|
|
Finn (12) and Flossie (13) on each side of a sculpture made out of old clothing by Kenton Lowe in the exhibition "Household" in The Pine Gallery, Hastings. He says this work (which mimics the pose of Degas' sculpture of a teenage ballerina) inspired by Pistolletto's "Venus of Rags", was a self-portrait that looked at relationship with his children as a house husband. It is constructed out of his children's clothing. |
October 1st: Arrival in Oxford I flew with Easyjet to Luton airport and managed to catch a bus leaving immediately, so I thought, ah, this won't be so bad, even though the plane was half an hour late. However... I then had a two hour wait in a what looked like a barren car-park in Milton Keynes (a stuffy tea shop with a loud t.v. and not enough seats outside, where lots of people were waiting for various buses going north or south) , so it was about 4.30 p.m. by the time I got to Clare's house in east Oxford. My pack was heavy and thankfully her instructions were extremely clear which kept the walk to a minimum. Finn, her 12 year old son was home and was extremely sociable, making me a cup of tea and taking me to Magdalen studios, which was a 5 minute walk away. He reminded me a lot of Tama, with all his inventions and energy. |
|
The other five Dutch artists were all in full swing, painting and drawing in the studio. I didn't stay long, so as not to disturb them in their work. There was no space for me (although Fleur said that I could work there) and I wasn't going to insist on any anyway since I didn't really need it. I found the Dutch artists just as they were in Leiden, more or less preoccupied with their own work. |
Oct 5th: Clare with the sticks in the Oxford Cornmarket. I borrowed this table from Finn and it was ideal. An old school desk with lots of character. |
Then I returned to Clare's house and met her. She is a warm vivacious person. We
get along so well! and as it turned out she needed some
help in photoshop which I was delighted about because that was easy for me.
It really was wonderful staying in her home, and it was great that she had kids too.
(meaning that we shared more worlds). But to top it all, she is a very good artist with a critical eye about things, and who also regularly visits exhibitions of contemporary art.
Actually I couldn't have asked for more. She lives a mere 15 minute cycle from the centre of the city and gave me a neat bicycle to use (one with distinctive '70's design, so it was very easy to find again:) and her house was full of contemporary art books. In fact, I didn't even get through the pile on performance art that she'd left in my room for me to read. Yes, it was like being in a hotel for artists! It was just so nice to stay with someone who understood what my work was about, especially when later, Diana Bell, the co-ordinator of our exchange, got more and more difficult. |
|
Iniatially Diana was wonderful, organizing the artists for my first performance and running around after all of us (the Dutch artists). It turned out that she was doing all this coordinating voluntarily where as I was under the impression before I arrived, that she was employed as a coordinator. Diana had also given up her own studio space for us to use.
On the morning of October 2nd she organized a photo session for all of us at the city council and then after this there was an interview with the local BBC radio station back at the studio. This was aired on Thursday morning but I didn't hear it. Actually everything went very well, only that I was aware that Diana was doing a lot of the coordinating, single handedly, and so I decided not to contact her unless it was necessary. Then in the afternoon I went with Hilary, a very youthful looking 50 year old, into the city centre to look at sights for my performances. We had to check out alternatives incase it rained. Diana is lovely but seems overly worried that things should be 'well' organized and told us (rather than suggesting or asking) that we had to look at all the alternatives. I saw the covered market -basically a maze of shops, which I found oppressive just being in. The Cornmarket is a pedestrian street (with the occasional service vehicle or police car) and is the main shopping street. So I decided that if it rained we would do the drawing on the steps inside the town hall. May Wylie the city council twinning officier had given permission for chalk to be drawn onto the town hall steps, which I thought was very generous. She had also said that it would be no problem for me to borrow 20 chairs for the "Readings" performance planned for the 12th. We had dinner in a pub on the outskirts of the city at The Trout It was full of Inspector Morse memorablia, with items glued to the mantelpiece. I was told that some shots of the tv series were shot here. |
October 3rd:
Colonising Oxford by drawing The Oxford artist here is Diana Bell. A number of Oxford residents were each presented with an image of Leiden and were instructed to draw from this image onto the footpath in chalk. The idea behind this was that images from my city (as coloniser) were being imprinted onto the street by the locals. I chose to be 'liberal' in my colonising, in the sense that the 'colonised' (those drawing) were given the freedom to express this onto the pavement without any restrictions. This performance required local artists to respond to black and white pictures from a foreign place, to draw images of another country -- as they pictured it -- on their own streets. 
|
|
It was an OK meal but a killer in price. Twenty pounds for two plain meals and one pudding! Actually Oxford is very expensive - more so - it seems than in London.
|
October 3rd:
Colonising Oxford by drawing
Drawing of the Leiden City Hall tower down the steps of the Oxford City Council. |
Diana was still very concerned about the "Colonising Oxford by drawing" going well and insisted that she do the first drawing and wanted it to be a drawing of the Leiden Town Hall onto the Oxford Town Hall steps. I didn't have one printed out and so found one on my CDrom for her. I think our differences began with this.
For me the performance was more about the concept of the Leiden landmarks being drawn by the Oxford citizens rather than which building or where it should be. However I found her concerns absolutely fine because I was just a benevolent coloniser and if a native wanted a particular drawing in a particular location, that fitted wonderfully into the concept of the work. So then become clear to me that she saw it as her duty to have control over how the drawings looked, for all the best reasons of course:) |
|
Anyway the whole performance was great and I was grateful to Diana for organizing most of the volunteers and getting permission for the location too. |
|
The other artists from Leiden turned up for the press shot and stood together at some distance from the performance. I'd asked three of them for some help with watching the tripod or taking photos the day before but they all said "no", so I didn't ask any more. At least I knew where I stood.
It was a fun photo, but it gave no idea of what really happened, and I thought it ironic that the other 5 Dutch artists were out of focus below me. |
Photo in the Oxford Mail
The text that went with it said that these were my paintings of Leiden on the pavement with a comment by Diana which said that "We want to make the artist's work highly accessible for the people of Oxford." On seeing the newspaper, the only Oxford daily newspaper, I was amazed at its tabloid-ness. I thought that a university city might have a decent local newspaper. |
Colonising Oxford The (main) Oxford City Council building on St Aldate's. The museum of Oxford entrance is in the side of the same building. |
The town hall is used by various community groups and so there is a more
'friendly' and 'open' feel to it than to the Leiden one. There are public toilets in it with a stream of people going there and back as well as upstairs to various sales or talks.
May Wylie had also opened a room while my performance was on, supplying drinks to us. I didn't go up, even when Diana repeatedly insisted that I did. I couldn't. This was my work and it was on the street. |
Oxford city centre 
I found it fascinating to discover that Oxford had one intersection that could be considered the heart of the city and all my performances took place around or at this intersection.
Referred to by locals as "Carfax" which is also the name of the remaining 14th century tower on one corner, the word probably comes from the Latin meaning "four-forked".
The arrow on the left indicates the location in the Cornmarket where I did two performances and where I placed the table. The arrow on the lower right is where the "Colonising Oxford by drawing" took place. |
|
"Change is a Law of Nature" - October 4th: I presented myself as a Dutch artist with art currency to trade. Each translucent coin bore the text "Change is a Law of Nature". My job was to convince them of the worth of this currency. Although it appeared that I was encouraging them to buy or trade with me, we often ended up discussing the issue of �value� or �values�. What they really were valuing was the trust they developed in me, the artist, and through that the art object. |
Colonising Oxford - Change is a Law of Nature Photo: Hilary Kneale, U.K. |
|
I first developed this performance in 1996 and have performed it in a few places since.
To more what the origins and themes in the "Change is a Law of Nature" performance. My last performance was during 2001 Christmas shopping frenzy in Santa Monica in Los Angeles, where it was hard work. Here it was a breeze, people were very open and willing to chat. In fact, Oxford felt very relaxed in this way, more like a village than a city. Hilary took lots of excellent photos and after half an hour or so I stopped. |
|
Now we both watched the interactions with the sticks on the table placed in the middle of the pedestrian street and Diana came by. Diana had wanted me to put signs around the table informing people that the performance was connected to the twin-city project and that it was an art work. I didn't want to do this. I just wanted the table as it was and had the signs in my bag. Thankfully, when Diana saw how people were interacting, she agreed that the signs were not necessary. 
Colonising Oxford - The Exchange Table |
Colonising Oxford - The Exchange Table The table was amazing. It belonged to Finn, Clare's son and it was so good that she let me sand it and then take it away (which ended up being for 4 weeks). Diana took it in her car to the city council for me, where I stored it. So all I had to do was to carry it a matter of say 50 metres each time I took the table out. I'd put the table out for a few hours and then sit or stand nearby just watching people. Me, the coloniser, taking time out just to observe. More about this performance |
|
Watching the table (the vehicle of presentation for my colonist influence) and how even the way the pedestrians changed the direction of their walk once they spotted the table was fascinating. 
|
|
My idea was to lay stuff on the table that people could pick up and read or play with.
But I found the table worked wonderfully as an object itself. As soon as it was noticed, most people adjusted the way they walked, either to walk closer or to walk further around.
In that sense it became a part of the constantly changing street image before me.
On Oct 4th, 5th and 7th I laid 8 sticks on the table. This was my "Certain Measures" work, with five sticks bearing texts in Dutch and three in English (meant to be five but I couldn't afford to get all five engraved). To more about the origins and themes in "Certain Measures". Then on October 17th I laid about ten small white balls on the table along with a sign "Pick up a seed and finish my sentence." And people did pick them up. |
|
October 4th: An email from Toroa It was fantastic to be able to email home whenever I wished and I was getting daily news from Sen. Then Toroa sent me an email. "We have got our school photos and we're buying all of them. The form was very unclear and it took a while to find out how it works. We hope we have got it right. We got to try the microscope at biology. The problem was that my partner was Gido and he's like Tama. I have got thursday and friday off. Celebration week starting next week and it's going to be fun! The books for French and maths have arrived. There are 23 children in my class. 10 boys and 13 girls, which means that someone is going to get 4 girlfriends." In response to my question, "How many girlfriends do you have?", he responded with: "I told you I have got about 30." |
Toroa, October 2002
|
|
After this I walked to the station and to the tourist office, trying to
get phone numbers and info about poetry groups or philosophy groups and
checked out a bookshop where a philosophy group meets. I discovered that there was a folk club meeting that evening in a room above a pub.
Then there was buffet meal reception with the Lord Mayor, who was very friendly. It was pleasant fairly superficial event, but worth meeting Janice there, the HOD of the fine arts department at Brookes University. |
|
During the Mayoral reception. The mayor on the right is talking to the other Dutch artists.
The photographs on the wall are the previous mayors of Oxford. Below: The ceiling was amazing. |
| The mayoral system here is that the longest standing council member is the Lord Mayor for one year with the previous one becoming the Sheriff and the deputy is the next in line, etc, so that in all, one gets Mayoral duties for 3 years shared with two others. It struck me as a very sensible and egalitarian system. |
|
|
Later that evening I went out to find out what the Oxford folk club was like. It was just so familiar! An diverse assortment of individuals and a mix of traditional with innovative interpretation. Then someone introduced a song by the well-known NZ songwriter, Marcus Turner! I couldn't believe it and in the break went to find out how she had heard of him. It turned out that a New Zealander, Tracey lived there in Oxford and this woman rang her there and then. Tracey arrived minutes later and we hit it off immediately.
Then there were two more NZ singer-songwriters mentioned. I just couldn't get over it. It was a neat night for me. Singing and singing along and meeting Tracey. October 5th: The Slide Talk Each of us (the six Dutch artists) were given ten minutes each to talk about our work. Diana put me last, since my work was so different to the others, which I thought was a good idea, except, at the very moment I was putting my slides into the projector, Diana wouldn't let me put in any more than eight slides. The others had not been retricted in how many slides they put in. I found this very rude and fortunately some of the artists in the audience noticed this and came up to me afterwards, commenting on how my talk was cut off. I met a few Oxford artists, such as Paul who had offered to take us all to London on the following day. He was planning on going to the Tate Modern since most of the Dutch artists had not been to London before and so after an enjoyable chat with him, I decided not to go, having seen the Tate Modern a number of times already. I also met Ibrahim, an artist in his 60's and originally from the Sudan. He volunteered to be in my "Readings" performance along with four or five others, and he agreed to bring his Arabic Koran in Arabic to read out. For those with a non-English mother tongue, I gave them the option of reading anything in their mother tongue. |
|
October 5th:
The Pegasus Theatre I was a bit unsure about paying seven pounds for a puppet theatre, not really knowing what it was, but it was stunningly good. It was a show that was tightly choreographed and the music was incredible as well. Various human skeleton-like puppets did things, were broken, moved incredibly, in a story that like a dream took many strange twists without any clear "message". I liked this. It made you wonder what it was about. The movements and lighting were very beautiful, and because the story was strange, you didn't just consume it as entertainment. |
A marionette by Stephen Mottram in "The Seed Carriers" |
|
Of it Stephen Mottram, the marionette-maker, performer and choreographer wrote: It is a dark parable about a world where the seed is more valuable than the person who contains it and society exists only to help along the process of natural selection.
I was very glad to have experienced this and I realised that part of my hesistation had been because Diana had booked tickets for us without saying what it was apart from that it was a puppet theatre. I'd never heard of him and I realise that many Oxford people had. It was a great night and I had a nice walk and talk with Alan, one of the Oxford artists, afterwards. |
Flossie and Clare in Hastings The exhibition, "Household" curated by Caroline le Breton and Peter Thomas in the Pine Gallery (an old pine furniture shop) at 12 Claremont, had a few interesting works. I liked one, which was a 'letter' made out of coloured candy-tops. Each top bore a letter and were arranged in rows to make up the letter written by a woman to her lover she was leaving because he beat her. |
October 6th: Clare drove us all to Hastings to see a video installation by a friend of hers in the Hastings Museum and art gallery. The museum was quaint with vitrines of old televisions (it was invented here) and a bay of 'oriental' stuff collected in the days of the Empire. Most of the eclectic collection of things came from India and Indian carvers had been hired to carve the whole area, including the steps up to the second level. I was surprised to see some images of Polly's installation in the Museum exhibition guide. She had done a residency here earlier in the year. 
|
|
The artist claimed that he had found the letter in the building. Although, a predictable confessional artwork, the candytops gave it a playful and (for me) a suprising twist. 
We then travelled about 10 km further along the coast to Bexhill-on-sea, which was the name of a Goons sketch, Finn had been listening to on the cassette. We went to the De La Warr Pavilion to see an exhibition of the New Zealander, Boyd Webb. I'd never seen any of his work in the flesh before, only in catalogues.
His new work was a 7 minute film called, "Horse and Dog" in which a 'horse' and a 'dog' go on a camping trip. The dog wheelbarrows suitcases and they walk through cultivated paddocks and climb gates, to pitch a tent for the night. And then the film begins again in the morning when they begin their journey again. I liked it and it reminded me a lot of Rodney Graham's "Constination Island". Also a short film that seems to loop around a few events, except that Webb's film was set in the heart of English cultivated countryside and the characters were a mix of slap-stick, fairy-tale, and the ordinary. Afterall what's more common than finding a horse and a dog in the English countryside?
|
|
Some of Boyd Webb's earlier photographic works were hung upstairs. Some were familiar and Clare pointed out that some of the locations were their old flat and one photograph featured the children's father when he was in his early 20's. Flossie imitated her father's pose. In the photo his mouth was lined with moss.
I liked one photographic work in particular and it's his only where I recognized something of Aotearoa in it. It showed a pair of legs in a bath and had a story with it about the un-explainability of the regular rising and falling of a central south island lake, along with a Maori story about it having a heart-beat. |
The beach viewed from the De La Warr Pavilion
|
|
I looked at some videos that seemed to be part of the Shot by the sea filmfestival, but it wasn't clear. There were posters and a tv monitor with some video that either was shot by highschool students for school or by artists posing as highschool students:). It wasn't very interesting to look at anyway.
Something that did look interesting from the poster was a series of site-specific responses in 11 medival churches in Romney Marsh. |
|
At the beach at Bexhill-on-sea Flossie, Finn and I set paperboats out to sea.
It was a bleak looking sea and shoreline and made me feel sad. As if this was an aftermath of a golden time, never to come again. I'm not sure if even one boat made it to the breakers. Most sunk and got caught on the sand. 
|
|
The English sea resort, Bexhill-on-sea.
Then Finn went running off and ended in mud up to his knees. The mud oozed in layers from the knees down. Flossie made a cartoon drawing of her brother with one sock on and one off with one shoe, while I ordered him to clean himself off in the water. We ordered fish and chips and it was so greasy that I just had to throw it out. In fact I was nauseous until we got back to Oxford. October 7th: I met an Oxford artist, Dianne who arranged for me to have a temporary library card. In fact it was very easy. She just had to agree and then at no charge, the library, gave me a temporary card. Wonderful! Now I could take books out and photocopy the parts I wanted for the performance. Then I spend a few hours, reading and watching the sticks on the table in Cornmarket. It seemed to take all afternoon for me to locate someone at the city council who knew about getting permission traffic permission for events on the street. I made an appointment for the following morning with the events officer and that evening cycled to the northern part of Oxford to attend a Bahá´í prayer meeting and met Paula there who later participated in the Readings performance. 
October 8th:
I started out early in the morning, first meeting the city council events officer, in council buildings on the very north-east part of the city. She was surprised to hear that there was an artist exchange, and was very helpful, giving me a list of contacts for the press and for the traffic officer. Back at Clare's, I phoned a few television stations and two sounded interested enough to request more details. Then I went to the Ashmolean Museum to set out the snails. See more details and images about the Colonising Oxford with snails Actually the doing of this performance was unpleasant. The man on the door, a doorman of some sort, yelled at me that I had to move the snails away. I told him that I was part of an artist exchange and that I would be gone before he knew it, as I was planning on only starting at the doorway and then to move down to the street. He didn't believe me and yelled at me again. I burst into tears and decided to pack up. Then he changed his tune. So I thought, OK, I'll go through with this but, as quickly as possible. It was cold and windy and Diana hadn't turned up. So I placed the snails out one by one to the steps, taking photos every so often. Then I sat to wait for Diana, reading one of my Oxford library books of poems. Diana arrived and wanted me to do the performance again, I think, to encourage me, but I refused. I was freezing. So we went into a cafe to talk. She wanted to know more about the questions that my debaters would be asking and was concerned that I didn't have these already sorted out. So we brainstormed together and I thought that it went well. I had a list of questions from our discussion and emailed these to her and a few others that afternoon. She didn't like me having people reading in other languages or perhaps it was because that so far Ibrahim would be reading in Arabic. She claimed that this was inconsistent and that Oxford dons would find it so. I was surprised that she was so pushy. I didn't mind the debating but I didn't like having to constantly defend my work. It was clear that she was concerned that I would now be in London for the next 3 days, but I already had 12 volunteers for the "Readings" performance and Kay and Ann who were doing the co-ordinating seemed fine. That evening I left for London getting a ride with Janice, and enjoyed hearing about her own art projects. I took in some hours at Maaori club, meeting new people there, and then went to Sandy's. We talked mostly about male fickleness! October 9th, 10th & 11th: Digital Arts World conference The conference was very good. I liked ...'s approach. He, a current 'web guru' said things like, kill envy (so you give and take from your competitors), have hope (that you make some difference to the world) and so on, while showing some subtle and effective web animations. All 50 or so presenters and panelists in the three days were male (except for two panelists) and most were very 'trendy' in their hype, but it was well worth being there. I got a lot of ideas and it made me realise that the world of digital design is also part of my world, not just because I make stuff, but because of the ideas and ways of looking at the world in terms of design and communication. I made some comments at some sessions but on the whole I listened and took notes or just thought about things. Brandon ...., was also interesting to hear. And there were book launchings and sales. I left with just two:) Then on the first night at Kath and Shaun's, I especially enjoyed the meal. It had been a number of days since I'd eaten a full meal. Silly me. On Thursday evening, Clare rang to say that Diana had cancelled my "Readings" performance. I was stunned. She hadn't made any attempt to contact me. I lost an hour at the conference the following morning worrying and trying to contact Kay or Ann. I got hold of Ann and, yes, she was happy for us to do the performance a week later and we arranged to meet the following afternoon. I was concerned about contacting all the volunteers so that they would know it was cancelled. It turned out that Diana had personally rung Ibrahim to cancel it. I was glad but at the same time, found it telling. She had seemed unhappy about him being in the performance. But he was perfectly happy to be in the performance when I rang him a few days later. I decided to stay an extra night at Kath and Shaun's, which meant also that I could stay longer at Jo & Rachel's gallery opening. After conference I raced over to see the Prenelle Gallery which is on an old Dutch barge in the Dockland's area. The area was amazing. Lots of postmodern mixes of highrise and non-rectangular and then a collection of old boats nearby. I then went back to the Piccadilly area to the Royal Academy galleries show. The top galleries showed off their artists. I found the Anish Kapoor a little clinical. It was a white ear-form shaped into a funnel. I've listed the galleries here. ...more to come...
|
