Art as Process | a mini manifesto
In this moment of late stage capitalism, as normative, colonial culture, un-ravels, tangles & re-weaves, art is inextricably linked to the notion of product. Art as completed, differentiated ‘thing’, which can be viewed from an external perspective, critiqued, categorised, valued, a price tag placed beside it, a ‘thing’ that can be bought & sold or experienced as somehow outside of time, flux, continuance. The creation of ‘art' is in the past tense, separate from the processes & contexts with-in which it ‘was’ created, continues to live in & with.
Through out the 90's & early 2000's I was mentored in community cultural development practice, a politically charged lens, imbued with nuance around cultural diversity & oozing with intentions of equity & giving voice to divergent, non-normative voices. Art / creative practice was seen as a means of giving voice to people who did not have the same access to the time, space, language skills or resources required to participate in creative pursuits, outside of their own cultural groups. Process, meaningful long term connections & empowerment were prioritised over product. However, even within this frame & the ensuing de-politicised community arts - there were / are still imperatives for flashy outcomes, product, in order to satisfy funding bodies, to prove the efficacy of engaging communities in creative work & to tell the story of the generosity of the funders in supporting either the less fortunate, or hyper capable.
Meanwhile many creative / cultural practices - which are core to peoples lived experience of the world - are not recognised as even existing, as they do not fit within the confines of the restrictive frameworks of what 'art' is.
Community arts - still requires a separation between the completed product & the processes & ecological - social contexts with-in which it is entangled & emerging from. It is often only recognised as 'art' when an 'outsider', or 'expert' or 'facilitator' engages with cultural practices & weaves it into the normative art world by creating marketing, documentation & reports which somehow validates the flux of cultural practice. Community arts and cultural development could be seen as a colonial enterprise that 'extracts' cultural practice out of the thick webs it emerges from.
From an anthropological / cross cultural perspective, through time & space, art can be seen, in many cultures, as a means of communicating cultural understandings & nurturing practices which give meaning to life through mapping complex intra-related components of culture & life. Creativity - music, dance, visual art, making things - can map and embed patterns of relationship between the social world, ways of doing things, ways of breathing, moving, spending time in conversations, interacting with humans & the other-than-human. Creative pursuits foster connections between humans, the ecological world, earth, the other - than - human world - a bridge between everything that has come before, the present and possible futures. In the Egyptian music & dance traditions (I had the great fortune to be mentored by master drummer, Ibrahim el Minyawi (RIP)) as the music & dance traditions fused with the Western cultural influences of Hollywood, Jazz & night club dancers - cultural traditions centred on trance, ceremony, mourning, weddings - ritual transitions accompanied by at times 100's of drummers and dancing improvising in an auditory version of a murmuration, responding to the needs of the collective / community / broader human & non human provocations - was extracted, simplified, codified, appropriated - bought & sold as cultural trinkets, denuded of the more complex & inexplicably nourishing eco - cultural substances.
This project prioritises process & the creation, acknowledgement of connections & relationality. The premise is that we exist in an intra-active, interdependent reality. What we are - is dependent on what we are in relationship with - human & the other-than-human.
The ideas presented here, emerged through conversations & inspirations from other people's writings and thoughts. Becoming aware of the work of Fiona Kumari Campbell, Craig Slee, Sunaura Taylor, Sophie Strand and Bayo Akomolafe has changed my life / mind / way of experiencing the world. These writings have been instrumental in a transitional re-weaving process, a grappling with an alternative way of perceiving my ‘self’, my porous assemblage, my disability and my connections, relationships to the social and ecological landscapes I am part of. This project is - art as process - a technological infrastructure which invites further conversations. It is not a finished product, rather, it is a seed, a container which invites further conversations - improvisations - through multimodal communication, through acknowledging that we are, what we are, in relationship.
Art is a means of creating shared understandings, a communicative tool, a tool to re-pattern, re -member, un-ravel - re-weave - Art is an ecological systems process.
Through out the 90's & early 2000's I was mentored in community cultural development practice, a politically charged lens, imbued with nuance around cultural diversity & oozing with intentions of equity & giving voice to divergent, non-normative voices. Art / creative practice was seen as a means of giving voice to people who did not have the same access to the time, space, language skills or resources required to participate in creative pursuits, outside of their own cultural groups. Process, meaningful long term connections & empowerment were prioritised over product. However, even within this frame & the ensuing de-politicised community arts - there were / are still imperatives for flashy outcomes, product, in order to satisfy funding bodies, to prove the efficacy of engaging communities in creative work & to tell the story of the generosity of the funders in supporting either the less fortunate, or hyper capable.
Meanwhile many creative / cultural practices - which are core to peoples lived experience of the world - are not recognised as even existing, as they do not fit within the confines of the restrictive frameworks of what 'art' is.
Community arts - still requires a separation between the completed product & the processes & ecological - social contexts with-in which it is entangled & emerging from. It is often only recognised as 'art' when an 'outsider', or 'expert' or 'facilitator' engages with cultural practices & weaves it into the normative art world by creating marketing, documentation & reports which somehow validates the flux of cultural practice. Community arts and cultural development could be seen as a colonial enterprise that 'extracts' cultural practice out of the thick webs it emerges from.
From an anthropological / cross cultural perspective, through time & space, art can be seen, in many cultures, as a means of communicating cultural understandings & nurturing practices which give meaning to life through mapping complex intra-related components of culture & life. Creativity - music, dance, visual art, making things - can map and embed patterns of relationship between the social world, ways of doing things, ways of breathing, moving, spending time in conversations, interacting with humans & the other-than-human. Creative pursuits foster connections between humans, the ecological world, earth, the other - than - human world - a bridge between everything that has come before, the present and possible futures. In the Egyptian music & dance traditions (I had the great fortune to be mentored by master drummer, Ibrahim el Minyawi (RIP)) as the music & dance traditions fused with the Western cultural influences of Hollywood, Jazz & night club dancers - cultural traditions centred on trance, ceremony, mourning, weddings - ritual transitions accompanied by at times 100's of drummers and dancing improvising in an auditory version of a murmuration, responding to the needs of the collective / community / broader human & non human provocations - was extracted, simplified, codified, appropriated - bought & sold as cultural trinkets, denuded of the more complex & inexplicably nourishing eco - cultural substances.
This project prioritises process & the creation, acknowledgement of connections & relationality. The premise is that we exist in an intra-active, interdependent reality. What we are - is dependent on what we are in relationship with - human & the other-than-human.
The ideas presented here, emerged through conversations & inspirations from other people's writings and thoughts. Becoming aware of the work of Fiona Kumari Campbell, Craig Slee, Sunaura Taylor, Sophie Strand and Bayo Akomolafe has changed my life / mind / way of experiencing the world. These writings have been instrumental in a transitional re-weaving process, a grappling with an alternative way of perceiving my ‘self’, my porous assemblage, my disability and my connections, relationships to the social and ecological landscapes I am part of. This project is - art as process - a technological infrastructure which invites further conversations. It is not a finished product, rather, it is a seed, a container which invites further conversations - improvisations - through multimodal communication, through acknowledging that we are, what we are, in relationship.
Art is a means of creating shared understandings, a communicative tool, a tool to re-pattern, re -member, un-ravel - re-weave - Art is an ecological systems process.