some thoughts on the first Open Lab, Birmingham
Let’s remind ourselves of our starting point for this project: ‘Intercultural dialogue has long been a principle supported by the European Union and its Institutions. The year 2008 was designated “European Year of Intercultural Dialogue” by the European Parliament and the Member States of the European Union. It aims to draw the attention of people in Europe to the importance of dialogue within diversity and between diverse cultures.
Prior to finding a venue for the Open Laboratory sessions, we examined the content that we had gathered from a mix of people (of different age ranges) through specific workshops, discussions and informal chats in pubs, shops, buses and such like. These ‘interviews’ so to speak were designed to provoke a conversation rather than a straight response. This is not easily done. I found myself having to change my pitch and tone of voice to elicit conversations with strangers on a number of topics relating to diversity, sense of identity, community, migration and so on. My years of experience have taught me that people mostly talk openly and honestly when comfortable and, more importantly, when their opinions are expressed as they wish them to be. So one starting point of this project was to challenge ourselves as artists and examine our own assumptions about how we might create work in relation to this context of intercultural dialogue. (I am reminded of times when community artists stressed the importance of the process rather than the end product.)
It was advantageous for us to have a central location in Birmingham and after looking at a number of spaces; the Gallery at the Custard Factory seemed the most appropriate for its location and size. As part of the Open Laboratory we were hosting a group of Swedish artists (from Galleri 54 in Gothenburg), who were showing work and making new work in response to the space and locality. We had also arranged a series of open presentations by artists from Laundry, and other guests.
The ‘round table’ is a significant symbol in the project, as we wish to extend the art of conversation to individuals who work within particular social contexts, such as youth workers, policy makers, socially-engaged artists, and leaders from different faith groups. A ‘round table’ would appear to be more inclusive rather than the oblong feature of that we are accustomed to seeing in many meeting/board rooms around which the usual banter that occurs is usually debate, discussion and decision making (DDD) and has a hierarchal (and often patriarchal) structure – the head of the table, the chair, the facilitator. For us, a round table is an open space, where dialogue develops – it is not guided (or forced down) a particular path. Instead, it is allowed to grow, to evolve.
For each ‘round table’ we invite a small group of people (5 or six) who do not know each other. The brief to the participants is deliberately vague; there is no agenda presented. The intention was begin a conversation, simply by getting to know each other, and then ask them to discuss the topic of intercultural dialogue. (This session was not facilitated by Brendan or Beverley.) This ‘round table’ took place in the yurt installed in the gallery space. After a slow start, you could tell an animated conversation was well underway for over 2 hours. The participants said they could have stayed for another 2 hrs and it had been an enjoyable experience. The conversation was recorded so that parts of it may be used in future ‘round tables’ or creative workshops. There will be other ‘round tables’ in other venues during the progress of the project, and we see this as an informal advisory group, whose documented discussions and comments will influence the progress of the project.
The event opened on Thursday and the space was open to the public through Sunday night. It attracted an audience of over 200 people – about a third of that audience known to us, and the others were mainly people who did not usually attend artistic events. We found that very few people came in response to any advance publicity - despite sending out over 400 print flyers and considerably more electronic flyers. Some of these people came from the flea market held regularly on the weekends at the Custard Factory. However, this was a bonus as it enabled us to test our ideas out on a totally new (unknown) audience who had no preconception of what they had come to see – ‘I came in because it looked interesting,’ was a typical comment - and they engaged with the installation with fascination, curiosity and interest. This aided the art of conversation. The layout of the space, including placing a yurt as a central point of entry, lured people into the space and begin to converse with each other. Inside the yurt (on a small round table) were a series of envelopes, which contained a question that the audience member was invited to make a response to. As they examined the existing comments and statements (74 of them, printed as A3 size) hung at head height, the boxes of words and tantalising word games, the environment encouraged conversations and dialogues. It was interesting to see the room go from response to conversation, especially on the chalked boards placed alongside one of the walls in the gallery space.
Galleri54 also created a live performance event, using text based on a response to the broadcast on a local radio station on the Thursday night (see banner image).
During the period of the event, the weather in Birmingham was horrendous and one does wonder if this had an impact on attendance.
From our perspective, the venue had some practical problems around lack of heating (in a spell of very cold weather) and competing events (a sound check in the courtyard outside which drowned out one presentation) which we were not made aware of at the time of booking, but having a large empty space to play with was useful in testing out some of our ideas for engaging with people. It helped us define a series of creative activities, which are both low-tec and easily transportable, and we will use again.
Using the wealth of responses and conversations, we took key elements of the installation to Poland, where we ran workshops at Warsaw University around the art of engaging and connecting with communities. We began these workshops with the conversations that we had captured from the Open Lab sessions. We then used these at the start of a formal presentation of Laundry to an group of with international practitioners in Sejny.
So, as I write, this process evolves and the conversation has begun. People do want to speak, they do want to ask, and providing the right environment is created we can learn and share this, and break down the vacuum of conversational oppression that has been created by political correctness. I remember one comment in particular: ‘in the UK we are now so afraid to offend anyone that we don’t say anything at all and we have created a culture of silence.’
(Big thanks to Geoff Broadway and Bobby Bird for assisting yurt installation!)
