here and there

here and there was an international research project that sought to develop an ethical collaborative-participatory model of art in the public sphere. Located in migration, post-conflict and health contexts, self-initiated or commissioned, here and there projects followed a similar structure with variations in response to cultural and social contexts, time and funding constrains. Textile based installations were made in the context of a series of programmed workshops using a collaborative-participatory approach. The projects always included tangible and physical outcomes in the form of installations that were exhibited in public spaces. here and there aimed to develop a meaningful and ethical collaborative-participatory approach that engages with participants’ identity, experience and history and provides a context for participants to become active social subjects. Two areas of research were investigated. • The nature of the collaborative-participatory approach, its structure, logistic and how one develops contexts for intersubjective engagement between artist, participants, communities and places. • The nature, status and role of stitching and looping in the expending field of sculpture/ installation/spatial intervention and within the context of community based art projects A research residency PARTERRE at Charles Darwin University, NT, Australia in 2004 was instrumental in developing the artist concept of identity through making. Three projects were realised • OUVRAGE [uvra:ž] Self-initiated project in collaboration with the French Institute, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina (2011-2009). An artist residency project at the French Cultural Centre with Mostar women’s group Novi Pogled. • exotic mk Project commissioned by Milton Keynes gallery, England (2009). With Mind, Age Concern and Healthy Life Styles women’s groups. • de fil en aiguille... snáth nasc, artist residency project at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2003). With knitters from Dublin and Kilkenny. For more information about here and there projects visit specific artwork entries For a full discussion on Relational Aesthetics and my collaborative-participatory approach, read my commissioned essay Making Stuff for AXIS Dialogues 2008, relocated under artwork Project B: sebilj as a pdf.