The second annual Freelands Artist Programme Symposium was held online and brought together the second cohort of artists currently participating in the programme, along with the four partner organisations: g39, Cardiff; PS², Belfast; Site Gallery, Sheffield and Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, as well as Freelands Foundation and members of the public. Titled, The Skies Will Rearrange Themselves, the symposium drew upon writer and activist Audre Lorde’s 1981 observation, ‘until I got spectacles when I was four I thought trees were green clouds.’ Symposium workshops, screenings, lectures and audio mappings encouraged participants to engage in a series of discussions where individual viewpoints were shared to collectively imagine things differently. The programme explored interconnected approaches and models of artistic practice alongside institutional programming, to reflect on current models and reimagine new ways of working.
On each of the five days of the programme participants could choose from three separate strands of content to curate their own schedule. Streaming Channel 1 consisted of lectures, workshops and panel discussions; Streaming Channel 2 covered performance, screening and audio, and Streaming Channel 3 was a live stream of Open Studios presented by the second cohort of artists on the Freelands Artist Programme.
Curator and writer George Vasey opened the symposium with ‘A brief guide to interdependent curating’, in which he spoke from a personal perspective of his experience of working between small and large-scale organisations. The talk shed light on his working processes and reflected on his move from being an artist, to being a curator and writer, and expanded on the various ways that he supports artists through teaching, mentoring, commissioning and editing.
The second session of the week was the first of the Open Studios, which were held each day at lunchtime and hosted by Catriona Whiteford. The Open Studios proved to be a highlight of the programme and allowed symposium participants to discuss their practice, share new work, begin to approach conversations with one another and to draw parallels in their practice.
The first evening session further developed this conversational approach by pairing up artists on this year’s Programme in a series of online breakout rooms. This activity was inspired by the pairings that curator Edward Ball programmed in the first Freelands Artist Programme Symposium in 2020, which provided entry points for the artists to explore potential collaborations and connections across the programme and across different cities.
A series of audio sessions took place at 5pm each day during the symposium. These were livestreamed from one of the five cities using Locusonus Soundmap software to create a geo-audio map, which captured the sounds of different urban environments across the partner cities. These one-hour sessions acted as audio walks for cross-city immersion and allowed participants to step away from the screen and connect via the local soundscape.
On the evening of Tuesday 10 November, the symposium held two events beginning with a screening of the film Shouting in Whispers (2017) by artist Helen Cammock. This collaged film work uses open access online film clips to ask questions about personal responsibility, empathy and action. Moments in history knock up against each other to ask how, when and why people take a stand, resist, challenge, protect or protest.
This screening was followed by ‘Examining the Social in Practice’, an event in which participating artists, partner organisations and the public were invited to attend an online Panel Discussion with Alistair Hudson (Director, Whitworth and Manchester Art Gallery), artist Jacqueline Donachie and chaired by Catriona Whiteford. Alistair and Jacqueline both presented on their experiences of working within the parameters of social practice and then opened this up into a broad discussion on the topic, followed by a live Q&A with the audience.
As part of the performance strand of the symposium, dancer, choreographer and writer Lenio Kaklea presented a lecture entitled Practical Encyclopaedia, in which she discussed her research into the complexities of what she describes as ‘the European Experience’ through the language of the body and lived experience. Kaklea is interested precisely in how we perform the ordinary activities of daily life, such as washing dishes, shopping or cleaning. Her Practical Encyclopaedia (2016) is a work based on around 600 interviews that she compiled over nine months, and from which she generates performances. This lecture was also chaired by Catriona Whiteford and followed by a Q&A with the audience via webinar chat.
The final day of the symposium began with a workshop session that focused on what it means to shape a network and to discuss what a Freelands Artist Programme Alumni could look like. Artists from the first cohort of the programme, along with selected staff from Freelands Foundation and partner institutions, discussed life after the programme.
To close this year’s annual symposium Freelands Foundation presented three short films by artist Rebecca Salvadori called Rave Trilogy (2019). The films, which portray the unique forms of intimacy found in club culture and explore the current absence of raves, felt like a fitting closing event for a symposium held during social restrictions in the year 2020.
Special thanks go to session facilitators Angelica Sule, Chris Brown, Alissa Kleist, Ruth Morrow, Tessa Giblin, Stuart Fallon, Ian Watson, Sian Williams and Peter Mutschler.
Banner image: Helen Cammock, Shouting in Whispers (still), film, 2017. Courtesy of Helen Cammock and LUX London