(what happened to the balloons)

When I proposed the ARB in September 2008, I had just completed a work called Skymirror. The work comprised 2000 solar lights laid out on a hillside in the shape of the constellation of Pegasus.

Of course, one of the really big questions was what effect human weathering would have on the piece - it created a lot of tension. Some people were worried that the layout would be changed but we were quite keen that this would happen.  However we were all nervous that a concerted effort might result in the whole thing being destroyed – perhaps even before the opening night!

In the event, the work stayed virtually untouched. There was very little theft and a few changes which we really felt were more people engaging with the work than vandalism – although others disagreed.

This came at the end of the summer off the back of installing Luke Jerram’s Street Pianos in London, Blackburn and Burnley and Belfast. Street Pianos is a simple but very successful work which places pianos in the street for the public to play.  It has the similar tensions. How will the pianos be looked after? Inevitably you encounter loads of naysayers when you install the pianos. Inevitable some are weathered by both humans and the elements. But the crucial questions is whether this prevents Street Pianos from being a clever and successful work. I would argue not.

Previously we’d been in the same position wondering whether our tented silhouettes at the Big Chill would survive (which they did). And in Flashlight, most of the lanterns were taken by the end of the night – which made the clearing up process very quick and easy!

I think this raises a really interesting question about what happens to work when it’s left in public or open space as a result of people being there and how people interpret this as interaction, damage, vandalism.

At the time of proposal, it seemed that this would be a critical question to know more about in terms of moving my practice forward – it seemed that as we scaled our work up and up, the potential impacts would become more severe and risk damaging the work more.

I felt that it would put us in a far stronger position to be able to got to funders with some answers.

Since then, however, there have been two key changes.

1. My practice has shifted a little. The great news is that things have really taken off and have some very large scale projects running until the end of September. But with this has come a broadening of scope. I’m excited about this and feel that it’s of huge benefit. Major projects on the cards are now – work in a special school, another Skymirror installation, a community focussed installation, a mixed arts performance piece with young people.
2. The balloon experiment in West Bromwich in November demonstrated an issue with the small scale method I’d proposed to evaluate Human Weathering. It doesn’t test the issues of scale on the impact of Human Weathering. Steal a single balloon and 20% of each installation was taken!  In the event, all the balloons were taken within an hour and little was proved.

My feeling was that, perhaps, the focus of my ARB should change to reflect both these circumstances. An email exchange and conversation with lead artist Scott Farlow really helped crystalise these thoughts.

It’s a really important part of my practice that I can continue to grow and take on larger and larger projects. To do this, I need to be able to look back and learn from and take inspiration from project that I’ve done – and prove it.

I’m still really interested in Human Weathering as a concept and think it’s still part of my practice, but feel that the evaluation needs to be much broader than that.

My proposal then is to evolve my ARB to become a project to create a framework which I can use to evaluate my work. This would be an ongoing process. I’d see the ARB as only covering the creation of the first draft. It would be interesting to see if I can use the framework evaluate itself!! I’d propose extending the ARB a little so that I can try the framework out and continue to develop it over the next few projects. I think that real-world evaluation would be the most effective.

I was invited to take part in a Creative Partnerships project in January and February.  It wasn’t something I’d done before and I was really excited to be involved.

The project ran in two Cheshire schools looking at the enquiry questions:

• How, and in what ways can a creative exploration of the local natural environment support a yr1 class to develop an understanding of diversity?
• How, and in what ways can music and dance develop a yr1 class’ understanding of diversity?

Year 1s are about aged 5.  What, I wondered, would diversity mean to a 5 year old?  Working with the lead artist, we decided to tackle the project by exploring similarities and differences.  Baselining activities in both the schools indicated that the childrens’ sense of their own culture was limited and heavily focussed on TV shows.  For the project to be successful we needed to start by reinforcing cultural references and a sense of identity.  Only then, we felt, would the children be able to understand, appreciate and value a culture other than their own.

And how succinctly sum this approach up.  Elaine Speight already had the word.  Placemaking!

So, let’s put some ideas to the test!

I began by thinking about what I could arrange in public space  and thought that balloons might be a good option.  I didn’t want to use light – particularly because I needed to work in the daytime – and who doesn’t love balloons?

And so it was.  Exactly a year after Ffosfforescence, I was back trawling the party shops of Manchester for latex bargains.  They’re not all that cheap it turns out – but I was excited to find out how easy it was to buy helium which I had always assumed was available only to bone-fide childrens’ entertainers.

Collaborating with the other members of the bursary, we made a series of tags to go on the balloons with instructions such as ‘take me home’ or ‘put me somewhere else’ to see whether people would read them and how they would be interpreted.  The balloons were arranged in clusters and left in West Bromwich town centre.

I want to better understand the tensions created by putting works of art into public space.

I create landscape interventions and work on a large scale. Everything I create must be left outside and at the mercy of not only the elements but also the public. I separate my audience into three types:

1. visitors and passers by who specifically come to see or who stumble across work and, in a tradition sense, look to engage with it as an art-piece

2. those who don’t interpret work as art but who’s attention is grabbed anyway

3. those who are apathetic or dislike the work and are maybe even offended by its presence

The presence of any members of these groups can impact work – changing from how it was when it was first installed. Visitors and passers by may wear it out by inadvertently bumping into it, others may want to take away a souvenir, some may actively seek to destroy. I work a lot with light and have found that people are very attracted to things that glow!

I want people to engage with my work and consider all responses to be valid forms of engagement. However from the audience’s point of view, these different forms may conflict with each other. I would like to know more about how these tensions can be resolved.

I often seek voluntary help from communities to help with construction. Working in public space creates a good opportunity to do this and allow helpers to move from one audience group to another. However it also raises the possibility that a group seeing ownership of something, will subsequently see it ‘damaged’ by someone else.

I think that it’s possible to become preoccupied with stopping work being damaged. It’s my firm belief that artists and commissioners should take these risks. I don’t think it’s inevitable that work is damaged in public space. As artists, we should strive to create works which incorporate this risk and function in spite of it.

We’re quite comfortable with degradation or change when it’s attributable to wind, rain or shine – or even exhaust fumes.  Blackened limestone or the patina on a copper surface is accepted as giving a works gravitas and a sense of place.  And if that’s not OK, there’re laquer and paint and porticos.  We’ve spent centuries developing ever more sophisticated methods of delaying nature’s inevitable impact.  Why then the problem when it’s caused by people?

Human weathering is, after all, only natural.