Half Eaten - Practice Research within Organisations (Workshop)

Abstract

The commonality between the workshop leaders lies in our use of art methods to explore particular contexts (e.g. hospitals, public galleries, call centres, local authorities) in order to explore the material processes and conditions of these places. Our workshop explores these methodologies by playing with the metaphor of the digestive system to find out what is being ingested, masticated and digested, by whom and what is being excreted at the end of this process? What is the impact of this shit? How is it distributed and made public? Playing with the conference theme of ‘eating’, this workshop extends the metaphor to ask what position the artist-researcher might hold within the digestive system, particularly when the artist-researcher is embedded within a particular organisation or environment in a residency-type situation. This workshop invites participants to explore how they fit within the metabolic system of the specific body/field in which they work, using the metaphor of the digestive system – particularly Ingestion, Secretion, Mixing, Digestion, Absorption and Excretion. It begins with a contextualisation from the facilitators, exploring what can be understood by viewing their individual projects at Nottingham Contemporary, Glasgow City Council and Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery through the digestion metaphor. It then invites participants to map their own artistic/research processes onto this digestive system to explore where their work is the most effective: i.e. - are there processes and relationships that can be seen as choking hazards or constipation?: Are they ‘masticators’, particularly adept at chewing, but paying little attention to excretion? We will collectively build up a picture of the digestive system metaphor in relation to the participants’ research experiences. This discursive and interactive workshop examines how the artist/researcher fits within the metabolism of the body in which they work with the key outcomes for participants being creative and critical reflection. It also examines where the metaphor fails and where new metaphors, systems and imagery might be need. Would a symbiotic host/parasite relationship be more apt? What is the body in which the digestive system is operating? What is the food?