Worcestershire Arts Partnership Blog

Monday, 21 July 2014

WMPAF Arts Outside Event - Wednesday 30th July 2014





The Treehouse, Birches Valley Forest Centre

Cannock Chase, (Forestry Commission site)

Staffordshire, WS15 2UQ

Wednesday 30th July 2014, 9.30-4pm

A WMPAF event

‘Arts Outside’ is a West Midlands Participatory Arts Forum (WMPAF) event for artists, arts organisations and anyone with an interest in participatory and community arts. The day is an opportunity to share, debate, discuss and promote participatory arts in outdoor settings.


ALL

Get Online

An opportunity to share and discuss your practice and to be profiled on the WMPAF blog

Facilitated by We are Frilly

Bring in both physical and digital examples of your work as we explore how digital documentation and reflection through online platforms helps to feed the practical doing to be embedded into your practice.

As we discuss the balance between our digital and physical practices we will be profiling who you are on the WMPAF blog as we open up our debate online.


Open Space

A space to share, network and leave questions on participatory/outdoor arts

Facilitated by Kate Gant and The Cultural Sisters

We will be asking you to write down a problem you want to solve or an issue you want to discuss and peg these on the WMPAF ‘washing line’.

We will also be seeking your feedback and questions on ‘what next for WMPAF’. Questions will be used to shape discussion during the Open Space forum in the afternoon.


PRO

10:00 – 10:05 WMPAF Welcome

by Sandra Hall - Friction Arts

10:05 – 11:00 Panel Discussion:

What is community/participatory arts in outdoor settings?

What are the barriers to developing new work or taking creative risks?

Identifying challenges and creative ways forward

Starting the day off with some lively debate, a panel drawn from a range of people

involved in Participatory and Outdoor Arts to discuss key issues facing practitioners,

organisations and policy makers. Panel members include representatives from across

the sector.

Facilitated by Sandra Hall (Friction Arts), the panel debate will aim to set up a range of

practice and policy issues that will reverberate throughout the day.

Panel Facilitator:

Sandra Hall - Sandra has been making participatory arts projects in the region since

1992. As director of Friction Arts she has worked with all kinds of communities from offenders to allotment gardeners, from the US to Australia.

Panel Members:

Helga Henry - Creative Shift/Making More of Outdoor Arts

Hayley Skipper - Arts lead for Forestry Commission England

Anne de Charmant - Meadow Arts

Lisa Shephard – Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust

Break

11:00 - 11:20

11:20 - 12:45

Breakout Sessions

Select one option:


Option 1 – *REPEAT OPTION* - Walk & Talk – site visit to Living Symphonies

Facilitated by Sandra Hall

From 26 July – 1 August, Living Symphonies will be bringing an exciting new way of experiencing the forest to Cannock Chase.

Living Symphonies is a musical composition that grows in the same way as a forest ecosystem. Portraying the thriving activity of the forest’s wildlife, plants and atmospheric conditions, it creates an ever-changing symphony heard amongst the forest itself.

Composed and realised by James Bulley and Daniel Jones, Living Symphonies will be taking place across four of England’s forests during summer 2014. It is produced by Forestry Commission England and Sound And Music, with support from Arts Council England.

Option 2 – Round-table discussion: Quality of the Concept

Facilitated by Tim Franklin

Join a challenging discussion and investigate the concept of quality in participatory arts. Does participatory art need to be conceptually rigorous, or is the participants’ experience more important? What’s happening in the sector to bring those goals closer together – or drive them apart? Radical opinions encouraged.

Tim Franklin works for Friction Arts as a fundraiser and operations co-ordinator. He spends a lot of his time articulating the different kinds of value that participatory art work can have.

Option 3 – What has a Residency got to do with a Participatory Artist?

Facilitated by Janet Hetherington – Staffordshire University

Discuss, moan and laugh about the best ways for participatory artists to get training and support.

Staffordshire University is a partner in an EU project involving Artist Residencies in Warsaw and Barcelona. Each country will be hosting a Residency for a Participatory Artist in a community setting, and we are curious in finding out whether a ‘Residency’ is a good way for Artists and Community Organisations to learn how to work together. We can let you know more about potential opportunities within the project, and in exchange we would like to learn more about your experiences of equipping yourself with the right skills and knowledge to do what you do.

Janet Hetherington is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher at Staffordshire University. She leads the MA in Community and Participatory Arts and is involved in a range of European projects involving participatory arts.

Lunch

12:45 - 1:30

Workshop / Making Sessions

Select one option:

Option 1 - *REPEAT OPTION* – Walk & Talk – site visit to Living Symphonies

Facilitated by Sandra Hall

From 26 July – 1 August, Living Symphonies will be bringing an exciting new way of experiencing the forest to Cannock Chase.

Living Symphonies is a musical composition that grows in the same way as a forest ecosystem. Portraying the thriving activity of the forest’s wildlife, plants and atmospheric conditions, it creates an ever-changing symphony heard amongst the forest itself.

Composed and realised by James Bulley and Daniel Jones, Living Symphonies will be taking place across four of England’s forests during summer 2014. It is produced by Forestry Commission England and Sound And Music, with support from Arts Council England.

Option 2 – Workshop - Route to Health

Facilitated by Anthony Hammond

Contribute towards the creation of a new discovery zone on the Route to Health, community arts and health trail, which is being developed by local artists working in collaboration with various community groups. You will have the opportunity to work alongside Anthony Hammond to create a willow wall structure, as part of its overall design.

Willow weaving with North Staffs based award winning artist, sculptor and craftsman Anthony Hammond who has worked nation-wide as a freelance artist since 1998.

Anthony will be able to talk about how he has to adapt his working process to meet the needs of commissioners whilst artists have a go at willow weaving.

Option 3 – Workshop - Yarn Bombing / Guerrilla Knitting

Facilitated by The Cultural Sisters

Pompom making workshop with Staffordshire based artists The Cultural Sisters who have been working as participatory artists since 1995. Once the pompoms are finished the makers will ‘bomb’ an area of the ‘route to health’ outside. The pompoms can be tagged with messages/titles/names and/or invites to others to move them to another area of the ‘route to health’. Traditionally yarn bombing is a temporary intervention that fits well with the outside arts theme.

Option 4 - Experimental Outdoor Materials

Facilitated by We Are Frilly

Sharing their experiences of using Reggio Emilia early years approaches with young people and adults, We Are Frilly will start you on your journey of material exploration. Combining unexpected materials with different processes you can create a new dialogue between your art and nature. An open experimental, making session with reflective discussions on your own participatory, outdoor, art experiences.

1:30 - 2:30

Open Space Forum

Facilitated by Kate Gant and The Cultural Sisters

An opportunity for WMPAF members to set the agenda for what they want to discuss -

Discussion topics will be identified from the ‘WMPAF washing line’ and there will be four 30 minute discussions that will aim to help solve your problems, discuss issues you want to talk about and what should be next for WMPAF. Each discussion group discussion will be tasked with identifying three things they talked about and three things they are going to do next.

Summing up – What next for WMPAF

Bringing the day to a close by presenting the key priorities of attendees and the outcomes from the day and how WMPAF will take forward your ideas.

2:30 - 3:30

3:30 - 4:00


BOOK

The event is free - however we ask that you book in advance to secure your

place, and can do so on our Eventbrite page here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/arts-outside-tickets-12188783981

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