Stoke Garden Festival

Since the Undercover tourist initiative, and from the Tourist Information lady's suggestion I have become very interested in the Stoke-on-Trent garden festival. I have begun to purchase memorabilia from the year long event, and have also begun some excavations into the minds of people that went, or were around at the time.
I will be visiting the Festival Park with my camera soon (as soon as there is a dry and bright day) in order to take some pictures of the remanats from the Festival. I visitied the area on Saturday and found a large plaque. I hope to also develop a series of walks and become Stoke-on-Trent's official tour guide; one will be the Festival Garden's tour, one will be the City Centre Regeneration tour and I am still not sure what to make the last tour (maybe a pot bank tour or something??) I will be devleoping maps and tour packs for participants, and already have a group of 5 from Poland sugned up for a tour in February.
As well as this I have been talking to Katie Shipley about mediascapes: and the possibility of a multi-media tour, that would not require me to be there when people take the tour (but this sounds a bit sci-fi at the moment - I will look into it further...)

Undercover Tourist

As part of 'What this City Really needs...' I feel it would be useful to get an idea of what the city is proud of. What is here already to celebrate? Thinking back to that very interesting point which came up during the Longhouse PAd back in November '07, if Stoke were to win the FA cup, where would the city gather to celebrate? If I were a tourist visiting the city for the first time, where should I go to get an idea about what this city is about, and what it has to offer.
I decided then to go undercover today, and go to the Tourist Information centre in Hanley, posing as a visitor, and see where they might suggest I go.
The results were really interesting:

Lady: Hello.

Me: Hi, erm, I’m just visiting for a few days staying with a friend and erm, they’re working and I wondered erm if you could recommend anywhere in the city centre to go and visit y’know things which are quite interesting?

Lady: Yeah, look you’ve got the Potteries Museum and art gallery, have you been there?

Me: I haven’t been there no.

Lady: It’s just go out the door to the bottom, go to the building at the bottom which is the yellow building and that’s the library, to the left of, well obviously you can go in there if you want to, to the side of there you’ve got the Potteries Museum and art gallery, it’s got the best ceramic collection in the world, it’s got a social history department, it’s sort of got a spitfire in there, if you’re interested in planes but it has, and it’s sort of got, y’know sort of the area how it was as well erm sort of and clothes, it’s got all sorts of things in there and most of it is free. I mean, you’re in Hanley, so you’re in the city centre so you’ve got the Potteries Shopping Centre and y’know all the main shops that are here. You’ve got Central Forest park if you want to go somewhere for a walk. It’s reclaimed land, but it’s very pretty there, it’s got a lake in it, it has still got the slag heap, but covered in err grass but you can walk up to the top and get a really good view of the city over there. There’s a skateboard park in there, they’ve got swans and ducks, so I mean that’s just somewhere for a walk. You’ve also got Hanley Park, which is the Town Park, again it’s quite pretty round there to walk around but you’ve not got the same views as this one, but you can go on the swings there if you wanted to

Me: oh right.

Lady: so that’s the other thing. Otherwise you’ve got the six towns, which will require you to travel around, you’ve got the Gladstone Pottery Museum, which is here. You’ve got Spode, you’ve got Wedgewood, but you will have to go on a bus - it’s a bit further away, but you’ve got the factory shops that you can go around

Me: uh-huh

Lady: You’ve got the town of Burslem, You’ve got Ceramica, erm Burslem’s what they call the Mother town, it’s one of the oldest towns, Ceramica’s just mainly a museum for that area.

Me: Right.

Lady: So, everything with a pot is something you can do, and it gives the information, on the other side.

Me: Oh, Ok. And the other thing was that erm I’m a photographer and I want to sort of get some good images of Stoke

Lady: Is it past images or the modern images?

Me: Well, just to go around and take some photos, so I wondered…

Lady: Well, the Gladstone Pottery Museum’s very good because it’s still got the bottle oven, you’ve got Festival park, it’s called Festival park because in 1986 the Garden Festival was there, so they reclaimed the land back, it’s now a retail and leisure area, there are certain little walks, you can walk up still get a good view of the City, with twenty years past of the actual, there are certain things that are still there if you look for them, it’s quite interesting actually. You’ve got the Trent and Mersey Canal, obviously be careful walking on it on your own, but if you do walk down you’re gonna get lots of old photographs, you’ve got the locks you’ve got the Industrial Museum, which was what you put in. and by walking down it, it gets quite industrial then it gets quite pretty, you can get quite a lot of good photos if you, if you’re walking sort of around this area as well, you’ve got the area of Longport, there’s two big bottle ovens, it’s actually towards Stoke, it’s err if you get on it at Etruria, which is here, and walk down there, just go past here and it’s this area here, you’ve got the cemetery on one side, you’ve got the canal, and then on the other side you’ve got the two bottle ovens but then they’ve built brand new houses, it’s quite odd, it’s quite a good,

Me: oh right, can I mark that on there

Lady: because I’m into photography as well

Me: Are you?

Lady: I know that’s quite good to take a good photograph of. And the area of Festival park, if you do go on it, as you’re walking on to it, or driving on to it, you can see little walkways up, especially if you go by Morrisons, to your left you can actually walk, and you’ve got the old remnants of when it was the garden festival

Me: Oh right, Ok.

Lady: Before that it was very industrial, it was Shelton Bar.

Me: So what was there when it was the garden festival? Did they turn it into a garden?

Lady: Well the garden festival site happened in Glasgow, London, - err Glasgow, Liverpool, Stoke and Newcastle-upon-Tyne and it was very badly scarred area – they turned it into reusable land, so they did it in, when they did it there they turned it into a garden, but obviously it evolved into a leisure, leisure and retail area now, from what it was before, it was just a scarred landscape. They did it in Liverpool, they did it in Glasgow and Newcastle as well. I think we were the last one. If you want, if you don’t mind walking along canals you can walk up, right past Westport lake, you can wind up right by the Air Castle Tunnel so that’s another place that’s good for photography, Westport lake’s good photography because of the birds, Canals always are aren’t they.

Me: OK. Great.

Lady: But I mean the area of Longton you’ve got the Gladstone, obviously to get the best views you need to go in it, and you do have to pay, but if you go on the car park you can actually see the bottle ovens there.

Me: Oh right, yeah.

Lady: I mean, another area that’s sort of old an old area, is the area around here, especially around sort of Port Street, again because the canal, that’s a very old pottery and they don’t use it a lot, and sort of around the junction here, you’ve got all the boats, a lot of the canal boats. Go Festival park to the Marina you’ve got all the boats as well, all the canal boats

Me: oh Ok. Good.

Lady: It depends what you want to take pictures of really.

Me: Yeah, I’ve just been noticing that there’s quite a lot of sort of empty land around here, erm

Lady: Yeah, That’s - if you walk down, if you walk down Lichfield street, this is what the whole areas gonna be erm completely erm, all the houses are empty, and again that’s good for photography isn’t it? So if you sort of go down that area where the canal is here there used to be a big factory, named Jim Ekins (?)

more later...

Conversation with Wayne Thexton

This conversation took place in the North Staffs Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent on Tuesday, September 9^th, 2008. The conversation took the form of a ‘q and a’ session, with Wayne asking questions which might help to uncover my motives for carrying out the project, ‘What this city really needs…’

Wayne Thexton: Right, was does err…(laughs) What does regeneration mean?

Anna Francis: What does regeneration mean?

WT: To you? What does it mean to you?

AF: erm…

WT: Your next question is, what does it look like?

AF: OK, I think probably in terms of what I do, my work, regeneration is looking at, erm…

WT: No. That’s not the question

AF: No? OK.

WT: What does regeneration mean in a general sense, when you read the word regeneration, we’re interested…

AF: It’s about NEW stuff, but it’s also about what was/what is there and how that is refreshed, I think, and it’s about…growing, and about life going on, that’s what I think it’s about.

WT: OK, alright, what does it look like then, either in a general sense, or in relation to Stoke-on-Trent.

AF: erm. I think at the moment, in Stoke-on-Trent, regeneration looks like things being knocked down, but actually, broader terms, longer term, regeneration is about, looks like things being rebuilt and new stuff happening, erm and hopefully positive good new things erm, yeah I mean I think regeneration somewhere like Liverpool looks like a building site, and Stoke looks the same, but at the moment Stoke doesn’t even look yet like a building site it looks like an emptying out car park, erm but hopefully in the future it will look like things being rebuilt and new things happening.

WT: mmmm, err does that provoke any particular feelings for you? As either a thing that is really happening, or could happen, or just a concept, do you, does regeneration broadly feel like a good thing? Does it warm your heart – do you think, being in Stoke-on-Trent for X number of years; I’m glad about regeneration?

AF: erm, I dunno. I think it’s because it’s so much everywhere, then it’s like inevitable and there’s nothing, I feel very powerless I suppose, about it, it’s happening and that’s that; it actually feels quite negative at the moment, it feels just like an emptying out of a city, and y’know, it’s very erm sort of unsure, and very feels very erm, not dodgey, but kind of precarious, and that we could go too far, and what if we just empty everything, and then nothing gets put back in those spaces y’know. I mean, going somewhere like Berlin where, there’s still spaces left by bombs from the war, y’know and those spaces have been there forever, it’s really frightening because at the moment, this place looks a bit like a war zone I think erm, so at the moment it does feel quite, quite empty and ugly and erm frightening, but hopefully, hopefully we might soon start to see the other side of it and it might start to be less, less sort of, less about emptying out and more about filling in.

WT: mmm

AF: I mean that’s the hope isn’t it?

WT: yeeeh. Yeah, good. Alright, if everyone’s work could be thought of as a mission, what would your mission be?

AF: When you say work, do you mean practice or?

WT: That’s a good way

AF: or job or?

WT: That’s a good qualifier, erm. Alright, lets lose the word work, practice is a word we could use. Yeah, let’s use the word practice.

AF: Mmm-hmm

WT: If everyone’s practice, although it’s not just actually about that, cause I’m not desperate to isolate artists, and creative - capital C - practice, but yes for now let us say what, in terms of what you do…

AF: If I had a mission statement do you mean?

WT: I’m not after anything that formal, err but actually that might work, strangely, yeah so alright, what err…

AF: erm

WT: What are you keen to achieve, if that’s…appropriate

AF: I think I want to make some sort of sense of where I am, and as I’m in this city, then where this city is. erm and also, I think really, I’m very keen to sort of not encourage, but almost sort of say, anything goes - in a way, to people, almost say look you know, OK don’t wait around for things to happen to you, y’know, don’t feel like you are powerless or that you have to wait for people to choose you for things or accept you for things or erm, sort of err allocate things to you, go and sort of, do it yourself and make your own, sort of existence, or make your own, not luck but make your own decisions and make your own erm exi.. no

I dunno what the word is…

WT: like, design your own life, sort of thing

AF: yeah

WT: be active, be proactive

AF: because actually I think as artists a lot of the time we are waiting for galleries to give us shows, or we’re waiting for people to accept our proposals and give us projects and y’know waiting for recognition in all of those cases, actually you don’t have to because, if you wanna do something, then you wanna do it regardless of those things and you should just get out there and do it. And weirdly, somehow, by doing that, and setting these things up it will maybe come to you anyway, so I guess I’m keen to say erm take control of your own space and the things that happen around you and take control of your own city, and how, especially somewhere like Stoke where it does feel like decisions are being made all the time, and who is consulting us, the people who live here, we should just go out there and start making ourselves known and making ourselves heard and setting up our own things if we believe in it. So, I suppose that’s what my mission statement is, which was quite long in the end.

WT: mmmm, errr. Alright , as a, do you like the word artist or practitioner?

AF: yeah, artist is fine.

WT: Alright, as an artist. What are your strengths?

AF: erm. (Breathes) I think I’m quite good at making connections, erm in terms of linking things in my mind, so I’m good at saying that is like that. And that is relevant to that. That’s one of my strengths, kind of understanding how things link and what is relevant to other things. I think I’m really good at making the most out of nothing, if you know what I mean, erm I think I’m quite good at capitalizing on a very small opportunity or erm and turning it into something which is big. Erm so I suppose that’s being resourceful, erm. I think I’m quite good at talking to people as well, I think I’m quite good at getting people to do stuff, in a way.

WT: Good.

AF: yeah. I think people may find me accessible or something like that.

WT: How about…either as an artist or as a person, what might you like to be better at.

AF: erm I’m always told that actually, I’m not that good at visualising things, so erm

WT: Is that appropriate?

AF: erm..Yeah. So yeah I’d probably like to be better at that, and it is something that I try to do more, try to erm y’know show what I’m thinking, I think I have really, I think I’m a very good ideas person but maybe at times the final product erm could have more work or could be better, so I’d like to be better at finishing, and erm and visualising. And I think that’s probably one of the problems I have with, y’know proposals, when I send proposals, like, maybe I’m not being visual enough and I’m not showing what I mean, and maybe that needs work, maybe that’s one of the things that I need to be better at…I dunno. I’ve been told that before so,

WT: yeah yeah, good. Ok. Alright, you’ve already answered the next question, kind of. Is there anything that you want to convince the people of Stoke-on-Trent of or the people of or people of North Staffordshire of and sort of take on that DIY, get out there answer.

AF: yes, I also think one of the really key things that I really believe in is that this city is a creative city, and has a history of being a creative city, erm in terms of the potteries, but sees itself rather than being creative, being industrial and it really doesn’t recognise its strengths and that there are really fantastically creative people here. It doesn’t seem to realise that of itself, and it almost despises that, and I think

WT: What does it despise?

AF: It despises being creative, somehow it sees that as something which is for fairies or something (laughs), y’know, not fairies, but you know what I mean like for wishy-washy types, that that isn’t, that isn’t a viable direction for a serious city to take, there’s this kind of erm, I feel like there’s this kind of erm y’know, worthiness that y’know, hands on jobs have, but creative industries doesn’t, it’s like that isn’t respectable to be erm to be creative and to be artistic or I think y’know Stoke really has a problem with that, it has a problem with recognising creativity as something which is valuable.

WT: That’s a really interesting distinction, because I’ve never had that put to me so concisely or even I’ve never even thought of that, but you’re absolutely, I concur with you on that, I will remember that quite pithy way of putting that, and I’m sure I will use it, I’m absolutely convinced. In what context, I have no idea, but that is that, ok. Now, done that. Erm. Which discrete groups, if any, have you already reached as part of your, whatever this work is that you’ve been doing.

AF: erm, well, I think, the artistic community, but they’re not the people that I probably want to reach with it, so, erm.

WT: When I say reach, I suppose I should verify that a bit, we’ve got the people who will take an interest in the work as it’s happening, and when it’s finished, and we’ve got the people who are, in inverted commas, participating in the production of it, or process and unfolding of it, but who are the groups who have been reached in all of that?

AF: Nobody yet.

WT: Oh. OK

AF: because it’s the beginning of the project, this project. I guess, in terms of, it was almost sort of launched in I think it was May, from AirSpace Gallery.

WT: Oh right.

AF: This sort of project which was ‘What this city really needs…’ That, I didn’t know it was going to become this, at the time it was just a sort of, I felt like I wanted to find out what people thought, so I

WT: Is this the Longhouse thing?

AF: yeah

WT: Is there, are you funded? Is your time paid for?

AF: Yes, well it will be yeah.

WT: Is this money you have already had?

AF: Not yet. You don’t have to do anything actually, it’s all about the process, and it’s called action research

WT: I know about action research

AF: Oh right, well that’s what this is, but basically, what happened was, because I already did the Longhouse Professional artist development thing, which do you know about that?

WT: Yeah, I knew about the launch, but I wasn’t there.

AF: Yeah so, that was when…

WT: See actually, Just I mean not clearly read much about that, I assumed that was the end, I didn’t read the word launch, I thought that was the end when people came to tell us about what people had been doing. Which it wasn’t.

AF: It was actually, it was the end of the project, basically, what happened was, the Longhouse PAD thing goes to different places each year, and it works in places where radical change is happening, and it talks about artists and creative people can be involved in that process and it tries to set up this best practice model for people in the city to understand what we as artists do, erm and work with us in some way, so it also means that the artists get some kind of training in how you might access these people and what is possible, then the artists come up with proposals for change in the city, that they’ve worked together in, so that was that, and we all did that, we all wrote proposals and we sent them in, and nothing has happened, very much like Stoke-on-Trent, other places that these PAD things have happened and stuff has then happened afterwards, y’know people have taken on the artists’ ideas and maybe done them, but none of it has happened yet here, it might do I mean, still could do, but erm anyway, I wanted to do this thing where I, I just felt like OK as artists we were invited to look at the city of Stoke-on-Trent, and respond to it, and say what we think needs to change and that was there was 3 people, me, Rachel Grant and David Bethell, who were from here, and the other people weren’t from here, so they were responding to a place that they didn’t know and I felt that actually we need to ask the people of Stoke-on-Trent as well, y’know what do you think about the same question that we were asked, so that’s why

WT: What was the question?

AF: Well, there wasn’t really a specific question, but I felt that the question was erm, what can artists and creative people do, or what kind of ideas would help the city to be better and to regenerate, ok so that was where ‘What this city really needs’ comes from...

MORE LATER>>>

STAGE ONE

During the research and development stage I have been identifying possible methodologies to follow. I have already identified that the approach which Friction Arts (Birmingham) take could be very important in these early stages. Coincidentally, I have been engaged in an email conversation with artist, writer and researcher Wayne Thexton. Wayne has a lot of experience of setting up and working on participatory projects in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, and is offering some much needed help in these early stages of the project. So far we have had an email exchange which has identified the need to concentrate on and answer some important questions; the crux of which may be: Who am I? and What am I trying to achieve? (as set out by Friction.) Wayne has suggested a more immersive Q and A session might help to understand the 'whys and wherefores' of the project, and perhaps help find the direction which the project will take.
This Q and A conversation will take place on Tuesday, I will report back on the outcome of this later...

Postcard Question

As well as going into the city's 5 towns and directly asking members of the public what they think the city really needs I will also aim to place postcards at strategic places around the city, so that people can write down their thoughts and feelings and post them into a box that I will leave with the postcards.
I have been designing the postcards today, and will order them later. I hope to place them in various libraries and community centres around the city.

Beginning at the Beginning

Although this project is very much in line with the research that I have been engaged with over the last few years, it is also a relatively new area for me, in that I want this project to have a truly collaborative approach. I hope to work with the people of Stoke-on-Trent, and in some way set up spaces for conversation to happen; space where we (me and the people I work with) can talk about what is going on in the city, how we feel about it; and what our own individual visions for the city might be.
The project has so far involved a lot of reading, a lot of thinking and a bit of inaction on my part. I think I might be just a little bit apprehensive about this process and this new approach, this has meant that I am putting off actually getting going, for fear of doing a bad job. Practice which involves a collaboration with the public is, in many ways, much more difficult than independent practice, based in a studio. Suddenly there are a whole host of stakeholders in what you are doing, and to some extent you have a responsibility to the people that you work with; I am afraid of being exploitative.
So, now that I have aired my fears, I can get on with the project...

Last night I couldn't sleep for thinking about the questions: who do I collaborate with? How do I access them? Where are they? Who are they? These questions have been going round my head for the last few months, but suddenly last night I realised this was the wrong approach. I have my questions, and now I need to just get out there and start getting them answered.

Consultation Process, outside Window 204, Bristol.

In the past when I have had questions that need answers I have just gone out and asked people what they think, so that is what I will do with this too. So at around 4am I committed to go into town next week with my trusty clipboard and just ask people the question: What do you think this city really needs?
One of the problems or issues which I aim to look at with the project is the geographical layout of Stoke-on-Trent, which means that defining exactly where and what the city is can be difficult, due to Stoke-on-Trent's status as a conurbation, a city made up of 5 towns. I will then go to each of the five towns next week and repeat the questioning process. I will aim to ask perhaps 50 people in each town the question. This will give me a good idea of what each areas initial response to the question might be, but also may give me a chance to feel what each of the towns are like; is there a difference in how each town responds to being asked the question? How does it feel to be in each place? This then, will be my starting point.

Through much of the reading that I have been doing, I have been most interested in artists projects which involve a dialogical approach to practice. I have found that practitioners working in this way often begin with a central question, and it is this question which acts as a starting point in the early connections with the people that the artist is working with. A project develops from the collaborative process; and the conversations that happen. In the best projects that I have looked at, the artist or art group allows the project to be defined by the process rather than going in with a one-size-fits-all project.

As research for this project I have been reading an amazing book called 'Conversation Pieces,' by Grant H. Kester. It looks at a broad range of collaborative and participatory arts, and goes some way to unpicking some of the problems and issues relevant to this type of art practice. It is also the sort of book that I think every art student should read, in that it deals with the artist's relationship with the viewer, the surprising impact that art can have and the possible limitations involved. It is here that I first picked up on the need for a central question as starting point; something which although obvious, and probably something which I was doing anyway - it was useful to have the idea made overt to me. Kester looks at a broad range of practices and projects, looking at what he sees as good and bad practice. One particular practitioner, who has been working in this area for more than 30 years is Stephen Willats.

"Willats has produced a number of extended projects with the residents of
public housing estates or tower blocks in England, Germany, Finland and
elsewhere in Europe. Willats is particularly concerned with the social and
somatic experience of living in public housing (especially in isolated
high-rise buildings) and with identifying and facilitating modes of resistance
and critical consciousness among the residents of the estates."
Kester, Grant. H. 2004, p. 91. Conversation Pieces. California: University of California Press.

Willatts also takes an approach which ensures that although the artist might be at an advantage, due to education or experience, this does not mean that the approach taken by the artist is to involve the viewer in a top-down sort of experience. Where the artist knows and the viewer consumes, Willatts believes that the artists own value systems and knowledge should shift and change through the project, as much as the public/collaborators (who would more usually be the viewers). He has produced a diagram which sets out this type of approach.

Based on Stephen Willats "A Socially Interactive Model of Art Practice" (1970)

It shows that the audience, the artist and the context of the project have just as much impact as each other on the artwork. I think this is a really great Model for practice, and I will keep it in mind during the action research project.
In November last year I took part in the Longhouse Professional Artist Development programme, which took place in Stoke-on-Trent. This involved artists (at various stages of the careers) meeting in a city undergoing a process of major change, and looking at possible interventions and creative visions for the City. For an artist, like myself, at an early stage in their career I had the benefit of working with more established, experienced artists thta have been working with the public for many years. One of the other artists on the PAD was Sandra Hall. Sandra is a founding member of Birmingham based 'Friction Arts' a group with an international reputation for making socially engaged participatory art projects since 1992. Sandra and the other members of Friction offer an example of how to approach and work with harder to reach members of the public in a truely mutually beneficial way; creating experiences that have a lasting impact on the communities that they are for. Friction arts sets out their approach on their website:

"Our core approach can be summed up by our first principles whenever we embark on a new adventure:

Who am I? - what am I trying to achieve?

Who are we together? - what is the relationship, what is our mutual agenda?

What are we going to do?

How are we going to do it?

Often, participatory projects start at stage three or four, we believe you can't make a true collaboration without sorting out the first two stages. This is why we rarely repeat projects, different situations require different solutions."

Friction Arts, 2008. Philosophy, Ethic and Methodology. [Website] Available at: http://www.livearts.co.uk/philosophy.htm [accessed 05/09/08]

I hope to be able to go to Birmingham and meet with Sandra and the other Friction members and perhaps see them working in practice as part of my research.

The Friction philosophy and Stephen Willats 'Socially Interactive Model of Art Practice,' will form my research methodologies for the initial stages of this project.