Firstly I will turn to Kester’s ideas about how one might form a useful critique of an example of dialogical practice. He suggests analysing “as closely as possible, the interrelated moments of discursive interaction within a given project” (2004, p.189-190). Echoing Mavidorakis’ writing about public art, he goes on to say, those collaborating and participating in a dialogical work “do not require the services of a critic to help them understand the significance of their involvement” (2004, p.189-190). This underlines the distinction between how the work is understood by its intended audience and by one attempting to draw conclusions about its validity and success as an artwork. There is evidence that visitors and students enjoyed the event on its own terms, including references to the pleasures of meeting new people and seeing themselves represented in the exhibited work. The task here is to look from a different perspective, to identify and consider the significance of these dialogical encounters and their aesthetic value. The largest, and possibly most significant, encounter was that between all the groups and individuals who were brought together in close physical proximity due the reduced size of the exhibition space. The result was a busy, engaged crowd of people made up of: Indian elders (mainly women); people with learning difficulties of all ages (around half of whom were of Asian origin); Bangladeshi women of wide age ranges; junior school children; youth club members; furniture restorers; single fathers with their children; youth workers; project managers; several people whose first language is BSL; mothers and babies; several recent immigrants to the UK from countries including China; students from all across the UK; three international students from France, Slovenia and Lithuania; academic staff from LCA. The community participants were in a clear majority, filling the space, giving an impression of bustling activity and of participation in something successful and popular. Interactions between members of the various groups were unavoidable in this environment and even where these were as simple and functional as allowing someone else to get past or asking if a chair was in use, they provided interchanges which would otherwise be rare or entirely absent.
A central physical site for dialogue and exchange was the refreshment area which combined a small buffet, a tea and coffee serving area and a table with the Celebratory Cake. This area was a hub of activity and exchange particularly between students and visitors, the power relation between students as serving staff and visitors as guests added validity to the presence of the visitors within the gallery. As did the huge and beautifully decorated cake depicting South Leeds. This had visual echoes of the way a wedding cake is placed at the centre of the wedding feast, in this case symbolically positioning the South Leeds residents as the guests of honour at the event. The formal cutting of the cake was done by representatives from each of the community groups and this produced further verbal and visual dialogue as the activity was photographed and the cake shared and discussed. Beyond these central dialogical processes there were also innumerable encounters, discussions and conversations constantly on-going. All of which produced a dialogic aesthetic the nature of which I have not encountered in 30 years of working in socially-engaged art practice. My sense of identity was without doubt “enriched and expanded through collaborative interaction” as I would hope, as was that of many of the others present. Moving on from the dialogical aspect, I want to return to the question of what distinguishes social practice art works from similar projects created outside the frame of art. Here I will use an idea developed by Thompson in response to artist Tania Bruguera’s statement that “I don’t want an art that points at a thing, I want an art that is the thing” (in Thompson, 2012, p.21), in which she suggested that rather than make work which raised awareness about an issue of importance or concern, she advocated making work which directly addressed that issue, that tried to change the world in some direct way. An example of this approach discussed by Thompson (2012, p.26) is Rick Lowe’s Project Row Houses in which he founded a housing project in Texas, describing it as ‘social sculpture’, after Joseph Beuys’ ideas of an art which concerned itself with transforming the nature of society. A couple of years later Critical Reflections
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