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.