Research
Walking was a big part of our process as it is the best time for us to talk and discuss ideas, reading and values. We made a great effort initially to always be out and going somewhere different and running through ideas and trying things out. This time spent time just being ourselves whilst developing a self awareness and reflective way of thinking, taking note of some of the stranger things we do and enjoy doing. Such as walking through mud bare foot, paddling in the canal. Watching the sunset everyday. Taking a bright patterned blanket with us everywhere to keep warm in. going to these different places sparked new thinking, allowed us to see new things and our conversation changed. Also as Rebecca Solnit notes in Wanderlust, walking is the closest physical movement to that of thinking.
Walking
"I heard you say, meet me in the long grass"
Tom Rosenthal
We like to cycle a lot, a way to visually access things quickly and escape the ‘everyday’. A time to focus the mind and talk about art in a free and exciting manner.
A non judgmental way to explore new places and conversation.
“These fleeting interactions are important interruptions in the steady routine of our lives, pulling us into experiences of shared humanity and cementing our relationship to the places we live, work and play. These deceptively simple moments can change the way you interact with the world.” Kio Stark, When strangers meet.
“seek to activate urban space as a site of public, political discourse” Grant Kester, Communication and conversation in contemporary art
“a way of taking the energy of our differences and channeling it toward something that has never been created before” and a “means for accessing intelligence and coordinated power of groups or people” Dialogue and Art of Thinking Together
“all are linked by a belief in the empowering creativity of collective action and shared ideas” One day sculpture, 2006
“the fact that such communication has been entirely appropriated by the commercial world” Artificial Hells, Claire Bishop
“communications are plunging human contacts into monitored areas for anything that cannot be marketed will inevitably vanish. Before long it will not be possible to maintain relationships between people outside these trading areas” Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics
“it creates free areas and time spans whose rhythm contrasts with those structuring everyday life and it encourages an inter-human commerce that differs from the communication zones that are imposed on us” Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics
Tom Rosenthal
The music and videos of Tom Rosenthal we always enjoyed for the light hearted and humorous nature but strong message or topic. The videos are advocate a celebration and acceptance of life as it is; the colour, strangeness, beauty and absurdity of everyday activity.
Lowri Evans
“I am interested in human experience, the mundane and the miraculous. I am fascinated by the multitude of stories happening around me and am driven to capture our lives in all their underwhelming glory”
Ania Bas
Involves groups of people and brings them together through a common interest or activity- such as the walking reading group or the search for strawberry cheesecake as well as much of her wok directly responding to place.
​
Suzanne Lacy
Interested in her facilitation of groups and meetings between people all for a strongly identified social purpose.
"An art that is in place can create a different (not necessarily better) relationship between viewer and place" The Lure of the Local, Lucy LIppard
​
"Community doesn't mean understanding everything about everybody and resolving all the differences; it means knowing who to work within differences and they change and evolve" The Lure of the Local, Lucy Lippard
​
"Methods of working that allow genuine interpersonal human relationships to develop" Living as Form
​
"It can only come into its own in dialogue, in open conversation in which one is obliged to listen and include other voices" Suzi Gablik
Cooking
​
Another element of our practice, it enables us time to think and discuss ideas. Like much of the art we create the process involved in cooking allows time to chat whist also being involved in an activity.
"I feel a real connection with that sheep"
Began searching positive news in the mornings and found a quote we really enjoyed and wanted our art to work towards- "taking optimism seriously", we discussed this and realised that this was often the case and this was a shame
Living as form- Socially engaged art from 1991-2011
Nato Thompson
This book was an extremely useful resource both theoretically and visually.
Key projects within it that inspired or influenced me included-
​
-Francis Alys, When Faith Moves Mountains 2002
​
-Fallen Fruit, Public Fruit Jam 2006
​
-Paul Glover, Ithaca Hours 1991
​
-HAHA, Flood 1992-1995
​
-Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Complaints choir 2005-
Fallen Fruit, Public Jam 2006
Books which inspired
​
-Don Pedro, Politics and Protests.
​
-Pablo Helguera, Education for socially
engaged art.
​
-Clair Bishop, Participation.
​
-Ted Purves and Shane Aslan Selzer, What we want is free- critical exchanges in recent art.
"I went from being an Artist who makes things, to being an Artist' who makes things happen." Jeremy Deller
"What strikes me is the fact that in our society, Art has become something which is related only to objects and not the individuals, or the life.That Art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are Artists. But couldn't everyone's life become a work of Art? Why should the lamp or house be an object, but not our life? " Michel Foucault
"I went from being an Artist who makes things, to being an Artist' who makes things happen." Jeremy Deller
Francis Alys, When Faith Moves Mountains 2002
