Report submitted

The final day of my exhibition THEMSELVES HERE TOGETHER at The Word marked the end of my project, Voices: Within and Without. This year long project has been supported by Arts Council England. 

I have been working on the end of project evaluation report and have been reflecting on the various aspects of the project. It has been a really productive and rewarding year, and I look forward to following up all the interesting and exciting things that have emerged as a result.

Here is a reminder of some of the outcomes from my Voices: Within and Without project.

Spoken Word Residency at Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Canada

Everything Will Be Alright sound installation at Cheeseburn

Portion Control publication exhibited as part of REALITY CHECK at The NewBridge Project: Gateshead

A lot can happen in a  performance workshop at TURF, London

THEMSELVES HERE TOGETHER performance at The Word, South Shields

THEMSELVES HERE TOGETHER audio-visual installation at The Word, South Shields

I would like to thank all the project partners and people involved in my project.

Plus huge thanks to Arts Council England for supporting me

David McLeavy talk at The NewBridge Project

As part  of the Practice Makes Practice programme, The NewBridge Project invited David McLeavy to give a talk.

David McLeavy is a curator and writer who lives and works in Sheffield, UK. He is currently the Director of Bloc Projects, Sheffield and the founder and editor of YAC | Young Artists in Conversation. Previous positions have included being the Co-Director of the international residency and exhibition programme Picnic Picnic, Sheffield, Co-Founder of art and design focused clothing brand Curbar Cycling Apparel along with working on numerous independent curatorial projects. He was previously the chair of the board of trustees for Turf Projects, Croydon and currently sits on the Steering Group for Making Ways, a development project for artists and makers initiated by Sheffield Culture Consortium.

David began by demonstrating how his practice has shifted from being an artist, to an artist and curator, to what he now identifies as; a curator and writer.


He spoke about some of the works/projects that he has worked on, starting with his older work and moving onto his most recent activity with BLOC Projects.

YAC | Young Artists in Conversation was set up in October 2013 to provide critical conversations and interviews with the most exciting emerging artists currently working in the UK.

YAC now work with a growing team of writers who have the opportunity to interview the artists that they are interested in and to ask the questions that they want answering.

YAC continuously aims to provide critical and compelling interviews along with helping to uncover some of the emerging talent currently working in the UK. 

http://youngartistsinconversation.co.uk/

Work! Work! Work!, Primemover, Sheffield (Part of Art Sheffield 13 Parallel Projects programme)

This was a solo project in which David invented a new sport to be played in front of a live audience by artists from around the UK. He was interested in bringing people together in a kind of alternative networking event.




Funhaus, Toast, Manchester, 2014

This was a solo project by David McLeavy taking the work of an interactive re staging of the CITV children's television show Fun House.





Putt Putt #2, Turf Projects (offsite), Croydon, 2014


David worked with Alice Cretney to curate a group exhibition of new sculpture in which the work took the form of crazy golf holes of varying difficulty. Participating artists were AV CO-OP, Natalie Finnemore, Iain Hales, Holly Hendry, Nicolas Henninger, Mark Scott-Wood, W A V E Y B O Y Z, WELCHWHITAKER and Liz West.


Picnic Picnic, Sheffield, 2015

Along with Pippa Cook, David was the co-founder of Picnic Picnic; a year long, fully funded international artist residency programme and contemporary art exhibition. Artists from around Europe were invited to live and work in a house in Sheffield resulting in public exhibitions of their work.

Along with exhibitions and events by Internationally renowned artists, Picnic Picnic also presented a series of exhibitions of regional artists work based around a number of current themes.


Bloc Projects

Bloc Projects is an artist-led project space in the centre of Sheffield, UK, which presents exhibitions, events, residencies, exchange projects and educational activities. Established in 2002, the organisation provides a platform for early-mid career artists, encouraging experimentation, collaboration across disciplines and critical dialogue among artists, audiences and partners in the city and further afield.

The Bloc Projects Open Residency provides audiences with a unique perspective on how artists work. By turning the gallery space into a working studio and inviting the public to engage in open conversation, the Open Residency programme aims to break down the formal barriers between artist and audience.

Bloc Projects’ Test Bed series is focused on providing artists with a publicly facing gallery space to experiment with new approaches, and techniques and to engage with audiences in new ways.

A lot can happen in a day - performance

The evening  performance session provided a natural close for the one-day workshop.

Having spent the morning reading and discussing the publication, A lot can happen in fifteen minutes, in the reading group, the afternoon spoken word workshop focussed on how to transform words that exist on a page into a spoken word performance. The group developed a spoken word performance using one of the texts within the publication as a starting point.

                             













I began the evening by providing a brief introduction to the publication and an overview of the workshop. I performed a version of 'As planned', one of the texts in the publication that the group chose to work with, and this was closely followed by the group performing what we had worked on during the afternoon workshop. 

















A question and answer session then followed, and the audience were very generous in offering feedback and comments.



Question included 

What were your motivations for writing?
How did this work develop out of your Masters studies?
How did your family react to being written about?

I ended the event by performing another of the texts within the publication, The flat was in sight. 

It seems that the workshop and performance event were really positive experiences, both for myself, the workshop members and the audience. I would like to thank all that were involved, including Alice and Sophie from Turf Gallery and Katharine from Disobedient films for documenting the day. Many thanks also to those who attended the workshop and the performance.

My publication can be purchased at Turf Projects or online http://unstapledpress.bigcartel.com/product/a-lot-can-happen-in-fifteen-minutes

A lot can happen in a day - Spoken Word Workshop

The second part of my workshop at Turf Projects was a Spoken Word workshop. Leading on from the Reading Group in the morning session, I gave the group a number of options about the dirrection they wanted the workshop to take. Given that the group would be performing the outcome of the session, they decided that they were most interested in using the text within the publication as a starting point (as opposed to writing their own text), and thinking about how to reinterpret it and deliver it as a spoken word performance.



The text chosen for the performance was called 'As planned', and it was written in two columns, with each column suggesting a different character. It had previously been performed by two people, each of whom read one column of the text.





The group reinterpreted the text and identified there being four characters - a father figure, a mother figure, the subject, the internal thoughts of the subject.



We began by taking each sentence and identifying which character was speaking.





Most of the text remained the same as the original, but we did change the tense used by the internal thoughts of the subject.



Once we had identified the different characters, we tested out assigning different roles to different people in the group.



After some experimentation, we agreed on the line up for the performance. 

The natural interpretation was that the subject was younger than the father and mother figure, so we decided to mix that up and use one of the older members of the group to perform the character of the subject.





We then tested out the positioning of the performers in relation to the audience.



We decided where the audience would sit and set out the seating as it would be for the performance. 

We positioned one of the characters (the internal thoughts of the subject) amongst the audience so as to differentiate it from the other characters.



We filmed ourselves rehearse and re-watched the footage so as to identify any habits that were problematic or ways that the performance could be improved.

A lot can happen in a day - reading group

One of the galleries selling my publication, A lot can happen in fifteen minutes is Turf Projects, the first entirely artist-run contemporary art space in Croydon, South London.



Turf Projects are a charity organisation working to support the development of artists, curators and the public through an ambitious programme of free exhibitions, workshops and events.



Established by creatives with a personal connection to the borough, Turf now comprises; a gallery space exhibiting work from emerging & established artists; an artists workspace & events space; and an affordable studio provision for artists & makers.



In an attempt to prompt dialogue and discussion about the themes raised in my publication, to get feedback from readers about my publication, and to think of new ways of presenting the text within the publication, I developed a workshop to take place at Turf Projects in their Workspace and event space.



The workshop was broken down into three separate, but linked, sections. The reading group in the morning was an opportunity for the group to discuss the content of the publication. The group read a number of the texts; sometimes the same text was read, but by different people. This highlighted the different ways in which the same material can be interpreted.



We tried reading some of the texts as a group, and others we read just by one person. We spoke about the difference between reading them aloud and silently. I was reassured by the extent to which people related to the content within the publication. Although the texts refer to highly personal experiences, they have aspects that resonate with others due to the overarching emotions or themes.

A lot can happen in a day! - Reading Group, Spoken Word Workshop & Performance with Helen Shaddock

A lot can happen in a day

Reading Group, Spoken Word Workshop and Performance with Helen Shaddock

Saturday 22nd July 2017

11am - 8pm



TURF Projects

Gallery, Workspace & Studios

Keeley Road

Croydon

CR0 1TF




FREE!

Booking required

DESCRIPTION

READING GROUP (1.5 – 2 hours approx.) 11am-1:00pm

The reading group will focus on the publication, ‘A lot can happen in fifteen minutes’, and will include a question and answer session with artist Helen Shaddock.


WRITING & SPOKEN WORD WORKSHOP 2-5pm

Participants will engage in writing and spoken word exercises, and develop a text in relation to some of the themes discussed in the reading group. Working individually or in groups, participants will develop a spoken word performance based on their own writing or using a text from the ‘A lot can happen in fifteen minutes’ publication.


SPOKEN WORD PERFORMANCE EVENING 6-8pm

In the evening, members of the Spoken Word workshop will present individual and/or group spoken word performances that were developed during the day’s workshop.



To register for the event (ideally all day, but the different aspects can be attended separately), visit

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-lot-can-happen-in-a-day-reading-group-spoken-word-workshop-performance-with-helen-shaddock-tickets-35460169321


https://www.facebook.com/events/242095779609157/?acontext=%7B%22ref%22%3A%2222%22%2C%22feed_story_type%22%3A%2222%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22null%22%7D&pnref=story

For more information please contact Helen Shaddock

http://www.helenshaddock.co.uk/contact/index.php