Body Brain Bingo

A PRACTICE AS RESEARCH PROJECT INVESTIGATING INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATIONS BETWEEEN ACADEMICS, ARTISTS AND ACTIVISTS TOWARDS PROJECTS ADDRESSING MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEIN

The Artist in the Library

Through the course of this paper I seek to intertwine a story of my own creative relationship with libraries with accounts of artists’ work, including the work of my students. My goal is to articulate the ways in which artists work with, in, and on libraries and in doing this to define features of a library aesthetic. It is impossible, writing in London in 2016, to ignore the dire context for UK public libraries. Reductions in local government funding have resulted in widespread disregard by local authorities to their responsibilities under the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act – their statutory duty to provide a ‘comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons to make use thereof’. (Culture, Media and Sport Committee 2012, online) Cuts to library services continue apace [{note}]1. Writers, poets, artists and authors add their pleas to the protests against closures [{note}]2, but go largely unheeded. The idea of defining a library aesthetic might seem futile in the face of this austerity drive, but through my analysis of such an aesthetic, I hope to explore the potential of artworks to highlight and extend our understanding of its possibilities

Creative space; or is there room for creativity? : an evaluation of the module 'Visual Research Methods'

This paper builds upon a curriculum evaluation and development project that focused on an individual module within the Foundation Degree (FDA) in Interior Design at London Metropolitan University in 07/08. The project was entitled "Creative space; or is there room for creativity? An evaluation of Visual Research Methods (DE1F01C)" and was initiated at a point of change in the course - the transition from HND to FDA. This shift brought new requirements, context and focus that demanded an overhaul of the existing curriculum. The concern was that the demands of the new programme risked an approach to curriculum that focused on measurable skills and competencies neglecting key 'soft' skills and space for the development of students as individual creative practitioners. The process of the evaluation raises issues that are relevant in a broader context in terms of the role of Foundation Degrees within Higher Education both as completion level qualifications and as progression routes

She Walked to Sculpt, Interlope, Wrap, Lick & Squeeze Into Space

This collaboration of images and words began as an online exchange during the UK’s third lockdown period in early 2021, responding directly to the ‘New Poetics of Space’ conference . At home Hind and Qualmann pondered on a heap of words that related to the places they intended to walk as soon as the stay-at-home restrictions lifted. The words: erosion, desire, planning, plotting, fear, cold, intention, discomfort, conjuring, and sensation were prompts to think creatively and imaginatively about the sites planned for performance, as a provocation on bodies, language, and the place of women in the natural and urban environment

Wander, Score

An international performance installation developed from a week-long residency wandering the local area close to Kestle Barton in collaboration with the Kansas City Arts Institute, MO, USA. This is a live performance of braided dramaturgy looking how walking can inspire creative writing and performance – working with Words that interweave with images, movement and objects to configure and re-configure routes, and reflect upon women in the landscape, walking and creativity. This project builds on Claire and Clare’s collaborative practice around their concept of the Wander Score, together with invitations, instructions and ideas for walking, and will include creative components and contributions from artists at the Kansas City Art Institute, MO, USA. This work was live streamed to the Kansas City Arts Institut

Ways to Wander the Gallery: Tate Modern

A 5 week workshop at Tate Modern on Walking Arts Practice led by the practices in Hind and Qualmann's book Ways to Wander. Each week makes connections between art works at Tate Modern, walking and experimental writing led by artists and researchers Claire Hind and Clare Qualmann. Investigate the relationship between walking and the page developing links with selected artworks and develop your own written walking language. Using Qualmann and Hind’s book Ways to Wander (2015) as a starting point you are invited to create a page for the next edition Ways to Wander the Gallery (for publication with Triarchy Press, 2018). Throughout the course expect durational walks, rule-based ambulatory experiences, micro-performances of the everyday, interventions and performance walking encounters. Wanders around Tate’s galleries include work from Bruce Nauman, Rebecca Horn, Charles Atlas, Hito Steyerl, Joseph Beuys, Janet Cardiff, Julie Mehretu and more. Wander the gallery and consider how we engage with art through walking and produce writing walks for spaces outside of the gallery inspired by artworks at Tate. Walks are complemented by experimental writing/drawing workshops that explore conceptual arts’ relationship to the score, (Fluxus scores, visual treatments, documentation as performance)

A Performative Talk: Ways to Wander the Gallery

Performative Talk with actions, readings and visual scores. Performed by Claire Hind and Claire Qualmann at Tate Modern, London. Context. In the summer of 2017, Claire Hind and Clare Qualmann led a series of workshops at Tate Modern looking at the relationship between walking, art, experimental writing and composition. They then invited each participant to create a page for Ways to Wander the Gallery. Ways to Wander the Gallery includes reflections on our relationship to the ‘consumption’ of art in the gallery space and the the artists’ pages which are each an invitation to readers to wander in the gallery and beyond. The book asks readers to reconsider their walked relationship with art. How playful and embodied can our wandering be in spaces that often make our feet ache? This is an invitation to try 25 different ways to wander in and well beyond the art gallery inspired by the work of artists Rebecca Horn, Bruce Nauman, Hito Steyerl, Janet Cardiff, Julie Mehretu and others. Claire Hind and Clare Qualmann will look at durational walks, rule-based ambulatory experiences, micro-performances of the everyday, interventions and performance walking encounters. They will also share examples of experimental writing and drawing through performance