Project BUD is an exciting new artists’ exchange and residency program between the Dublin arts agency Blue Drum and a St. Louis arts collaboration. Artists will be working within communities to investigate and visualize regeneration in neighborhoods in Ireland and in St. Louis. St. Louis partners include The Allen Avenue Transitional Program community collabARTive at Peter & Paul Community Services, UMSL Irish American Studies, SIU-Edwardsville, Craft Alliance, and Dressel’s Public House. Special thanks to the Regional Arts Commission.
Summer 2010
July 2011
Summer 2010
Project BUD: A Playground for Ideas
From my perspective, as an artist that's interested in where people live, it's about the possibility of long-term value that places would produce in a family and community.” R. Lowe (Project Row Houses)
Background:
In 2010, Blue Drum issued an Open Call to artists, urban designers, creative and community workers to engage with and invent a process that would re-imagine the physical and cultural environment around the Northside Shopping Centre. Blue Drum saw this call as an invitation to create an “open space for inventors, a playground for ideas.” At this stage, the emphasis was on volunteering with the provision that limited resources (e.g. office space, administration, etc.) could be offered by Blue Drum. Simultaneously, Blue Drum initiated Artizen, a week long autumn school for “ideas about participatory arts, creative citizenship and community building”.
They also were clear that whilst they and their partner organisations would provide real supports for Project Bud they did not want to be the drivers of this project. Rather their mission is to stimulate the overall creative power of the Northside, emphasising the importance of a diverse ecology of individual artists, local organisations, businesses, and hobbyists who can contribute to the physical and cultural life of the Northside.
In parallel, and following visits by Roseann Weiss and Con Christeson from St. Louis‘s Community Arts Training Institute to Dublin, an idea emerged about whether Project BUD could be the platform for an international artists exchange programme between artists in Dublin and St. Louis that focuses on regeneration through art process i.e. visual art, story, memory and mapmaking, participatory process etc.
Introduction
Conversations have contined since 2009 about how artists, families and communities might be more meaningfully involved in re-imagining and re-developing the Northside. Out of these processes have emerged two strands:
Strand One involves a core group of two visual artists and one urban planner formed to become the Northside Project Bud Collective, with resource to a wider group of 8 more people (whose skills include: film, radio, animation, sculpture, and web) on a per project basis. The Collective also has, as advisers, administrative support and vital community contacts. sculpture, and web) on a per project basis, with administrative support from Blue Drum, and further resource supports from partner organisations. The Project Leaders and the main drivers of this collective are: Carol Kavanagh (visual artist), Eleanor Phillips (visual artist) and Neil O’Flanagan (urban planner).
Strand Two involves a planning group/consortium from St. Louis including Peter and Paul Community Services (fiscal agent), the Regional Arts Commission (Roseann Weiss), Craft Alliance (Boo McLaughlin) UM St. Louis Irish American Studies Chair (Eamonn Wall), Shelley Goebl-Parker (SIU Edwardsville), Ed Carroll (Blue Drum, Dublin), and Con Christeson (managing artist, community collabARTive) now working to realise the creatives exchange in Dublin (Spring 2011) and St. Louis (Fall 2011). The artists identified from St. Louis are Con Christeson and Robert Longyear, while the artists from Dublin are not yet in the picture.
The relationship between these two strands is quite simple. Strand One provides a new context for the artists to work within (Dublin et al) who in turn may inform the process of a return residency (St. Louis).
Overview
Project Bud is envisioned as having three stages:
Seed (2011), Grow (2012) and Harvest (2013).
Seed will involve the initiation of a two-phase arts initiative in 2011.
July 2011
As imagined and promised over the last year, Project BUD began its pilot programming for the FRC’s in June 2011.
1)The Clann Resource Center in Ougtherard, Co Galway was host to Con Christeson who facilitated:
+ two workshops with children exploring self-image and portrait and producing artist trading cards that will be collectable and tradable among the young artists.
+ an all-day workshop with women who represented three generations. Using the metaphor of mapping, color, and texture, the participants explored memory and life story in small groups, combining and distilling words and images into a collective ‘map’, and then sharing it with the larger group.
+ a morning gathering of shared ‘pass-around’ drawings that, combined with written and spoken words, were the catalyst of more storytelling and sharing. This will become the basis for an ongoing weekly group that encourages preservation of personal memory and intergenerational process.
Con traveled next to the Tacu Resource Center in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo and their new and beautiful space. This facility boasts an art room full of light and space. The workshops for this space included:
+ work with 7-12 year old girls using drawing, photography, and reflection to create self-portraits.
+ a session with women [and one brave man] who thought they came to paint but enjoyed writing stories and capturing memory in mind maps.
+ several of the above returned the next day to continue the mapping project and share stories and experiences of the local community with several teens.
Toward the end of her stay, Con visited the Balliboden FRC in Tallaght, hosted by Jean Bates and Imelda who were participants in the Initiators Weekend Retreat sponsored by Blue Drum the previous weekend at Glencree, Co Wicklow. Jean and Imelda shared a history and tour of their facility and were interested to explore and discuss how they could work with Blue Drum and Project BUD to support young women and children, the men of the estate, and the possibility of using art process to design and build a playground on a nearby vacant lot. Jean has been invited [and is exploring with her director at the FRC] to be part of Project BUD and come to St. Louis in the Fall 2011 with Eleanor Phillips.
Quality relationships were established in three FRC’s by the artist and the staff and its constituencies. Seeds were planted that will lead to thoughtful programming and an expanded sense of what is possible with art in community. Feedback regarding outcomes and next steps is necessary. Connections between the FRC’s is also a possibility and would be valuable in reporting to the FSA for future program funding.
2) Robert Longyear and Alicia LaChance established a residency in Dublin for three weeks. Their visit overlapped with Con’s. Con, Eleanor Phillips, and Neal ??? were able to oversee and facilitate their research and practice re: regeneration in the context of the Northside Shopping Center. A view of this residency from Con’s perspective:
· They were able to initiate, engage, and experience Irish culture in/around Dublin in a variety of out- of- the- way contexts, across age and economic barriers as is documented in their filming.
· They lived with an Irish family
· They visited several institutions e.g. Fatima Mansions in Rialto, Mayfield Arts (in Cork), Cadbury Chocolate, and had significant contact with the Traveller community through the Priorswood Outreach Center.
· They successfully engaged neighborhood/citizen’s groups interested in Northside regeneration (specifically the group who have been lobbying the city council to keep the pool open).
· They planned and executed an event at the Northside Shopping Center that included several ‘pieces’ or ‘elements’ including a very large beach ball installed in the pool, a text installation on the floor, a spoken word piece.
Challenges included:
· Short timeline was a challenge in planning event
· Quality of presentation and connection to meaningful audience
· Communication with programmers
Strengths included:
· Energy and enthusiasm and willingness to push boundaries, ask questions.
· Documentation
Recommendations/Questions:
· Clear focus on research practice, documentation, and reflection
· How will this project add to/inform your practice?
· How do you plant the seeds of regeneration in a very short time?
· Should civic engagement be a focus? I.e. political/social activism
· Theme development: memory/narrative history. How does art unblock these? How does it encourage people to connect and understand more?
