International +
give participants the opportunity to be creative and access the creativity of others.
This programme is closely linked with the International exhibition which presents a fertile environment for conversations and collaborations between the International artists and the local community.
When International 06 artists were invited to participate in the Biennial they were also invited to take part in International +. In the artists welcome packs we included Conversations, a DVD created by Eleanor Hawkridge, featuring local communities advising of ’must see places’ in Liverpool, a series of questions they would like to pose artists and their thoughts on art. Wirral Mind asked how the artists feel their work compares to the statues we are familiar with on Liverpool streets, Halewood University of the Third Age talked about Liverpool’s tendency to have two of everything, cathedrals, football teams etc, and Venus Women’s Resource Centre asked, Where were you and did you watch the night when Liverpool won the Champions League final?
During their research visits to the city the International 06 artists were given the opportunity to meet with these and other community groups.
When Shimabuku met a group at Mary Seacole House the conversation turned to food. Shimabuku talked about how he thought contemporary art was just like ‘fish and chips’. He told the group that ‘as an artist, when approaching a new project I feel like a cook who is making something but with local ingredients.’
After meeting Sissel Tolaas, members of Halewood Resource Centre set about their own project exploring smells in the city and created a series of related artworks.
Participants at Wirral Mind spent time discussing interaction with the urban environment. Local suggestions for interventions were made in reaction to Kuang-Yu Tsui’s practice, with dance to the sounds of the city, piggy-back rides offered to tired shoppers, and alternative signage for buskers.
Ten of the groups who met with International 06 artists have also been invited to contribute to BURST. This is a biannual publication aimed at introducing the International 06 to Liverpool, through the voices of local communities.
BURST 1 was launched in October 05 and was an exploration of local culture presented in drawings, collage, writing and photography. Designer Gayle Rice created a Cultural Probe Pack for the groups to use. Included in the pack were maps of Liverpool, smell capsules and a digital camera. The visiting artists are also given their own Cultural Probe Pack to complete to explore their initial impressions of the city and the experiences of their research visit. The packs returned to us can be seen in fusebox, the International 06 information room.
BURST 2 was launched in March 06 and included profiles of eight of the International 06 artists. It contains a transcript of a conversation between the Kingpins and Parr Youth Inclusion Project. The young people from St Helens ask the artists why they ‘like to dress up as lads’ and find out that it all started when the group entered a competition in a local nightclub.
BURST 3 will be launched on 14 September 2006 and copies of all editions of BURST will be available at International 06 venues throughout the Biennial. This bumper, celebratory edition will include our participant’s counterpoise to the fulfillment of artistic proposals, the shaping of the vision for the show and commentary towards the final delivery of the International 06 artworks.
International + also recruited 18 art teachers from across Merseyside to part in a programme of work. Between November 05 and May 06 the teachers attended workshops led by International 06 artists.
Working with Jean Francois Prost the teachers used old carrier bags to create urban flags highlighting issues relating to wastelands in Liverpool. The flags were then placed on improvised ‘flag poles’ in Kensington, one bearing a slogan saying ‘a place to dream’ and the other said ‘CCTV Free Zone’.
During a workshop with Amalia Pica the teachers worked in pairs with appropriate tools (tape, scissors, string, chalk for example) to create pieces that would alter the arrangement or order of the public space. Outcomes included a protest about dog fouling, the creation of a ‘memorial’ and the gathering of twigs to return them to a tree.
Since May 06 the teachers have been using some of the ideas form the workshops to create projects with pupils. Pupils from five Wirral Schools groups descended on Birkenhead Park in June to create work themed on transformation. They launched balloons and bubbles in memory of John Lennon, added their own trees to the existing landscape and took part in sensory walks. Pupils from Brookfield Secondary School have made kites which they will fly at various sites in Liverpool. The main inspiration for this was taken from Jean Francois Prost’s workshop and they are using the kite as an intervention on a landmark. St Theresa’s Catholic School created a project in the school playground that has a wooded area. This involved a reading day and exchange of donated books to encourage a peaceful and extra curricular activity.
The work created by the schools will be exhibited at the Renew Rooms, 82 Wood Street, Liverpool 14 September – 25 November 2006.
Three of the International 06 artists have also been invited to work on Triangle projects. Each of these projects is a collaboration between an International 06 artist, a Merseyside based artist and a community group.
Lisa Oppenheim has been working with John Macdonald and a group of young mothers from Speke. They are creating a quilt that celebrates the life of Kitty Wilkinson. Kitty is a strong woman from Liverpool’s history who helped to fight poverty and disease in the nineteenth-century by turning her home into a wash-house for her neighbours during the cholera epidemic. The quilt the group is making is being made out old baby clothes. The quilt will be exhibited during the Biennial.
The Kingpins are working with Becky Vipond and the Bronte Youth and Community Centre. The Bronte was set up to help and educate at-risk young people living in the neighbourhood and to promote the benefit of the inhabitants of the area without distinction of political, religious or other opinions and race. The Kingpins, photographer Liz Ham and Becky Vipond have undertaken a series of workshops with the group, utilising the young people not only as artists, but as subjects, exploring both the notion of site and transcendence, via imagination and role-play.
This work will also be exhibited during the Biennial.
Amalia Pica is working with Simon McKeown on a project for Bidston Hill. Bidston Hill is one of the highest points on the Wirral and it is believed that there has been a windmill on this site since 1596. The present mill, known as a tower mill, was built c1800 and is currently being renovated. The artists are working with local residents to create their own individual windmills which will display on the hill on during the week beginning 21 August.
In partnership with Liverpool Culture Company, International + has developed Made in Liverpool 06. The project was launched with a workshop in June 06 which was led by International 06 artist Matthew Buckingham. Attended by twelve local film makers the two day workshop offered the opportunity for local film makers to work alongside a contemporary artist. With an onus less on technical approaches to film and video but more on the theoretical, the workshop was named 'Negotiating Documents' and provided an opportunity to explore non-fiction material as a current concern for contemporary art practice.
Following on from this Merseyside based film makers have been invited to submit films which reflect the theme of ‘Beneath the Skin of the City’. These films will be shown on the BBC Big Screen each day at 11am and 5pm throughout the Biennial. Selected films will tour neighbourhood areas around Liverpool during the Biennial. As part of Made in Liverpool 06, Liverpool Culture Company also commissioned Desperate Optimists to make Daydream, a film which celebrates the work of its Creative Communities programme. Daydream will also feature in the neighborhood screenings.
Animal is an International+ project developed with the Liverpool Biennial Network with the aim of creating, through collaborative programming, a presence in the city centre for the communities of the outer neighbourhoods, and a presence for the Biennial in the neighbourhoods beyond the city centre. The Biennial Network members are Rotunda College, Vauxhall; Garston Cultural Village; and Metal, Kensington.
Artist Ron Haselden has been commissioned to create three neon light works for presentation in three neighbourhood locations. The designs for the light-works have been generated through workshops with Year 1 pupils, in the neighbourhood schools. In these workshops, led by local artist, Samantha Jones, the children created line drawings of animals, either imaginary or realistic. An exhibition of these drawings was on display at Tate Liverpool, in the First Floor Education Studio, over the opening weekend of the Biennial.
The launch and switch on of the lights will take place on 17 November 2006 to coincide with the national Art & Architecture conference opening that day. Lights will be switched on simultaneously at 5pm that evening by pupils from each of the participating schools at Community 7 HQ in Kensington, Rotunda College in Vauxhall and Slaughterhouse Gallery in Garston and will be lit throughout the winter months.