True to our word we've been lining up some guest posts to bring some perspectives from the field, contributed by practitioners whose work and professional concerns relate to some of the 'creative practice and social change' themes we've been exploring ourselves in recent posts. Ruth Nutter, one of our fab Creative Associates, very kindly offered to dive in first.
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Photo: Leon Lockley
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As a creative practitioner who works in a broadly defined area of helping people unearth 'new stories to live by' I am constantly challenged to define what I do succinctly and accessibly. In short, I offer ways for people to see a more positive, sustainable future that they can shape and be a part of. Much depends on your interpretation of sustainable - I've adopted it over the years to mean connected, resourceful (rather than resource-less), fair, and with an eye towards a flourishing future for all living things.
Faced with the economic pressures of most of our daily lives, it's hard to find time to consider whether we really want to live with so little time for each other and the wider natural world. And even harder to consider how it might be different, how we might change it. In all the work I've done, the most common feedback is of gratitude for safe time and space to think and be differently. And the key ingredient for 'seeing differently' within the time and space offered is creativity.
I've devised and run experiences that afford these opportunities over periods of weeks, days or even hours to groups of families, friends and strangers, adults and children, in woodlands, in schools and on high streets.
On a cold November night in a wood in Sheffield, I've offered space for a local community to chat about how they live, around a fire, in the midst of an art installation inspiring new perceptions of our relationship between home and the wider natural world. With pioneering participatory arts practice Encounters, from a disused shop on the high street, I've asked hundreds of people in Dewsbury what the spirit of their town is, who they'd like to thank in life, and what keeps them going. We offered many ways to respond: through scrawling on a giant blackboard, tying 'fruits of their achievements' on a real tree inside the shop, or sowing seeds of their aspirations in plant pots - all for the rest of their community to see and add to. And I've invited environmental educators to imagine futures they'd like to see through making a gift for themselves of something they'd like to know still existed in the world in 100 years time.
The nature of the space and group of people I work with varies, but the key ingredients of warmth, authentic interest, attention to visual aesthetics, exploration of different dimensions of time and place, strengthening relationships, precision of questions, and a range of hands, head, heart engagement is always pulsing at the heart of any project.
Each project demands that I evolve the skills to best achieve its aim. So, at times I need to switch seamlessly between roles of guide, curator, facilitator, maker, gardener, leader, follower, birds-nest maker, host, cleaner, bridge builder, problem solver - and always, always a space holder - taking responsibility for making sure everyone feels safe within the frame we're working in.
A new book, Playing For Time, which I'm currently contributing to along with over 20 creative practitioners, led by Lucy Neal, will draw together a range of some of the projects and processes which are defining an emergent 'transitional arts practice'. This practice embraces all the 'sustainable' values and community building processes which Loca Creatives holds dear, and will provide a useful picture of an 'arts and regeneration' practice which is responding in the broadest context to the social, economic and environmental regeneration challenges of our time.
