with the men taking photographs of hidden

and poor spaces. The paper draws on Barthes and his theorizing of analogue photography because of the connection between the use of analogue photography and how the processes of analogue photography relate back to the ontology of being homeless. The pedagogical relationship that takes place between the post-homeless men and the students developed within arts spaces and exhibition spaces is considered with Freire’s (2002) ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’, being used to look at the dialogical problem posing pedagogy that emerges.

SARAH TUCK

Drone Vision: Warfare, Surveillance and Protest

This paper will present Drone Vision a two year curated research project (2016-2018) that considers drones as a new camera consciousness, which alters the material assemblages through which warfare, surveillance and protest takes place.Drawing on the multiple uses and theories of drone technology from State surveillance of people, killing at a distance to an insurgent strategy of recognition (Chemayou) there is, of course, a need to particularise: On the one level exploring the affective meanings of a view from above as part of mobilisations against authoritarianism (Weizman, Bräunert & Malone) and on the other as part of colonial governance and war (Adey et al, Mirzoeff) . In response to this challenge Drone Vision is working through a partnership between The Hasselblad Center in Sweden, NiMAC [The Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Associated with the Pierides Foundation], Cyprus and Zahoor Ul Akhlaq Gallery, at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan, with each gallery taking lead responsibility in the commissioning of three photo based artworks for the simultaneous exhibitions of Drone Vision in May 2018. Bringing the cities – Gothenburg, Nicosia, Lahore – together through a shared photo based research is an endeavour to make apparent the differential meanings of seeing without being seen, of vulnerability and resistance. As such the cultural framework and partnership of Gothenburg, Nicosia and Lahore is an effort to produce a geography of thinking about drones that approaches the terms colonial and counter-colonial as specific topographies of political control and political demand. This paper will share and contextualize the work of the photo based artists commissioned in the three cities that address the questions of visibility and verticality intrinsic to the operations of drone technology and its meanings for artistic and political praxis.

Adey P et al. (eds.) (2013) From Above. War, Violence and Verticality. London: Hurst & Company Bräunert S & Malone M (2016) To see without being seen. Contemporary art and drone warfare. St. Louis: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Chemayou G (2015 [2013]) Drone Theory. London: Penguin Books.Mirzoeff N (2011) The Right to Look. A Counterhisory of Visuality. Durham: Duke University PressJON BLACKWOODhttp://www.jonblackwood.net

Spaces of Protest: Class, Peripherality and Contemporary Art

“May the Overthrow of the Old World be Imprinted on the Palms of your Hands” (El Lizzitsky)

This paper will critically assess three case studies where the dynamics of social class, geographical peripherality, and protest have mutated in three very different spaces; North West England, Estonia, and Macedonia.

Firstly we will consider the work done by Conrad Atkinson in West Cumbria in the 1970s, based upon his intervention in a local industrial dispute (Strike at Brannan’s, 1972). Atkinson established a practice that opened out discussion of the role of the activist-artist embedded in, and responsive to public space.

With a methodology based on socialist ideas, as well as participatory observation, Conrad Atkinson’s work from this period, so very different to ours, offers an interesting model for the engagement of the artist in public space.

In the second part of the paper, we think through some of the implications of this approach in contemporary times, and observe how art activism has mutated in specific parallel spaces; the After War project of Kristina Norman in Tallinn in 2009, with a specific territory at the centre of unresolved tensions between ethnicities in the Estonian capital; and the activist project TEKSTIL in the city of Štip, Macedonia, where artist-activists and employees worked together to lay bare and challenge the desperate working conditions in the country’s textile industry.