The residency seeks to create room for practice, which is inherently experimental, focusing on enactment, rupture and actualisation, rather than depiction, reporting and representation. It also seeks contributions from ‘non-representational’ research that concentrates on events (Vannini, 2015). Events are happenings, unfoldings, regular occurrences inspired (but not over-determined) by states of anticipation and irregular actions that shatter expectations. Finally the residency seeks contribution from the field of visual ethnography. Rather than assuming that humans make sense of the world through language, Connerton, Bourdieu and others suggest that we understand the world through our sensing bodies, implying that we derive meaning from experience. As John Berger says, 'seeing comes before words, the child looks and recognises before it can speak’ (1972: 7). In a world saturated with images we forget to ask ourselves common-sense questions, like how do we see the world, what it means to be in the world, what is the world in relation to us, what is the world in relation to the creative image, or indeed, what is the creative image as such.
The residency aims to create an environment in which these questions can be reflected upon, discussed, embodied, experienced, enacted, and lived by all participants. Based on the premise that practice-as-research and ethnography are a constant process of ‘learning by doing’, our appeal is to facilitate a regular gathering through which artists, practice-researchers and ethnographers can meet and share their knowledge by ‘collectively doing’ a visual project.
Our goal is to create a space where the basis of these methods, as well as the current issues surrounding them, can be explored, experimented with, redefined and shared with others during the residency, but also shared with attendees of the subsequent transition day and conference.
The Residency will take place 21-25 September 2018 at an amazing location near Leeds, UK. We will be staying at a beautiful mansion house, which has many great rooms and spaces for creative meetings and filmmaking experimentation.
Our goal is to create a space where the basis of these methods, as well as the current issues surrounding them, can be explored, experimented with, redefined and shared with others during the residency, but also shared with attendees of the subsequent transition day and conference.
The Residency will take place 21-25 September 2018 at an amazing location near Leeds, UK. We will be staying at a beautiful mansion house, which has many great rooms and spaces for creative meetings and filmmaking experimentation.
14 filmmakers, artists and practice-researchers, as well as other VRN members and special guests will be staying at the house, sharing ideas, collaborating, exploring new frontiers of audio-visual media, and having a great time. The mansion house as well as the surrounding countryside will all be a stimulating and inspiring environment for conceiving, creating and setting audio-visual work.
Each day of the residency will be split between
At the start of the residency, we will brainstorm together possible film and visual ideas that can be worked on during the residency – responding to opportunities and givens of the location and the creative tools and skills available – and whether possible collaborations can emerge from this.
Subsequently, we will form small teams around specific ideas, or where individuals want to work only on a project of their own, possible overlaps and collaborations on elements of the creative process can be considered.
As the residency progresses, we will discuss how these projects relate to and inform each other, and how they utilise the creative and learning opportunities of the workshops. These workshops will be delivered every day by the residency guests and other members of the Visual Research Network – the key aim of the workshops will be to open up new ways of thinking about creative approaches and methods, inspired by the specific practice and experience of the individual facilitators.
The work resulting from the residency will be screened and discussed during the first day of the conference in Manchester on 26 and 27 September 2018.
Each day of the residency will be split between
- a short morning meeting with the whole group setting out objectives for the day (a Buddhist monk from Nepal, Kesang Lama, will be staying with us, offering optional, early morning guided mediations);
- workshops and masterclasses with special guests and VRN members;
- individual work and group collaborations;
- and a joint evening gathering with everyone, where we’ll be sharing work and ideas, and reflect on the day’s progress.
At the start of the residency, we will brainstorm together possible film and visual ideas that can be worked on during the residency – responding to opportunities and givens of the location and the creative tools and skills available – and whether possible collaborations can emerge from this.
Subsequently, we will form small teams around specific ideas, or where individuals want to work only on a project of their own, possible overlaps and collaborations on elements of the creative process can be considered.
As the residency progresses, we will discuss how these projects relate to and inform each other, and how they utilise the creative and learning opportunities of the workshops. These workshops will be delivered every day by the residency guests and other members of the Visual Research Network – the key aim of the workshops will be to open up new ways of thinking about creative approaches and methods, inspired by the specific practice and experience of the individual facilitators.
The work resulting from the residency will be screened and discussed during the first day of the conference in Manchester on 26 and 27 September 2018.
