Throwback: The Waiting Room - RUPTURE

 

The Ten Minute Session: The Initial Idea

I wanted to create The Ten Minute Session to get us all doing something creative, to bring a little joy and to spark some conversation in the mist of the Coronavirus lock down. Given that there is no time frame on this situation I have just tried to come up with as many different activities as possible, in the first instance I have around four weeks worth. Going forward I will continue to try and come up with new activities, however I am also open to revising some if an adequate amount of time had passed.


The Ten Minute Sessions consist of fun quick 10 minute activities - some arty ones, some mindful ones and are hosted across social media, with those joining in encouraged to shared their results. 

Search: #TheTenMinuteSession

I had tried to do these as ‘live activities’ around 6pm every day, from Monday 23rd March 2020. However, if participants could not in live, they are encouraged to add their contribution whenever they could!

I also wanted to develop this idea as the more I develop my art practice the more I see how important it is to me, for it be socially engaging. Activities like those feature in The Ten Minute Session allow me to explore this.

There are parallels with instructional art here, it is very much art-come-teaching, with tasks being set and participants completing them. This perhaps is not too unexpected, given that a lot of the activities I have included have been adapted from classroom delivery (albeit in most cases shortened considerably!).

The similarities do not stop there, as when planning these sessions I also used a basic session plan to keep the information consistent; topic title, instructions, resources needed* and developed accompanying handouts too.

*Given these activities are being designed to be completed in peoples homes I wanted to ensure that the  minimum amount of items where needed for each task; most only need pen and paper. Hopefully meaning that the activities are as accessible (and complete-able) as possible. 

The Ten Minute Session Topics

Week One

Intro to line drawing: Continuous Line

Yesterday
Scavenger hunt
Paper folding, make a secret teller
One challenge I have overcome today and how 
Doodle these images
Weekly Goal Setting

Week Two

Draw this
Intro to line drawing: blind line drawing
Word association
Paper folding, make a concertina
What is your daily routine
Automatic writing
Did you achieve your goal set 29th

Week Three

One thing you want to make time for this week
Draw straight lines
What have you done for yourself today, what can you do for yourself tomorrow
Portraits guess who
Share your self-care ideas
Drawing circles
Build the tallest tower 

Week Four

Non dominant hand drawing
One thing that is going well now, one thing to look forward to
Instructional art
Design a character
Share your self-care ideas
Double writing
Share a manta quote that keeps you going

However,  my initial plans changed around week one, as another blog asked me to provide them with ten minute activities. This opportunity would mean that more people would be able to access them.

More on that later!

My Current Artist Statement

My artistic practice explores the use of text and site, examining how the context of a site can change the reading of any given text and provides the cultural frame work for the art work to exist within. The work produced is usually temporary, drawing on notions of time and place, duration and mutability. This is echoed in the use of language, as that too is affected by these factors. Language changes depending on when and where it is exists, and the meaning of words is edited and changed as time passes. Nothing is fixed and my practice focuses very much on nowness.

One of the main processes which takes place within my practice is the playing with language, I will often use synonyms and antonyms. I enjoy breaking language and pushing it to its limits; whether this means the use of repetition or removal of text until the language no longer makes sense. The text used within my work varies: some works use found text, others are created by automatic means – the silliness of Dadaism draws me in. However, in both instances they depend on our shared public language and social facts. The everyday nature of language and its accessibility to audiences appeals to me.

The notion of audience/audiencing and community/communication are important to my practice, as the work exists outside of an art gallery context. Therefore, the viewers of the work may not necessarily be looking at it intentionally. To engage this everyman audience, I strive to make text choices which comment on life, rather than art. One of the main reasons I use text within my practice is because we have temporal relations with it and thus, even if the viewer does not reach the same interpretation as my intention, they are still engaging with it on some level. Time and place come into play here too, as the same text will be read differently by the same person if the text is placed in a new site. The text used within my practice is often vague and embraced the audience’s interpretations of the text and the loss of control over it, echoing Barthes feelings on the Death of the Author.

My practice lends itself to installation work, the usual criteria for sites used within my practice are the Duchampian unchoice. These territories appeal to me due to their usually overlooked presence.

My process swings between two opposing pillars; choosing text specifically fitting to sites and putting text into sites and allowing it to resonate. These are varying processes, however I find the process of both compelling, as either way a dialogical relationship will take place between the art and the site [and the audience]. Working within different sites appeals to me as each has their own specific limitation and these limits help to establish and frame the text.

My practice takes a DIY approach, again infused with Dadaism, as such I use materials which are often inexpensive and processes that are easily accessible. Simplisticity can rule and as such the text is curated into the site carefully.