Out there

In ‘Out There’, I will reflect on some recent projects which took place in public (educational) institutions: a primary school, two NHS teaching hospitals, and a local history museum. The role the artist was given varied (from ‘lead artist’ in the NHS hospitals to ‘creative practitioner’ in the school): all of them involve a considered relationship with the public or, in the case of the school, the children, and an embedding in the institution, its strata of expert workers (or ‘officers’) and its spatial divisions: (‘units’, clinics, classes). The artworks all emerged from cross‐disciplinary collaborations, and a contingent and evolving response to place. • Set in Lauriston School, Hackney, Ghost School (2007-8) was an unfolding work (with architect Julia Dwyer and poet John Davies) which responded to an invitation by the school to explore the qualities of the existing school with the children and involve them in generating ideas for their new school. It culminated in the making of an archival box (an ark) and brought together ex students, a parent/filmmaker and the children in a public event. • Outside in (Eastbourne and Hastings NHS Hospitals, 2005), a public interactive mapping of hospital journeys followed an invitation by the hospital to work with John Davies to investigate the arrival/departure spaces in both sites. The last in a series of works over three years as ‘lead artist,’ Our Storeys (North Middlesex University Hospital, 2008 ‐ : with John Davies) is a four storey ‘poetry wall’ which gathers stories and histories provided by hospital workers/local people, and combines them with images, text and poems. • Digitate (2003‐4) (with Julia Dwyer) responded to an invitation by Enfield Council to participate in the year‐long ‘Cultural Mapping’ of Enfield alongside other artist/architect teams. Our focus was on Forty Hall, a council owned Jacobean manor which houses a local history museum. The ensuing works including a temporary street–sited piece and artefacts now installed in Forty Hall and Enfield’s Civic Centre