A backlash has kicked in, possibly as a consequence of the recent popularity of the school sculpture project. Whilst I was away on holiday apparently a Chinese whisper of gossip developed into ridiculous proportions suggesting that the school were upset because I’d charged them for the project to the sum of £1400 !! – I’m concerned that this silly resentment will undo all the recent goodwill. I’ve put notices up correcting the story and have cleared the air with Paul of the Scouts as they were wanting to withdraw my access to the hut – hopefully it will blow over once people hear my side of the story – the school have been very supportive. It's interesting this issue of paying for community art projects – people are reluctant to embrace the idea that an artist working with children should be paid, that an exhibition takes a great deal of work to set up, publicise, document etc or that the materials cost money and yet they're happy to accept a price tag on an original painting or even an Athena print for their living room.

I have reached a point where I can plan for a final year - reasonably confident that by summer 2005 it will be appropriate for Taxi Gallery to pass the baton to Artworks to offer an informal space exhibiting non-commercial art works in Cambridge and that a range of creative resources/possibilities are in place and running independently within the immediate neighbourhood.
To this end I’ve just submitted my Grants for the Arts application – available here as a downloadable pdf for anyone interested in the details ...

The Summer Exhibition has just closed it was a great success in terms of audience – a constant stream of people over the 4 days and lots of positive comments. It did look great, though I was a little disappointed with the community contribution, there was enough to encourage people to think about contributing something next year. I was particularly pleased with the photographs of the BMX track built by local young people, images from Corné’s garden at No 35, knitted Bunny mittens and Troy’s clay head which he made at secondary school, there were also photographs, music, paintings and drawings as well as lots of great work from the Abbey Meadows School, the Early Fields Nursery and the Steiner School.

The exhibition was opened by the Mayor, there was a dance display by Citrus Dance Academy and Caravan Gallery were exhibiting at the opening and on Barnwell parade on the following day. They delivered a commissioned survey as part of my end of year evaluation. Unfortunately, partly due to terrible weather on the second day (gale force winds and torrential rain) there weren’t as many surveys completed as I’d hoped. I think I might have to repeat the exercise in the immediate neighbourhood and at the local library. But Caravan Gallery itself and its affectionate take on British lifestyle, landscape and leisure was very well received especially by Becky who spent all her pocket money on Caravan Gallery postcards …..
www.thecaravangallery.co.uk

sample completed survey form

Definitely worth repeating the Summer Exhibition again next year (at which point I’d hope to withdraw and allow others to take on making it happen) and hopefully its popularity will feed into Art Club participation. Subject to funding I’m planning to start running an Art Club for all ages on alternate Saturday mornings in the autumn.

Funding application blurb:

Odd Saturday Art Club*
In response to local interest, this club will meet fortnightly using the Scout Hut venue next door to Taxi Gallery on Stanesfield Rd. It will be open to people of all ages from the Abbey area but specifically targeted as a ‘family learning’ opportunity for children accompanied by parents. Each 2 hr session to be led by an invited artist (usually one exhibiting in the gallery) and offering a particular achievable activity or art approach. It won’t be obligatory for all participants to engage in this activity – there will always be a play area for younger children with crayons, plasticine, building bricks etc and a range of good quality art materials available for people to experiment with on their own, if they prefer.
There will also be music playing, maybe the occasional artist’s short film/animation playing on a TV/Video, tea/coffee/squash etc I’d be aiming for a relaxed atmosphere where people can feel comfortable to hang out and get drawn in when they’re ready. I’m as interested in creating a space where people talk and meet with each other as I am in a space where people “make”.
The Club will run for 8 pilot sessions at which point it will be reviewed and evaluated with participants. If the group want it to continue Taxi Gallery will support them in taking responsibility for running the sessions, inviting artists etc, sourcing funding/sponsorship etc in order to make this an ongoing community resource/activity.
*The club will meet on dates that are an odd number – hence the name.

Plans for the final year now really coming together with a presentation to Coleridge School today with cris about the Radio Project - really enthusiastic response from the managing committee to our proposal …..
Awards for all Blurb>
This project will enable Coleridge School to participate in a major community radio project (Short Range FM + internet broadcast for 9 consecutive days in May 2005) being hosted by innovative contemporary art gallery – Taxi Gallery, which is situated within the area that the school serves. Taxi Gallery has extensive experience of working with local schools and more information can be found at www.taxigallery.org.uk
The project will include a range of extra curricular activities and skills development opportunities for staff and students led by professional sound artists working on the Taxi Radio project. All students and staff members will take part in the recording of a sound portrait of the school (performing the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge) for the opening broadcast. Skills workshops and access to resources/equipment will enable individuals and groups to make programmes and an after school club will provide a substantial opportunity to a small group of students to fully participate in all aspects of the radio project including publicity, programming, technical and organisational issues. A realistic development from this project is that Coleridge School will have acquired the skills.

I really enjoyed the experience of curating for Artwork’s and was VERY VERY happy with the final show AND with the enthusiastic response from the artists at artworks and the open studios visitors – it bodes well for ArtSpace picking up from where Taxi Gallery stops next year.

Lucy Willow's installation of knitted flowers and leaves gradually engulfing the interior of the Taxi has just opened. The day before it opened we hosted a knitting circle in my front room which was a peculiarly moving experience. 10 mostly elderly ladies sitting together companionably knitting and chatting, about knitting mostly but also other things including some great tips on giving up smoking such as keeping your hands wet so that you can't hold a cigarette or asking your friends to keep offering you cigarettes so that you hear yourself saying no! Several of the women who came are neighbours of mine - very pleased that they felt comfortable about coming and getting involved as I've felt the most resistance to the 'strangeness'* of Taxi Gallery from the older members of the neighbourhood. The activity of shared making seemed to enable a companionship that generated a supportive conversation and the occasional comfortable silences.

I recently gave a paper on Taxi Gallery for Site/Sight <-> Source/Resource Conference at Exeter University - the full paper is available from the Essays section but the following extract feels useful to register here too as reflective of where I'm at right now that the funding for final year plans is now confirmed.

extract begins>

Recently I delivered a questionnaire to the neighbourhood requesting feedback on Taxi Gallery so far – I received just 6% back as replies which I have to admit I was disappointed by even though those that I did receive were largely positive describing Taxi Gallery as interesting, enjoyable, a community contribution, a bit of fun, a talking point and particularly mentioning the Christmas exhibitions as being one’s that they have enjoyed – which is hardly surprising since a little front garden flamboyance is not so “strange” at Christmas as at other times of the year.

I have found Pierre Joris’ reflection on the ‘strange’ in Nomad Poetics a useful one in this context
“The strange in the dictionary is first off the unfamiliar, the previously unknown; secondly it is the out of the ordinary, the unusual, the striking – that which differs from the normal. There are thus already two strangenesses: one that just happens at some point to be unknown but will become familiar once it has been experienced; and another one that is so other that it strikes you, that it opposes your familiarity so fiercely it remains other, keeping its strangeness.”

After two years, whilst my neighbours have now become familiar with Taxi Gallery to the point where they are no longer crossing the street or avoiding catching my eye and small moments of conversation, response and exchange are now happening – it is still for them “strange” – or as one of their questionnaires replies stated - different.
I have not made it easy for my neighbours – quite apart from the monthly changes of artistic response to the Taxi – its placing behind the hedge with a narrow entrance demands of them quite some degree of confidence and urgent curiousity. I have imposed Taxi Gallery without invitation and consultation (except for my very immediate neighbours) and am arguably guilty of the charge levelled at Richard Serra for Tilted Arc of an “arrogant, highly inappropriate assertion of a private self on public grounds”.

I am conscious of Taxi Gallery holding a dialogue with two communities – not entirely separate but only slightly overlapping. Taxi Gallery is not a community art project, it was not and is not setting out to educate, inspire or incorporate my neighbours into art connoseurs, critics or even artists nor does it dare to presume to be usefully addressing the very real social issues that they face in their day to day lives.
Miwon Kwon talks about the task of today’s site-oriented practice as a relational specificity holding the “adjacencies and distances between one thing, one person, one place, one thought, one fragment next to another” The Taxi Gallery as a site-oriented experiment, has proved a generative and discursive context for multiple artists’ responses to a specific site and has been met with gentle tolerance of its strangeness, tentative engagement and a slow accumulation of small moments of dialogue and exchange. When the Taxi Gallery project draws to A point of conclusion next year I’d hope to be able to apply Kwon’s assertion that “this relational sensibility can turn local encounters into long term commitments and transform passing intimacies into indelible, intractable social marks”

For now the meter is still running …..

email correspondance>

Umm
Lots other things going on right now. What am I supposed to be talking about? Just taxi gallery? It is a beutifully simple experiment. Things like the hedge could be flaws or could be part of it – if everyone else has hedges. What would have happenned if you had just left it in the street...?
Ummm
Cant think what I was originally thinking but
There is somehting dangerous about it in a way. I am very into the idea of dissolved work. And I know that you are a bit as well. Its still a gallery isnt it. Why have you chosen to make a gallery?
 
Jon Fawcett
www.jonfawcett.com

my reply>

I thought long and hard about this project's naming - it's a gallery and it's not a gallery - more black cab than a white cube - but ultimately I chose to call it a gallery as a gesture towards dialogue with the neighbours - assuming that they at least have some point of connection with the idea of a gallery and therefore would be able to access the conundrum of the taxi not being one - if you know what I mean ... an opening gambit
dangerous ? not sure exactly where you're coming from on that but I am interested in dissolved work - I think I know what that term means for me - what does it mean to you? and I'm aware of the danger of Taxi gallery seeming to aspire to some kind of permanency, institutionalised fixity - hence my determination to end it next year almost at the moment when everyone is getting used to the idea.
I'm hoping that the final commission will result in some kind of dissolving or distilling? of Taxi Gallery - maybe you could apply ?- i'll send the brief once I've formulated it but to whet your appetite there's a £1000 fee and £1000 materials budget .....
thanks for the questions ... apologies for cursory engagement - i've got a stinking snivelling cold
take care
Kirsten