Charlotte's Better city, Better life Caoyang Project Presentation, November 2008

My name is Charlotte Cullinan. I am director of the Fine Art Ma Art and Space programme at Kingston University in England.

I am also a practicing artist and known for my collaborative attitude to art making alongside my art partner Jeanine Richards. This is my first presentation here in shanghai so I will proceed in phases.

Phase 1:  my background within the beter city better life Caoyang project:

My teaching practice and philosophy involves a deep concern regarding the reality of an artwork.

The very international nature of the course I run is of great interest to me as is the dissemination of an artwork.

Last Summer I worked closely on a project set between shanghai university and the ma art and space students back at Kingston. Whilst I stayed in Kingston my colleague Louis Nixon together with some students from Fine Art at Kingston came to Shanghai for a project.

The project culminated in an exhibition in collaboration with students here in Shanghai and a live web cam feed of drawings of the attendants at the viewing of the exhibition web camed by the students in kingston.

Following on from this highly productive project, Lu Jan visited us in October to present the’ Better City Better Life’ Caoyang Project, and the process for the development of an international exchange, student-led project began to evolve.

The Process development began with an outlined brief devised by myself and Louis Nixon together with Lu Jan, and is meant as a guideline only, through which the students can evolve the project.

Very much taking on board a deep rooted questioning of how an artwork can operate given the variables within in it,

this project comes from a basic philosophy that is concerned with making decisions that use a broad spectrum of responses that have to do with imagination as well as a number of other things that concern the presentation, production and use of an artwork.

This project is about the reality of an artwork -

An artwork that operates in the public domain rather than a bit of public art -

The project has a very specific set of controls and focuses on process and outcome as a doing word rather than an adjective.

As a matter of fact the question is maybe what is the work about. Perhaps it is about experiences that we can have where we shift from  normal expectations or limits.

Our proposal for the Caoyang project invites the students from Kingston ma art and space and students from shangai university college of fine art to work closely and in teams to create what we have loosely termed ‘ platforms’ on which to disseminate ideas and make temporary art works through event.

The focus is very much on a student led and activated project.

The intended artworks are not meant as a thing which one focuses on for a final experience.

Instead they are meant as an intermediary experience, the idea, of course, being that the rest of the world is always there anyway, and that the work is meant to be an equivalent object/event in the world rather than a SPECIAL object in the world.

So we are saying that we are making a kind of structure or system with the students - that suspends anything and everything within it that they have chosen with regard the Caoyang project – it’s structure, it’s people, it’s histories etc.

The type of models of content we have been discussing so far are:

 

1.           Museum of the local

2.            Cinema

4.           Radio station

5.            Music\performance platform

6.            Billboard and imprint

7.         

8.           life of the future

9.            School of Cultural Discourse

10.          Platform for histories

 

phase 2: a background to show students how a collaborative work might happen:

Here is a short film showing students from the art and space programme at kingston talking about their ideas behind a project envolving a live radio station and programme of events as part of a collaborative module.

This film shows a workshop where the students make a live radio programme. The model of teaching by introduction to a theme allows the students a great deal of freedom of thought at the same time as containing itself in a necessary exhibition\event style structure.

In the film the students describe how they view their personal outcomes and contributions to the wider project as well as discuss the nature and problematics of a functioning artwork and it’s ability to operate outside a gallery space.

At the end of the film there are some initial stage concept drawings for the Caoyang project Better City Better Life made by the students.

This, I hope gives you an idea of how a project of this nature can evolve and demonstrates a kind of successful working teaching model.

 phase 3: site visit, location and future participation:

Now I am here for this next stage in the process and working with a team here at Shanghai University College of Fine Arts. I am very pleased to be here indeed and to be working with a team of like-minded colleagues and students.

The team here comprises Ming Ming, as project manager, Zhao Jongwei as interpreter of ideas, Lu Jan as shanghai coordinator of students and myself as coordinator of students from Kingston, alongside students from both universities.

Wang Jue who assisted and directed this film and presentation and  whowill make the website in the next few days to forward the process toward final project\event between now and April. And before I leave a further team cohort will be established to work alongside the group of students awaiting my return in Kingston.

So, developing the original proposal together, we have chosen a site for the project to take place. This is the mini public\private square for the inhabitants in one of the housing estates in Caoyang.

By way of contribution we have chosen to mend the public furniture in the mini square to create a permanent aspect to the project alongside the temporary event based projects proposed.

These permanent newly replenished pieces of public furniture will be for the continued use of the residents.

The students from the two universities will design and build new\replacement tables and chairs using sustainable but luxurious durable materials which they will source and develop with local crafts people and with consultation and conversations with the inhabitants at Caoyang. We hope that local view points alongside local craftsmanship will enrich the project and production so that cultural traditions meet with modern ones, encompassing an in depth layering of the desires and memories of the inhabitants.

So we would say that the first ideas have evolved and we are now looking at street furniture as platform. The four new tables might represent in mini form previous content propositions.

This inter-disciplinary approach to art making in the public realm is an ideal.

I am very satisfied that these ideas can be carried out with the utmost expertise from the students with guidance from Liu Jan and myself.

The students on the art and space course come from different inter-discilplinary backgrounds that include furniture design and architecture.

We leave the project open ended at this point to give the students the chance to research and work through ideas between themselves [the two universities].

The students will be responsible with our guidance to devise, research, produce, manage and disseminate the project collectively. This type of learning through process and research led is a valuable teaching methodology which students can apply to more or less any self initiated project for themselves in the future.

The events happen during one weekend, so that there is a festive feel, to include food and celebration – together with the dedicated tables to include - open air mini-table cinema library, mini-table radio project, mini-table TV, mini- game table, festive lights and flowers, local musicians and traditional festive expressions.

So now is the time to hand the project, it’s ideas, process, imagination, outcomes to the students and teams.