ARTIST-LED CULTURE
IN THE SHADOW OF COVID SPRING / SUMMER 2020
CAMPAIGN FOR PUBLIC OWNERSHIP, AGAINST PRIVATISATION
From energy to water, the railways to our NHS, forty years of privatisation has left our public services in ruins. It’s seen shareholders pocket billions and the public lose out. We need a new settlement for our public services – where public good is prioritised over private profit. We Own It campaigns to end privatisation and to bring our services into democratic public ownership fit for the 21st century. All public services should belong to all of us. We use them, we pay for them, we should own them. weownit.org.uk
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ARTISTS’ UNION ENGLAND
Artists’ Union England (AUE) is the trade union voice for visual and applied artists, and artists with a socially engaged practice working in England. We challenge the economic inequalities in the art world by working together to negotiate fair pay and better working conditions for artists. Alone as artists we have less power, together we are strong. Unions are needed more than ever in a world of gig economy workers and precarious employment. Membership (including PPL, training & legal help) costs £42 annually – equivalent to £3.50 per month. Join us! artistsunionengland.org.uk
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Publishing Director Karl England Associate Editor Ben Street
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Proof and sub-editor Tash Kahn Publisher sluice Art Direction + Design Christian Küsters Barbara Nassisi info@chkdesign.com chkdesign.com
The Common Good EDITORIAL Karl England
Lettering All fonts by Colophon colophon-foundry.org
The Emergency Commons and its narrative in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. Giuseppe Marasco
Distribution Central Books centralbooks.com Contact editor@sluice.info sluice.info Subscriptions subscribe online at sluice.info
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Cover Pippa Healy 2m pippahealy.com Pippa Healy is an artist based in London. Her practice responds to her personal history, to events which have impacted on her life. Her handmade ‘Zines’, raw and diaristic in style are central to her practice. Themes encompassing loss, longing, violence and grief are frequently referenced. Her work is held in private collections and has been exhibited in group and solo shows in the UK, France, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Lithuania, Sardinia, Turkey and Italy.
Distance Drawing Grayson Perry Short Supply
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Mollie Balshaw and Rebekah Beasley
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Pippa’s work is published here as part of Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau’s project Acceptable Blockages.
Commoning Artist-led Housing Jonathan Orlek
Acceptable Blockages Photo essay Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau
Clap for the MMT* Alistair Gentry
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Nesting diagram Jonathon Orlek
44 Alone with Everybody Od Arts Festival Vickie Fear, Simon Lee Dicker and Rowan Lear
60 Art and Capital Andreas Backoefer
Acknowledgements Sarah England Nicole Sansone Ben Street Tash Kahn Keran James Kerry Harker Pamela Grombacher Indigo Richards Enrico Gomez Will Gresson Mollie Balshaw Rebekah Beasley Jon Orlek Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau Guiseppe Marasco Theresa Easton Chris Jarvis We’re very grateful to the Freelands Foundation Emergency Fund for supporting sluice magazine during these challenging times.
The biggest change will be the new understanding we all have of isolation and our closer familiarity with the ideas in many of the artists’ work
Unsolicited material cannot be returned, though all correspondence will be passed on to the editor. The views expressed in Sluice are not necessarily those of the publishers ©2020 ISSN 2398-8398 EAN 9772398839005
Vicky Fear Od Arts Festival
Unauthorised copying, hiring or lending of this magazine is prohibited but ask us nicely and we’ll see what we can do. Sluice magazine is at all times a companion publication to a Sluice initiated project, whether our biennial, expo or simply a programme of associated events, as such the magazine, is positioned as a crucial document of record of art as Praxis.
62 Profile swap editions Robin Tarbet
70 Profile skelf Claire Undy and Lizzie Munn
Sluice magazine is concerned with applied theory, we examine how the arts impact our societal and economic environment and vice versa. At Sluice we aim to publish writing that we perceive to have an unmistakable disruptive quality, which might open up traditional art discourse to unexpected ideas, approaches and methods. In this way, our contributor’s backgrounds are not important: we encourage contributions from any and all disciplines. At its best, Sluice magazine should be a site of artistic creation and theoretical reflection that creates confrontations, sparks, and unexpected alliances. Sluice is open to arguments from different (contextually merited) ideological quarters. Sluice magazine is a forum for debate not an echo chamber of assumed rectitude.
Artist-run Index: F
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Detail from Island Skelf
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Shouldn’t acting on common sense result in the common good? Can the common good also be in the interests of the individual? Are the commons a useful mechanism by which to navigate society. What makes up the commons, who owns the commons? At its best, artist-led culture is innately tied to the social, political and economic environment in which it exists. This edition of Sluice magazine focuses on the commons as both a place and a state of mind. Both of which are crucial for art to flourish. It seems there’s an enclosure of the imagination that allows for a material enclosure by the State and capital. If we don’t think of various commons as belonging to us it’s easier for the government to deploy the playbook of managed decay leading to privatisation. Publishing a magazine during the long shadow of a global lockdown there’s a feeling that our enforced isolation has heightened our awareness of the importance of connectivity and our relationship to the commons. Publishing a magazine in the midst of a mass lockdown there’s a feeling that our enforced isolation has heightened our awareness of the importance of connectivity and our relationship to the commons. The commons are prosaic things like public parks and libraries. Oceans are global commons, council housing and public spaces are social commons. The commons are also non-material, our rights of assembly and our freedom of expression are part of the civil commons. Libraries, museums, galleries, education, independent print and digital are all part of our cultural and knowledge commons. The pandemic is exposing the bones of what constitutes the commons. The commons are activated when they are used and recognised and stood up for. This edition of Sluice magazine looks at artists and projects that recognise and navigate the commons as social processes of production and organisation rather than merely resources awaiting enclosure.
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