THE DISCONNECT “AN EFFECTIVE CREATIVE CONNECTION/COLLABORATION”
Re-Store is a new creative project developed in collaboration with RBSA Gallery, and SENSE funded by Arts Council England (ACE ).
Project Outline
Through creative collaboration, RE-STORE aims to bridge the gap, and natural distancing, that occurs between the retail premises staff and customers and SENSE participant(s).
SENSE is an organisation that supports everyone living with complex disabilities through inclusive opportunities that help people to communicate and experience the world. They have over 100 shops across the UK also where through selling of donations of clothing, jewellery, electrical goods, books, toys and more they raise vital income for their fantastic and life-changing work.
Drawing upon the process of donating and buying, we are asking the public to make donations that will then be used to stimulate ideas and ultimately create art works that will be produced in collaboration with one of SENSE’S participants.
The project begins with four bins are located across four main SENSE charity shops across the midlands: Kidderminster, Worcester, Kingstanding and West Bromwich . The public will have the opportunity to make donations to the projects over the next month. SENSE staff are live participants in the project as they help us to gather and collect objects as artistic material, and all of the stories from the individual donators, about the object, why they have donated it and what it has meant to them.
These selected materials/objects will be explored and discussed through creative interaction and response at both the ‘RE-TALE’ SENSE premises, with staff and during creative workshops, with Ha and SENSE participant held at SENSE TOUCHBASE PEARS HQ. The exploration of these objects will take place through a sensory-based approach, exploring the objects in relation to all the senses and documenting this through various visual and textual means, which will form part of the final outcome.
This project will deliver a proven, documented narrative from the ‘RE-TALE’ store to, in this case artworks created by our selected SENSE participant. The shop staff, so often distanced from the final outcomes achieved are an integral element of the collaborative action, a true ensemble. It is their documented selection of materials placed in our supplied ‘Ha’ bins which will RE-FUSE to be that object, item, material which poses problems to ‘RE-TALE’, with its onward existence bearing the beginning of a new life and narrative.
During the four weeks that the ‘RE-FUSE’ bins ‘RE-MAIN’ in the stores objects and materials maybe added, and changed as the staff and the public determine what they wish to supply. ‘Ha’ will visit these stores during the donation period to advance, enhance and document the thoughts behind the staff’s selection and endeavour to support their collaborative involvement and understanding of how instrumental they are in the final creative outcomes.
Based on these ‘shop/workshop sessions’, we will then devise and make with the SENSE participant two sculptures from the final selection of donated items, and other outputs from the sessions. The finished sculptures will then be displayed at the original four shop premises and then back at SENSE TOUCHBASE PEARS HQ, exhibition space in Birmingham.
The title ‘RE-STORE’ plays on the idea that the project ‘RE-STORES’ all those individuals and objects involved. The objects from the shop are ‘RE-STORED’ by being used and interacted with again in a new way, the participants are experiencing something new, it is hoped they will feel ‘RE-STORED’ through their interaction and participation in the project. We are ‘RE-STORING’ objects and the experience from the workshops through the making of new works and exhibiting of this in a new location to be experienced by others.
‘RE-STORE SENSES’
Research
The project will be documented throughout from concept to realisation, paying specific attention to participant experience. How responsive are the participants to the project, what areas in particular are positive and show to be effective in supporting the participant’s creativity and ability to express themselves through creative process/interaction.Research will be carried out into the benefits of sensory arts practice in relation to disability/wellbeing, both historically and through current debates. It will consider any existing research undertaken by SENSE. The project will be drawn upon as a case study and the research will culminate in a paper that will discuss the projects outcomes and contribution to existing research in the area of arts and wellbeing. The aim will be to publish the paper and use this to deliver a lecture at Coventry University.
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