Takeover post from: Mark Leahy
Taking part in Jamboree helped me recognise there is a community of artists and makers in the South West and beyond I can feel part of, and encouraged me to think about ways to be more connected and involved with them beyond the excitement and buzz of a summer weekend in the trees and fields and by a river.
I ran a Communal Making session called Telling Time as part of Jamboree 2018, (image 1) and also presented in a pecha kucha sharing. The Communal Making allowed me to test out ideas I had been thinking of for some time, and generated some intense sharing. I have developed two subsequent versions of it, once as a workshop for postgraduate students, and once as an online (during lockdown) event for CAMP (image 2).
Following each version of Telling Time, I have produced a poster that can function as a score for a further performance (image 3). These have been shared as PDF files, and I hope to bring a number of participants together to perform these in 2021. Other work that has followed Jamboree includes a residency at Arteles in Finland @artelescreativecenter where I tested out making images that explored questions of gender, masculinity and identity (image 4), and ‘9×9: a set of poems under constraint’ a sequence of visual text pieces commissioned by Arts and Culture Exeter (@artsandcultureex) for their hyperlocal project (image 5).
I am looking forward to reconnecting with people in my art community in real life in 2021. Conversations online, and sharing work via zoom studio visits have been exciting and kept people engaged, but just don’t feel the same!