Day 29 – The Element of Surprise
When having to complete a creative task set for you by someone else perhaps it is best to be taken by surprise. The organisation Artlink is very good at producing ‘Oh!’ and ‘Ah!’ moments. I have had many over my time as a volunteer. As it brings together diverse collections of people and places to find creative ways for individuals to be involved in their communities, Artlink seems to value the generative, restorative element of surprise.
Recently I’ve been involved in a collaborative project between Artlink, the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh and the poet Ken Cockburn. Using the thoughts of visually impaired clients as a starting point, Ken wrote the poem ‘Pandora’s Light Box’ about the Talbot Rice’s three rooms. The wonderfully incantatory poem for two voices will be installed in the gallery to provide a sense of the place for visitors. The sense of place it provides goes beyond anything one might physically be able to see while in the gallery. Instead, if I can risk putting it so vaguely, the poem deals in invisible sights. As it describes historical moments in the life of the building, the poem calls each listener to build in their mind’s eye places substantial and complex.
After the poem’s composition when we met to decide how it would be installed, artist Frances Priest asked us (visually impaired clients and volunteers) to make our invisible internal responses to Ken’s poem into something that could be touched. Taking us quite by surprise Frances presented us with three weighty lumps of very fresh, damp clay. While listening to the poem we were to realise our thoughts in clay, one lump for each room – the White Gallery, the Round Room and the Georgian Gallery. A frisson of creative nerves seemed to run through the group at the prospect of our task. But we needn’t have worried. With her firm parameters, we had only the clay and the duration of the poem, Frances had freed us. Frances had swept aside the limits of our confidence and invention. With no time to fret, mull or ruminate, Frances had given us permission to fail. The moment of doing, of creating, really was freed from concerns of finished product. Listening to a phrase or a sentence and deciding that that was the very one from which to mould your clay made letting the other phrases and sentences go by untouched perfectly alright. Of course there was no failing. We just learnt to listen with our hands.
Guest blog by Dora Petherbridge – thanks Dora!
[...] this is taken from a blog post, written by an Artlink volunteer describing Pandora’s Light Box and her involvement. You can read the full post here. [...]
Pandora’s Light Box – volunteers account « artlinkambition said this on August 24, 2011 at 1:54 pm |
I attended the launch of Pandora’s Light Box last Wednesday and have written it up in my blog. The collaboration between Artlink and the Talbot Rice Gallery has worked very well and I had a chance to discuss the poem with Ken Cockburn and Laura Irvine at the reception. I hope to be at the tour for visually impaired on September 1st. Your post is very interesting as after I lost my sight I was reintroduced to the art world with clay and have progressed to sloshing around with paint and the aid of masking tape, spray can and hand cut stencils.
A friend of a friend sent me photos of a couple of lines from the poem chalked on a pipe by the river, and (via Artlink) the trail led here… I’m pleased the work has found its way out of the gallery and taken on a life of its own… thanks!
[...] these photos of some lines from the poem which seem to have escaped from the gallery; based on this blog, we think it was Dora, one of the project volunteers, but she’s not owned up yet! And this blog [...]
Pandora’s Light Box « Ken Cockburn's Blog said this on October 14, 2011 at 3:44 pm |