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Her Master's Voice - The Open College of the Arts

To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.

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Her Master's Voice

The Studio of the Painter, a Real Allegory, 1855 (oil on canvas) (detail of 19190)

I’ve been working voluntarily for a famous artist.
The project is a large scale archival work being produced as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival and Generation programme. As a mature student and now graduate with multiple pressures on my time, I had to think long and hard about whether to take part at all.
The ethics of asking people to work with you or for you without pay are fraught. By and large, there is no excuse for it – if you want someone to give up their time, you must pay them. From the workers point of view however, there are lots of jobs that we do which have no monetary reward. Motherhood and studentship are two that feature heavily in my own life. Often these are the jobs that turn out to be the most rewarding, and with care it is possible to glean some amazing experiences from working in this way.
I decided that the artist in question had thought hard about what volunteer researchers for his archiving project might gain in learning and experience, and had come up with what could almost as easily be described as a short apprenticeship in his methodology.
He has been open and generous with his approach and ideas, and has built in an element of the project where contributing artists can develop their own art response and affiliate it to his.
As this artist works in a way which is directly relevant to my own emerging practice, it has been immediately functionally useful to spend time with him and to see how his work takes shape. He has been available to ask questions and given valuable insight into the higher echelons of an art world that I am futtling about in the corners of. Tea breaks are as educational as the project itself and by discussing ideas of shared interest I find myself learning from new perspectives in a way which is very different form formal studentship – much more of a dialogue.
Many OCA students answered artist Gillian Wearing’s call for contributions to her project ‘Your Views’ . Feedback from students of mine who took part found it pleasurable and interesting. Crucially, Wearing wasn’t asking for much and so it was easy enough for students to contribute and rewarding to feel part of a larger project.
To everyone who took part in my own ‘Dog Years’ project, I am in the process of relocating it to my website so that it is more accessible – and when that is done I will be opening it up to more artists to get involved. To anyone new to OCA or who missed it, Dog Years is an open gallery space for people to upload their drawings or paintings of their elderly dogs.
For anyone interested in working with a more established artist, or taking part in a participatory art work, I suggest you take a few moments to sign up to all the newsletters for your local galleries and studio spaces. Search for them online and subscribe – that way you will be the first to know about anything that is happening in your area.
Looking closer to home at collaborations, there have been several very fruitful collaborations amongst OCA students, particularly in photography. If you have been involved in a collaboration, please append a link to this blog. Perhaps the forum would be a better place to connect for new collaborations, but by all means append a link to forum threads for upcoming collaborative opportunities. Several OCA tutors work as part of collaborations and collectives as well as pursuing their personal practice. Michelle Whiting, for example, works with Linda Khatir as Quilos and the Windmill, as well as making work in her own name.
I recognise that some areas are better served than others for this kind of networking and opportunities. You might be surprised though if you start connecting and researching as to just what is in fact happening around you in the contemporary art world. If however you are, as I was before my urban relocation, really stuck on a rock in the Atlantic or similarly isolated, then perhaps Bill Bragg’s lyric is apposite ‘start your own revolution and cut out the middle man’…………….

Torsten Lauschmann – World Jump Day, 2006 (2012) from Torsten Lauschmann on Vimeo.
To finish, the above video is my favourite large scale participatory art project, by one of my favourite artists, Torsten Lauschmann. Enjoy.


Posted by author: Emma Drye

3 thoughts on “Her Master's Voice

  • Hi Emma,
    I think you’re right…volunteering to help out (as long as its balanced with other things) is a great way to think more deeply and learn some new perspectives.
    I’m currently contributing to a project called Second Moon
    http://www.secondmoon.org.uk
    Its an app created by an artist in Newcastle, which tracks the progress of a parcel containing a bit of moon rock as it circumnavigates the globe. On the app you get to see a satellite view of the earth (spherical), and you can also see where the real moon is, and where you are yourself. Then you can zoom in and get a close up satellite picture of these parts of the earth.
    My role (along with some other folk) is to fill in a daily diary for a month, with any ideas and thoughts that occur based on playing with the app. I’ve found it has made me think a lot about what it means to live on this planet, and also about how focused we are on our own little bubbles when there’s a whole vast universe out there!
    I think the musings of the participants will form part of the finished artwork, so in a way I am a co-creator 🙂
    For me this has been great because I’m very interested in the bridge between art and science (and philosophy) – so its gelled well with my own OCA study.
    Its also made me feel more connected to a real contemporary artists community – which is something I need to embrace as I get closer to graduation.
    And its fun!
    It was excellent that OCA connected a lot of us with the Gillian Wearing project, and I’d love to be told about more of these opportunities as a way to connect with more things in the contemporary art world.

    • I duly downloaded the app. It’s an interesting project, and I wonder how it will be displayed, including the musings, when it’s finished….
      In terms of thinking about what it means to live on this planet, and integrating a bigger picture into our view, you might like this link.
      https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10204864164988812
      I’m also intrigued by what art can do to reflect everything we now know about the universe and our 13.7 billion year journey to get here!

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