Takeover post from: Daniel Russell
Jamboree is one of a handful of art-related places I’ve been in this country where the seeds of future activity are sown in ways you aren’t aware of at the time.
In this time of instant gratification and transactional relationships I am really appreciative of slower processes, and not necessarily understanding things until some time has passed and you can glance back with the wisdom of hindsight. I also despise networking in the traditional corporate sense. I’m writing this post as Daniel Russell: artist, but some of the things that came from Jamboree have manifested themselves through my part-time job at The NewBridge Project (@newbridgeproject).
In some really obviously connected activity, Lesley Guy (@lesleyjguy) and I invited Alison Carr (@alliejcarr) to present a new work-in-progress performance at the NewBridge Project in Newcastle.
Grace Denton (@somethinggrace) and I arranged for Bryony Gillard (@bryonygillard) to run a workshop (Jellyfish Experience) and do an artists talk at the NewBridge Project in Gateshead. Grace and Craig Pollard (@ccccompetition) asked Bryony to contribute to a film and performance event called Feeling Yr Thoughts #4 at Northern Charter (@northerncharter). Presumably as a result of coming to the North East, Bryony ended up doing some stuff with artists like Sarah Rose Bird (@_birdbrains) and organisations like Projections (@projectionstyneside).
Inspired by what we’d seen at Jamboree, Lesley, Grace, Hope (@hopestebbingjohnsen) and I did a sort-of cover version of a Rosalie Schweiker (@rosalieschweiker) T’s and C’s workshop at NewBridge, and a while later I invited Rosalie to contribute to activity for the Newbridge Project’s Collective Studio (@collectivestudionbp), but she couldn’t attend due to unforseen circumstances. She instead sent Sahra Hersi (@sahra_hersi) and Sofia Niaza (@sofia_niazi) from Rabbit’s Road Press (@rabbitsroadpress) who were also excellent, imaginative workshop leaders. I might not have properly met them were it not for Jamboree ’18.
I also took the key idea of artistic activity not necessarily having an immediate, tangible outcome and have felt comfortable really running with it and applying it to the many situations I operate in (in artist development, social-practice and educational settings).
I got to make friends with new people (hi Alison Carr and Lea Torp Nielson (@leatorpn)! and chat to other people I’d not seen for a while, like Anna Horton Cremin (@annahortoncremin), Pippa Martin (@pipsmartin) and Alistair Hudson (@magwagdirector).
All this stuff, deliberate and accidental, comes from stuff like Jamboree, where you can meet people you don’t know but will likely have something in common with, with no pressure for anything to happen, and no cynical back-scratching. Would recommend, will attend again.