EXHIBITION
Mapping Collaboration: a participatory art project
18 – 21 February 2015 | 310 NXrd Gallery, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, UK
Mapping Collaboration is a participatory exhibition by Yvette Sullivan and myself that examines creative collaboration and the values of working together.
We are interested in how creative collaboration might be imagined from a shared creative community perspective, and how our values for collaboration could be visually expressed, incorporated and mapped. Using the DeleuzoGuattarian rhizome as a structural/non-structural metaphor to explore the non-hierarchical nature of shared experience and collaboration, we hope to map and document contributions to a collective visualisation of the shifting visual impressions and representations of values, process and priorities for creative collaboration.
During the exhibition, a central space will be allocated to the collective and participatory building of a dimensional rhizomatic structure to create a visualisation of collaborative values as seen by the community and with the aim of mapping, documenting and informing collaborative encounters.
Mapping Collaboration forms part of an on-going international collaborative creative research partnership. The installation itself is conceived as an invitation extended to the CAL/Goldsmiths community, as well as the broader community, to actively participate in the collaborative themes of the proposed exhibition. The project goals are mapping and informing existing discourse surrounding the nature of creative collaborative acts, processes and values through visual and participatory means.
In this sense, the collective rhizome installation will be an invitation for the community to participate through contributing to the sculptural map based on their own perceptions of creative collaboration. Participants will be given the opportunity to select from a variety of colour-coded chenille sticks each representing different collaborative themes and values, and can also assign their own priorities and experiences to colours. These coloured flexible sticks form dimensional additions to the growing rhizome, as participants connect their contribution and add to the installation as they see fit. Through this interaction, the rhizomatic map builds in colour, shape, size and focus – its growth and pulse also captured through drawing and stop motion imagery.
Please see the Mapping collaboration site for a copy of the catalogue, featuring an introduction by CAL Curator of Social Practices, Dr Tara Page.
mappingcollaboration.blogspot.com.au
www.gold.ac.uk/cal/310nxrd
