Workshop celebration day at The Royal Academy of Arts, London, November 2024.
This concertina zine was gifted to the workshop participants during the celebration day, they were invited to cut, draw and stitch these together into new formations with cable ties and hinges that were also used to assemble the larger wooden structure installed in the Clore studio. This structure echoed the zigzag nature of the paper booklet and brought together images and interactive gestures explored in the workshops with the Look Ahead residents over the past few months.
‘Layers of looking’ was a phrase that came to my collaborator project Eva Jones in relation to this project, we became very quickly aware of the presence of the hand commonly documented in workshop photographs and this had us question our own position in co-curating an ethical collaboration with many that have varied forms of access to communicating. Making art together enabled non-verbal exchanges of story telling, collecting and developing the hand gesture as a method of holding, exploring and framing recycled materials.
‘Wall of sleeves’
‘Sleeve props’ became a title given to these fabric pieces which were drawn and wrote onto whilst been worn around the paricipants arms and hands. Touch became an important point of access for many individuals in the groups and so it felt relevant to keep moments of interactivity in this structure. It brought together activties that gently explored a collective interpritation of ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve’, holding anothers hand, shaking it in meeting a new person both metaphorically (through collaged images) and literally.
The structure installed in the Clore studio. The timber beams were repurposed from a previous project and so the sharpie marks, pencilled measurements and other numericals were left to be seen. One of the Look Ahead residents that was part of this project noticed this and questioned it, which enabled me to reiterate the materials recycled nature and remind him of the previous artwork they came from which I had shared with the groups on meeting them. A lot of this workshop series has been growing the trust and familiarity between us as artists, collaborators and supportive friends, sharing stories, returning and nuturing collective confidence.