Lancashire to Lahore 15 - Publication 'INSPIRE'

Through a series of skills-based workshops, cultural sharing and the development of an understanding of socially engaged arts practice, the project culminated in a three- day arts exhibition and symposium called ‘International Networks & Local Landscapes’. With delegates from Pakistan, London and Texas the three-day event included an art exhibition ‘Right Here – Right Now’, a presentation at UCLan and a symposium in a derelict mill in East Lancashire

INSPIRE

Through a series of skills-based workshops, cultural sharing and the development of an understanding of socially engaged arts practice, the project culminated in a three- day arts exhibition and symposium called ‘International Networks & Local Landscapes’. With delegates from Pakistan, London and Texas the three-day event included an art exhibition ‘Right Here – Right Now’, a presentation at UCLan and a symposium in a derelict mill in East Lancashire

Social art as material and process: Towards a new method and ethos for social art

This thesis presents an argument for the existence of unidentified materials utilised by social artists, including chance and often serendipitous encounters with people, environment, and place, which play a critical role in social art. I emphasise the need for a new ethical-social aesthetic model founded on a more comprehensive understanding of the materiality that comprises social art. My contribution to the field reveals the potential of such materiality in the three new artworks and developing a model of creative participatory approaches to art-making. By recognising this potential of seemingly insignificant things and ephemera, I explore a new model of aesthetics within my social art practice that influences the direction of the creative process and, ultimately, the form of the artworks. Through a closer examination of the nuances of social art practice, this thesis presents a fresh perspective on the potential of social art materials. This thesis investigates a new aesthetic in social art practice rooted in a more productive relationship between hylomorphic and morphogenetic qualities (as discussed by Tim Ingold, 2013). To accomplish this, I draw upon Grant Kester's dialogical aesthetics (2004), Tim Ingold's binary approaches to making (2013), Erin Manning's potential of minor gestures (2016), and Yuriko Saito's familiar aesthetics (2017). To undertake this exploration, I reflect on and analyse field notes and personal diary entries from my involvement in creating three new social artworks (two interactive sculptures and a film) 'The Gentlemen's Wardrobe' (2016), 'Time Machine' (2017) and '[birdsong]' (film, 2019). Additionally, I conduct participatory observation in two internationally recognised social art projects: Rick Lowe's Project Row Houses, Texas (1995 - ongoing) and Suzanne Lacy's ‘Shapes of Water - Sounds of Hope’ (2016 - 17) in my local neighbourhood of Pendle, Lancashire

Brief Encounters: A Walk Around Canterbury with an Old Polaroid Camera and Some Out of Date Film

In The Critique of Everyday Life (Vol. II) Henri Lefebvre distinguishes moments from the everyday, and suggests that the precursors to such moments “are there in embryonic form, but it is difficult to make them out with any clarity.”1 Lefebvre’s “moments” hold value and spring forth from everyday life only to fail, ultimately fading away and returning us back to everyday-ness. It is the embryos of those moments that I am interested in revealing for this short paper. Using an extract from my personal journal, made while the experience was still fresh in my mind, and together with samples of instant photographs, I will attempt to pin down some of the “partial moments” I encountered during a walk around Canterbury in Kent

Lancashire to Lahore 3 - Publication 'Lahore - Chandigarh'

A 'strait' road is an artificial line. William Titley's photographs take us through the meanderings of city spaces where people carve out roads of humanity in an organic, self-organising weaving and bobbing to and fro, at once directed yet directionless, an interconnected mass of relationships that meet, connect and are gone again, on another thread of the urban complex, still joined but elsewhere

Lancashire to Lahore

INSPIRE : International Strategic Partnerships in Research and Education The product of a month long residency at The National College of Arts (Lahore) in 2008 (funded by the Juliet Gomperts Trust in collaboration with The Beaconshouse National University (Lahore). The project exchanged artworks on the theme of 'This is England' and 'This is Pakistan', and was exghibited in both countries at academic and local community venues

The Time Machine - A performative lecture for The Asia Triennial Manchester 2018

This was a performative lecture titled ‘IT’S AN ILLUSIVE, SLIPPERY SOMETHING. ME TODAY YOU TOMORROW, A FICKLE FRIEND. WE, AS IN ME AND I AS IN YOU. A REPETITIVE YET SLIGHTLY OUT OF EARSHOT RHYTHM OF BECOMING.’ It was performed to a backdrop of 16 Vinyl records all playing simultaneously. A paper delivered at a conference for the Asia Triennial 2010 at The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester

‘Community, Environment and Place – 10 Years of In-Situ’

‘It is not only In-Situ’s position as a bricks-and-mortar venue in the heart of the community which qualifies it as being embedded.” On the occasion of In-Situ’s 10th anniversary, co-founder William Titley reflects on the organisation’s mission to embed art into everyday life...

Lancashire to Lahore 10 - Exhibition 'Lahore Vs Chandigarh'

An installation of 200 photographs (A3 C-Type Prints) - 100 from Lahore Pakistan and 100 from Chandigarh India. Exhibited on campus at Lancaster University in collaboration with arts organisation LICA. -------- A dialogical investigation and visual comparison of the two Panjabi cities of Lahore, Pakistan and Chandigarh in India. Chandigarh was built to replace the loss of the Capital of the Panjab (Lahore, after Partition) and was created using Masterplanning approaches to urban development and modernist ideals. The project aims to open communication channels between the two neighbouring countries using art as a catalyst for conversation