Art as Social Practice -- Meeting of Minds [Research and Debate]

Meeting of Minds Stephen Willats “Meeting of Minds” was developed in response to an invi- tation from a tenant’s group in Liverpool and the nonprofit Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT). Liverpool today is one of most economically deprived areas of Britain, but it is also home to a strong sense of his- tory and culture. The idea was to involve people living in tower blocks on the outskirts of the city in an artwork that might fundamentally transform their view of themselves and their society. After a reconnaissance visit, I determined that the group of tower blocks at Sefton Park was the best site for such a work. It offered direct physical connection with the exten- sive gardens, wooded areas, and monuments in Sefton Park, which also contains the historic, restored Palm House, and it offered community rooms in a nearby cricket pavilion that could be used to work with residents. I first presented and discussed a conceptual model of the work at an open meeting of the local tenants associa- tion in January 2003. I showed slides and films from previous works, and explained how the project was open to anyone living in the tower blocks interested in produc- ing exploratory artwork with a partner he or she did not previously know. As in the past, I wanted to explore the process of seeking agreement between individuals that allows a self-organiz- ing “society” to evolve. In this sense, “Meeting of Minds” was less directly about the physical environment than relationships between people and the idea of community. By opening the residents to a multiplicity of views and per- ceptions, the work aimed at creating more sociability in an isolating environment. Engaging with the Environment The first exploration took place over seven weeks from late March to mid-May, as each pair of residents attended a workshop that lasted about four hours. During this time they made a journey together, starting outside York House in the middle of the tower complex, and walking exactly the same route along footpaths across the estate and into Sefton Park to the Palm House. During the course of this journey each participant pair was invited to respond to each other’s discoveries and recordings of signs, symbols, objects, textures, etc. — especially any that had personal meaning. When one participant found a sign or object, etc., and recorded it with a camera, the other would try to guess what his or her part- ner was perceiving. He or she would then record this real- ization from their own point of view using the same media. The idea was to use such points of contact in the famil- iar, local environment to propel people’s imaginations. Even small things like sidewalk drawings, or bricks that had started to crumble, or a plastic bottle rammed into the fork of a tree might trigger meaningful associations. Both still photography and Super-8 film were used by each participant pair in the course of their journey. Then, immediately after returning to York House a tape- recorded discussion was held to elicit the personal meaning of what they found. Art as Social Practice Stephen Willats The expression of a social- and com- munity-founded art practice that celebrates collaborative, informal social networks is an important way for artists to develop frameworks for viewing the future of society. But to actualize such a model, a strong con- textual binding between language, meaning, location and audience must be established to create clear parameters of form. In “Meeting of Minds” this meant purposefully tying the work to a particular set- ting, the highrise housing towers of Sefton Park on the outskirts of Liv- erpool. In its very fabric, this setting contained signs, symbols, norms and values representing the polemics of life in contemporary society. Agreement between people is the basis for mutual society, and arriv- ing at a state of agreement formed the main activity of “Meeting of Minds.” The work was conceived as a sequence of participatory events between pairs of tower residents previously unknown to each other. These were articulated so as to facil- itate imaginative transformations in the way participants viewed their local environment. Although the transformations were personal and discrete, they were externalized through the action of the work. At the end of the process, they were also brought fully into the public domain by being physically placed back into the con- text from which they were derived through a series of displays mounted in the foyers of the housing blocks. The work embodied the belief that art should be a part of the fabric of society and should use a language familiar to its audience. There are four audiences for a work like this: the participants themselves; other local people like them; people out- side the locality who hear about it and come to see it; and those far away who may be inspired to do similar work. Willats / Meeting of Minds