I walk the line
Interesting trip last week when I went down to the Architecture Centre in Bristol for a seminar on people and places. The emphasis was to help designers learn how to work with communities on community projects and commissions.
It was particularly useful for me because I do a lot of work in the public realm, and the commissioning bodies almost always require consultation and input from members of the local community. This is mainly because the work is usually installed somewhere central and busy with these people walking past it every day, so they need to feel a sense of affinity and ownership with it for it to be truly successful.
In terms of how I actually get the feedback, I usually arrange a brainstorming session with a selection of members of the community. I go with some initial ideas so we have a direction in which to head, and they then usually come up with lots of different ideas stemming from this. I often won’t know much about that particular community so these brainstorming sessions are great for learning very quickly about the local identity. It’s a really integral and enjoyable part of my work.
It’s quite a fine art, juggling your own artistic integrity and creative input from some very enthusiastic but not art-knowledgeable members of the public. You need to push them enough so that they don’t play it safe and go for what they already know, but also be sensitive enough to take their views into consideration. The best result is for them to trust in your skill as an artist enough to let you guide them. You need to view it as a great opportunity to push your work forward, rather than viewing it as a set of limitations.
