Undervaluing your creative process is disastrous. When you arrive at a residency, you are given a space to work in. My space at OVADA in Oxford got progressively messy as I dragged pieces of cardboard, ropes and bicycles wheels into my space. I felt a little embarrassed by all the mess whereas other artists’ spaces at the residency were relatively contained and tidy.
Yet when I look back at it now that the residency is over, I can see how valuable it would have been to document all the stages of building my ‘compost’ of ideas and images. This week I am writing up my reflections on the residency and realise that I could have installed the final ‘findings’ in a completely different and more streamlined way.
As it was I exhibited a finished version of my ideas wall. However when I started taking pictures of it to put in my powerpoint presentation, I look at the images I selected and feel like there were three, possibly five strong images I could have printed as digital prints which would have encapsulated all that I saw, felt and conceptualised visually.
This is a really important learning for me. To see the finished pieces as elements of the process, but to perhaps make a movie of the process as I add and take away bits and pieces to build the best composite image. The artist in the space next to me did this and it was really powerful as her work was about the layers of memory of place, showing buildings and communities being built, erased and rebuilt in new iterations over time.
It would have been especially useful to have a professional photographer at our Feet First Iffley event as I was so busy chalking around peoples feet and talking to them about the campaign, that I was not able to document this event in the best way possible.
I reconstructed a version of the event for our open house ‘findings’ which showed the triangular flags we hung on the hedgerow where people wrote about what the proposed housing development on the ancient meadows would mean to them. These were exhibited along with photos of the event. See more here. The best part is that the campaign committee members will take this documentation and exhibit it in the local Iffley hall to continue their campaign actions,.
So these are some of the best images I came away with from my residency. They speak of the pressure of city life, the need for green spaces and trying to get the balance between the two so that Oxford can really be proud of preserving and protecting the green spaces which encircle the city and its two braided rivers, the Thames and the Cherwell rivers. It shows a campaign to protect the ancient meadows and my part in art activation for the short time I was in Oxford. Still a good outcome for the residency.
Where do we fit in?
Dreaming of Open Spaces
The first idea on the wall, influenced by the Oxford skyline of spires and chimney pots