Social Making 2020
The sudden onset of the global pandemic saw Take A Part cancel the 2020 iteration of Social Making – Social Making: Socially Engaged Practice Now and Next. You can still click through to see who we were programming for this iteration of the symposium.
We responded to the shift to online conversations and skills development by creating Social Learning, a suite of online learnings, worksheets and toolkits to support artists in the sector to learn how to work more deeply and support communities during a time of intense trauma and reframing.
Social Making brings together artists, curators, community members, commissioners, policy makers, audiences, researchers and anyone with an interest in social practice in the arts. For Take A Part, social practice is collaborative and puts people at the heart of the artwork, and it is this spirit that we bring to our symposium. Each iteration of the symposium has been different but we always strive to move to a more active engagement with our delegates rather than the traditional conference experience.
In 2020, we were excited to provide three workshop opportunities, led by brilliant South-West based artists and companies, as well as a social practice speed dating event led by Contemporary Art Membership Plymouth (CAMP). Four presentations by national practitioners would touch on the potentials of social practice’s role in turbulent socio-political times.
Social Making 2020 Speakers
We were delighted to host Turner Prize winning artist Helen Cammock as our keynote speaker. Our other excellent speakers included artist-activist Hilary Powell of Bank Job, artist- curator Niloo Sharifi of FACT Liverpool’s Arrival City project, and curator Sarah Bowden of Hardwick Gallery (University of Gloucestershire) and We Create alongside lead artists Made In Roath and community members from the St Peters and St Pauls community of Cheltenham, where they have been working on models supported by Take A Part for the last 4 years.
Turner Prize Winner Helen Cammock. Photograph by Magda Stawarska-Beavan.
Social Making 2020 Speakers
Social Making 2020
In the wake of Brexit, of climate breakdown, and of rising far-right nationalism, we considered the state of ‘groundlessness’ and its effects on social practice. For Take A Part, this means trying to understand how we can be stronger together when the world feels like an at times confusing and scary place. In artist Hito Steryl’s 2011 essay In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective, she discusses the present moment’s prevailing condition as a state of groundlessness. Foundational political and economic beliefs and systems have been thrown up in the air, leaving little, if any, stable ground. Throughout Social Making, we were asking how social practice, its artists, collaborators and audiences are uniquely placed to answer questions such as:
How do we ground ourselves as practitioners, community members, audiences in our work, when our ecologies become less and less sustainable?
How do we navigate geo-spatial constructs of the ground – thinking through Brexit, international migration issues, and global conflicts?
How can we work against losing ground – of women’s rights, trans rights, disability rights, LGBTQ+, migrant rights?
How can we find common ground in a world seemingly becoming more polarised?
How can we create firm footing, a supportive space for all to collaborate when the ground keeps shifting?
As we fall, it can be difficult to identify this feeling, as other people, objects, and communities fall alongside us. Our balance is disrupted, but our perspectives can change, and new horizons can appear.
Social Learning
In 2020 we planned to expand the symposium to support the development of pragmatic skills for artists, activists and community members. A three day workshop in the lead up to the Social Making symposium, would be led by artist and educator Rachel Dobbs, these sessions were for those who are interested in socially engaged practice but may have not had much experience in this way of working and who are keen to learn more.