Artists Spare Room | Deirdre Nelson
Abundance lies at the heart of the natural and human worlds. Nature breeds and multiplies, creating innumerable species and biological niches. Communities strive to be robust and resilient. Organizations seek growth and prosperity. Harmonizing these tendencies yields impressive results.
Abundance turns scarcity on its head and reorients toward finding new possibilities. Abundant solutions create a mutually reinforcing cycle whereby we can achieve economic, social, and environmental improvements together. Stanford social innovation review.
I have recently been thinking more about my practice, the materials I use and the production of ‘things’: i.e. more ‘stuff’ in the world. I have been reading and thinking about the vagueness and scarcity associated with the word Sustainability and the move towards the use of the word Abundance rather than sustainability.
I was delighted to have the opportunity to spend some time at Eden Arts in the Artist Spare Room as I was needing to take some time to think, experiment and develop next steps in my work. Two strands of work developed in my time in artist spare room: one in exploring themes of abundance and scarcity and the other in relation to the town of Penrith as a marketplace.
THE MEASURE OF THINGS
Initially I thought I would explore Abundance within the organisation at Eden Arts and began documenting the resources/ materials/ skills / people at the venue. As time progressed, I began to take time to think more deeply about the words of scarcity and abundance through playing and experimenting with words, print, paper and found objects.
Prior to coming to Eden Arts I had spent some time with Glasgow Press, a letterpress workshop in Glasgow. I created prints of the words SCARCITY AND ABUNDANCE. These works copied and printed became graphics I could experiment and play with.
Through quick experiments in paper, I made tokens of scarcity and abundance which could be explored and developed as an engagement tool. I involved inviting people I met to write the first things that came to mind when presented with the words. These developed into a mock-up of a possible game or conversation starter which would allow for a variety of topics to be explored through the lens of scarcity and abundance.
I experimented with the idea of weighing scales of abundance and scarcity using found objects and created paper mâché multure dishes (inspired by Penrith Museum) from recycled paper. This can be developed with more time into a game where weighing scales are used to weigh up the results.
I imagined weighing scales at the entrance to an event, location, town which would take the measure of things. There are so many ideas still to explore and I hope to try out some if these ideas both in my own practice, community engagement and with students I teach in Product Design Social Innovation course at Glasgow School of Art.
What if PENRITH?
I spent time each afternoon exploring Penrith and thinking about themes of Scarcity and Abundance within the market town. Ideas around weighing and value developed after a visit to the local museum where I discovered more about the history of the town. I came across beautiful brass multure dishes which were used to measure the toll of corn and salt taken from the traders at Penrith Market. Through exploring the town I noticed there was an ‘abundance’ of charity shops in the town: 13 in total. (I must say Penrith has pretty good charity shops!). I began mapping them in a series of drawn maps and I spent some time in the charity shops, observing and buying some found objects I could use in my experiments.
I came across a leaflet with drawings of the shops in Penrith and was aware charity shops were not featured. Through creating a mock up leaflet highlighting the charity shops I played with ideas of highlighting and celebrating the charity shop as a rich resource. What if we valued charity shops as a contemporary marketplace within ever involving towns instead of complaining about them taking over the high street. What if we valued the many positive things that they bring to a place and its people? What if Penrith became a destination town for charity shops? This is something I would love to explore further at another point.
My two weeks at Eden Arts left me full of ideas and an understanding of Penrith and surrounding areas. I value the experience and time at Eden Arts as it offered an unpressured time away to think and develop new ideas. I treasured the time to experiment and play with materials and think through making without the expectation to have a finished product. It was also great to learn how Eden arts functions as an organisation also and spend time with the talented staff through conversation and over tasty lunches. Thankyou all!
Watch Deirdre's interview here.
