Art and Storytelling

Art and Storytelling, Contrasts and Parallels

May 2015

Socially Engaged Art as a term can be applied to such a diversity of creative activities involving people. There are those that appear very different in kind from Project Wild Millbuie – urban-focused (Tashi Gore Albert Drive Project, Tim Rollins & K.O.S), activist (Platform, Craftivist Collective) or gallery-based (Rirkrit Tiravanija, Tino Sehgal). However, many apparently dissimilar projects share the same foundation in relationship-building in which the interpersonal, analytical and reflective skills of the ‘artist’ are paramount. Some of the most inspiring examples of SEA are those in which real collaboration appears to have been successful and in which there is likely to be a lasting impact beyond the immediate project.

Tim storytelling

On 1 May I was in Resolis school again, this time to welcome Tim Meredith, a local storyteller, to tell us two stories about our local 'place', the Maol Bhuidhe, Millbuie or Yellow Hill. The first was set several hundred years ago near Eathie, about a fisherman who marries a selkie. It was first written down by Hugh Miller the great geologist and historian in the early 1800s. The second was never written down, but has been passed from storyteller to storyteller for at least 1500 years. Tim heard it in gaelic from the old Ross-shire storyteller Jessie Brown and translated it himself to tell to us. It concerns King Brude of Inverness and his son Iolas, who goes hunting on the Maol Bhuidhe and is carried off by the daughter of the King of Tir nan Og. Now that we have all been in the Millbuie Forest and experienced its ancient burial cairns for ourselves, this story, and Tim's account of the great age of the oral tradition, brought ancient, not just relatively recent history to life. 

In the afternoon the class and I had a communal making day - a fun free-for all in which the children contributed to a 3-D accordion book with a page each showing their favourite big forest scene on one side and their favourite micro forest scene, with bugs and tiny plants, on the other. We made lots of mess and it was a good way to spend a Friday afternoon. All the children are now telling me about wildlife they have seen, and I feel I have got to know them pretty well over the past four months. It feels as though it has been a shared adventure, all of us learning - about each other, and about the history, lore and wildlife of the Millbuie Forest itself. 

Although urban-based, in Pollokshields in Glasgow, Tashi Gore’s Albert Drive Project: Introducing you to your Neighbour shares some common ground with Project Wild Millbuie. Both projects are about local community, sense of ‘place’ and relationship-building in a specific location, in which the artists are also resident, fully familiar with the project context, and have a personal interest in the project outcomes. The key project outcomes of both projects are intangible, but very real, in that they are about developing relationships which are likely to continue into the future beyond the immediate scope of the project, and to gain a ‘creative life’ of their own.

The Albert Drive Project was large-scale two year initiative involving many smaller projects, from ‘meeting people where they are’, actions celebrating the everyday, artist residencies, film biographies of local people shown in shops, creative exploration of lives of muslim women, engagement through dance and storytelling, a shared meal, the Vivarium – an art project drawing together the ecological, historical and sociological, to the final performance of local stories at the Tramway theatre.

Project Wild Millbuie is tiny by comparison, of course, with many fewer resources. However, it did make use of similar creative situations to stimulate engagement and build relationships, including storytelling, performance, a communal outdoor experience, a communal making day and a short film. I was convinced by the integrity of the creative process in the Albert Drive Project, by the simplicity and strong ethos of its aims (to build positive human relationships) and by the way in which the responsiveness of the process and the active participation of the community gave the project a fully collaborative and apparently ‘tranformative’ character. As well as facilitating communication, the project empowered the community in concrete ways, including the creation of a volunteer programme to provide creative opportunities for residents. All of the participants, not just the ‘artists’, really were empowered to become the main actors in their own lives. The fact that the artists are also resident in the community, and that much of the expertise was therefore ‘in-house’, may well reinforce the sustainability of the project’s outcomes. In my view the Albert Drive Project is an example of SEA at its most successful, sowing the seeds for enriched relationships into the future. I hope Project Wild Millbuie can do the same. 

It's all about relationships

Seminar discussions have focused on the role of the artist and his/her responsibilities and relationship to his/her audience. 

Stephen Willats’ diagram of the dynamic relationship between artist, audience and society is handy because it gives a sense of the constant interplay between all those involved in the creative process. According to Grant Kester (Conversation Pieces:10), ‘the emphasis is on the character of this interaction, not the physical or formal integrity of a given artifact or the artist’s integrity in producing it’. Yet, while the artist may cede control over outcome, and focus instead on what Roxane Permar calls, ‘creating situations that build relationships – either in the moment or long-term as a result of the situation’ (comment made during Seminar 11), the artist does remain the key responsible actor.

If the responsibility is to accommodate artistic freedom it cannot be bound to an imposed moral code. Yet at some level the artist can be held accountable both by the audience and by wider society for radical deviation from social norms. It seems to me that artistic, rather than simply moral, integrity in socially engaged art, seems fundamentally to be about practicing awareness. More specifically, this might be awareness of the relationships between the elements of Willats’ diagram, and how they might play out in a particular creative process. A process that demonstrates this awareness in planning and execution may not be socially positive, or morally uplifting, but at least it is likely to have integrity.

talking to the ghosts

The main qualities or skills a socially engaged artist might therefore need are about awareness of relationships.  Stephanie Knight, for example, is described by Artworks Scotland as, ‘specialising in social justice and human rights, international collaboration and reconciliation…a collaborative researcher in applied theatre and organisational development, international leadership and management. … extensive experience in lecturing and education and in developing pedagogical and research methodologies with applied theatre and arts practitioners’. Helguera (p.x) writes of the value for socially-engaged artists in ‘gathering knowledge from a combination of disciplines – pedagogy, theater, ethnography, anthropology and communication, among others’

It seems that a great deal of the learning in SEA is about knowledge of self and others. As these relationships will change in every new, unfamiliar situation and set of individuals, one is always learning.

During the Forest Day in Project Wild Millbuie I was struck by the differences between the children’s responses to their environment and how that might be reflective of their home ‘culture’. Many of the children are of farming stock and familiar with being outside. But one boy regarded every insect or predatory bird as potentially dangerous and frightening, and nearly stamped on a few bugs before I could explain. Two of the girls had a real fear of any sort of bug, butterfly, did not want to go to the toilet outdoors, and found the boggy ground unpleasant. Having become familiar with my own children’s love of anything alive and indifference to wet and dirt I realized what an enormous challenge it is to enable children like this to feel really ‘free’ in a natural environment. And if these are rural kids, imagine how much more difficult it might be with fully-evolved urban children! 

So I felt that my responsibility as the ‘artist’ was to create a variety of situations conducive to stimulating creativity. Not all participants will respond to the same things. Luckily, with these children, I found that the boy, absolutely loved ‘going for a walk’ and ‘the boggy bit’, and even appreciated the bugs in the end. The two girls really enjoyed choosing their special tree and making nature sculptures.  According to the Head teacher, it was really positive for these children to have experienced the day and been challenged in their own comfort zones, as I was challenged in mine. The Forest has an identity and you meet it on its terms, not yours. After all, it is all about learning about relationships.

The Forest Day!

Finally, after a postponement due to staff issues, we got out into the Forest on 23 April, the first Thursday after the Easter holidays.

We did so much and it was such fun. I've written it up in detail in my Final Project portfolio, but here is a taster...

We stopped and looked, listened, touched and smelled lots of things. We did shows and told stories, made nature sculptures, counted rings, found feathers, lots of tracks, a dead frog and a dead bird, live tadpoles and a nesting osprey!

A highlight was going off-track and the crossing of the bog. The children took turns leading and pathfinding through the undergrowth, checking on the welfare of the group and alerting them to wildlife. They really enjoyed taking control and I could see it was a real challenge for some of them to decide on a good route in such wild country. The various leaders then realized the power they had and led their charges along the boggiest bits, absolutely loving the squelchy moss and water. We had to cross a narrow plank bridge and made the most of dipping their boots in the water as they crossed. The smallest girl struggled a bit with the terrain, but managed it and loved the bog! Then we crossed an area of moss several feet deep, which was quite a challenge for some, but so soft and sinky! They loved the feel of it - sat on it and bounced on it. 

There was the special tree spot – an area of lovely misshapen Scots pines.  The kids really enjoyed picking their favourite tree and spending some time with it. The children then told why they had chosen that tree and what was so special about it.

special tree

Once they had looked at the bark etc. they began climbing and swinging and really behaving like great wild little animals (in the best sense). 

Making music from a cone and a feather

One boy found a feather and larch cones and explored all the different kind of sounds they could make together. 

At one of the three burial cairns I told the true story that a farmer who wanted to use the stone from the cairn c.1800 had found huge human bones in it. ‘There were found on their removal human bones of a gigantic size, among the rest a skull sufficiently capacious, according to the description of a labourer employed by the farmers, to contain “two lippies of beer”.’ (Hugh Miller Scenes and Legends, 1835). At this point something happened that made me realize how immersed in their imaginations some of the kids were. A boy in our group found the note to us from the other group on the cairn, but was scared by it and tore it up. He said he thought it had really been left by ghosts. Once we had calmed him down we pieced the paper together. Luckily we could read it because it was beautiful. It read:

I’m older than the trees

I have bones in my rocks

I have rocks in my bones

My spirits flow in and out

Of the rocks til the end of time

My people must sleep

Please do not disturb…

We love Millbuie! (and sausages)

We could have done with two days to fit everything in that we wanted to do, and some things will need to wait until another day. But overall the feedback from the children and adults and Facebook comments that evening confirmed the Day was a great success.  We have definitely started building the special relationship between the children (and adults) and the Forest that the project is all about.

At the end of the day we returned to Wester Brae for a bonfire, sausages and marshmallows.

The ospreys are back!

Art, like life, takes its own time. This morning I spent at least 3 hours looking closely at a piece of silk, dyed grey and rust. I looked, placed it, turned it and re-placed it in relationship to another piece of silk until, it felt 'just right'. Last night I worked on a piece of tapestry, each thread and colour closely woven, building up a fabric that has a little 'life' of strands, the whole thing somehow a record of many tiny moments of decision, all existing in relationship to each other. 

Last school term ended hectically, with staff off ill, and the children and teachers I saw looking worn out, frayed, faded. So it was that the Forest visit planned at the end of March could not happen because a key staff member was off exhausted. The time wasn't right. Term starts again on Monday 20th April.

Meanwhile, out there in the Forest, there is a meeting of many story journeys and the weaving of a mad crazy beautiful tapestry of LIFE! When I go out at dawn now to do bird counts, my ears have to untangle the sycopated song of chiffchaff, fresh from Africa, from wheezing siskin, tinkling goldfinch, the tiny whinny of the crested tit, the rattle of redpoll and the rest. 

Most exciting of all, after a tense wait of at least two weeks since they were first expected, the Osprey are back at both nest sites! Their journey traces a thread over 5500 miles long from the coastal swamps of the Gambia, across the sand of the Sahara, the Atlas, Spain, the Pyrenees, the Low Countries, Essex tarmac, Peak District gritstone and on up, and up and up, to that very special branch on that particular tree, the one that felt just 'right'... All in their own time. But how many stories they could tell!

So I think the Project Wild Millbuie can take its chance too. 24th April is the new day we hope will work. The new time means adaptations to the plan. We will have to take a new route to avoid disturbing nesting osprey and red kite, but the children stand a good chance of seeing them too.

Another development is that I have booked the local storyteller into the school for 1 May to tell tales of the Millbuie. He's sure to weave a bit of magic into the mix. 

On a more serious note, I have had a positive response from the Forestry Commission. I will be meeting the FCS ecologist and community outreach person so I can start to match up what I am doing in the Forest with the Resolis children with what might happen with other Black Isle schools, and talk about how we might use this chance to make sure that all that rich web of Forest wildlife is protected and made richer. 

It is all about the creative imagination, making new stories. And time...

'Context is half the work'

'Context is half the Work’

The seminar discussion on March 19 was about the importance of understanding the context in which one is working – not only physical, but social, political, cultural, environmental etc. It is about acknowledging, and perhaps using or responding to, the unique circumstances of a particular project and its participants. 

We had a look at the Cape Farewell project (http://www.capefarewell.com) and about the archive of 'disappearances' due to 'climate change'. I noted down some thoughts on the broader context of climate change in my development portfolio. I concluded that it is vital for art and artists to examine a situation dispassionately and carefully and to understand the complete ‘context’ when they become artistically engaged. What taboos could they be reinforcing as well as dismantling by adopting a particular position?

In Project Wild Millbuie I have been keen for the children at Resolis Primary to reach their own conclusions through experience, rather than promoting a particular viewpoint. The immediate context in this case includes:

·       the children (a mix of incomer and local farming families)

·       the teachers - the school is very keen to do work that increases knowledge and understanding of the local area

·       the Resolis community –  mainly local farming families and incomers

·       the Black Isle communities – diverse and difficult to generalize but including traditional fishing, farming, oil rig families, younger incomers, retirees, and I'm sure many others. The Black Isle as a whole is fairly affluent, although there are some slightly poorer areas.

·       The broader political context and the recent windfarm development proposal

I will just touch on the recent ballot on the Black Isle over a proposal for a large wind farm. The results were excellent evidence of how easily communities can be divided. The media coverage gave an indication of a range of different viewpoints, but there was no analysis available as to the proportion of people who voted in a given way for a particular reason. In order to really understand a community context, I think it is important to have an understanding of peoples’ priorities, and not to prejudge or influence the expression of their views. Although this information is not available in this case, the facebook and media discussion around the windfarm proposal provided helpful information about the community context of the Millbuie Forest project, both within the Black Isle and in the broader political context.

Project Wild Millbuie: Stories from the Forest is about enabling relationships to develop between the children and their local forest. One advantage of working with children rather than adults is that their ‘context’ - the way they perceive their world -  is still quite fluid and open, and perhaps more receptive to new possibilities. Nevertheless, some of the farming children may have particular views on foxes or buzzards. Some may have parents who may have been very keen to see a windfarm in the Forest, with its promise of funding a swimming pool. Some will have parents who have never visited the Forest. 

The advantage of working with the children outside, in the Forest itself, is that the Forest is given its own ‘voice’ – the children experience it on their own terms and for themselves. Although the windfarm proposal is part of the underlying context, and some of the children are aware of it, it deliberately does not feature in the discussions around the Forest unless the children raise it themselves. Yet another aspect of the ‘context’ is my own perspective. For me, this kind of development proposal, which fails to recognize the non-monetary attributes of the Forest, is clear evidence that some relationship-building around ‘Place’ would be a positive contribution to inform decision-making. I therefore did some historical research and brought in a local historian and local story teller to speak to the class to give a sense of the ‘Place’ over time, as a complement to the work about the Forest wildlife. However, rather than promoting a clear outcome or position, the purpose of the project is really about building relationships by stimulating creative imagination. There is a possibility that what the children become enthusiastic about in the Forest will be transmitted indirectly to their families and friends too, both through school and through home. There is an intention to repeat a Forest project every year with the school to build up an ongoing relationship with the Millbuie.

So I hope I have had a thorough think about 'context', and I feel I am aware of it as I'm relating to the children. I am also responding less overtly to the broader social and political 'context' in the design and working out of Project Wild Millbuie.