Artist in residence at International School in The Hague

Last year, Philip was artist in residence at the International School, in the Hague. They worked on a concrete poetry piece called The Grin Variations, using some of the techniques we experiment with in our new blog Boys Can Write. Here Philip is interviewed by one of the students. 


Hi there Christiane

Thank you for your interest in what I'm up to. I'm rushing a little and cooking/eating my evening meal as I do this so I hope it's coherent.
 

1. What is your connection to the ISH? Why did you choose to come to our school?

I met your art teacher Mr Jalland at an exhibition that we were both showing in and the connection grew from there. So I suppose you could say that it was a mixture of coincidence and planning. I wanted to start doing more things outside of the UK and the link with Mark Jalland and your school came along at the right time. I believe that if you point yourself towards something then it often happens, in one way or another.

Having started a link with ISH I would very much like to continue it. I'm working in the UK right now on a project about the holocaust and we'd like to expand it, so who knows...?

2. What is it you are trying to do here? (You told my class in one of your workshops you wanted to use the students' art work for a certain project...)

I was working on two projects during my time at ISH and both of them draw in other people's work and ideas. The poem for the screens is called The Grin Variations and has involved many of the students from ISH (as well as students from Parenthorn High School in the UK). The other piece is called A Shared Loneliness: during my travels I ask people about ways that they might describe emotional distance and closeness between one another. I will continue this investigation when I go to China at the end of 2009. I'm particularly interested in using mathematics as a metaphor to describe this distance.

3. How would you describe what you do for a living? 

Poetry is the short answer. A careers advisor might say that I write and I help other people to do so. In some ways I feel that I've managed to dodge the gruesome business of WORK in the puritanical 9-5 sense, for which I'm grateful. Although I am busy most of the time and often find myself making pieces for long hours, it doesn't feel like a job. When it becomes a drudge it is generally going awry. I'm amazed and happy that I live this way - and very aware of my good luck, which is probably the thing I do work hard at.

In any case, what we all really do for a living is breathe, eat, sleep. The rest are niceties.

4. Your art-work has a lot to do with writing and poetry. Would you describe yourself as a poet or an artist?

The poetry tradition that I come from winds back and forth between art and literature and music, so those distinctions aren't very real for me. I think that creativity often occupies the space between categories, which is where the confusion and energy is. By the time something has been neatly categorised it's dead and in a museum.

Having said that, I grew up surrounded by voices, stories and poetry, so my starting line is a literary one. I learned how to write sonnets and villanelles rather than attending life drawing classes. I find that placing poems in the world, outside of books, is a good arrangement for me. I like the thrill of a little illegal billposting, being chased by policemen. And the pieces look beautiful when they fall apart in the rain.

5. What do you hope to see from the students here at ISH.

The students at ISH have already exceeded my expectations. They've made hundreds of visual poems, with energy and wit and a certain tolerance of my eccentricities. They've welcomed me, asked me interesting questions and stolen some good ideas from me. What more could I possibly wish for?

6. Do you have any dates that I can use for my article? (For example; any displays of your artwork or workshops you are performing.)

I will be performing some material from my new book about everything in Manchester on 1st April. That will be followed by a reading at Bury Text Festival. The Festival will mark the official launch of The Grin Variations at Bury Art Gallery, Parenthorn School and ISH. My website www.applepie-editions.co.uk  will be up and running by that time. Then there will be some poems published in if p then q magazine. I'll finish the year in China for two months Nov-Dec doing another residency. There are probably some other things going on too but I can't remember em.

7. Who do you admire/look up to in the world of art?

As I've said, art is something that can equally be an artwork, a poem, music, dance - it's of the same stuff. Text artists often catch my eye because they intensify the word or the world, just as poets do, but using a different set of strategies - Lawrence Weiner for example. The people I talked about alot during my residency were Bob Cobbing and William Burroughs. Cobbing is someone I'll always hold dear because he allowed me in - opened a door in that brick wall we face sometimes and invited me to join the game. He published my first book and also invited me around to spend the day with him - an extraordinary day that changed my polarity somehow. Burroughs is very much better known than Cobbing, even a cliche, but the process of the cutup has plenty of fuel in it for me, so I stay interested in him. A few months ago the poet Bob Grenier stayed over in my flat and trailed clouds of gold in with him. Yesterday I picked up a book by Jackson Maclow and felt very close to what he was doing. Tomorrow I'll happen into someone else.

I'm blessed with some friends who are doing extraordinary things right now and so the people in my circle are also people I admire. My great friend Tony Trehy is a remarkable poet.   

8. Where are you originally from?

I was born in what was Kent, but my town has been sucked into the spread of London. My childhood was spent in Ireland, near Belfast and then my teens in the North of England, where I now live. But when I go to visit in London, those accents of childhood call me in and it feels home.

Lost properties (feedback)

Just received this lovely email about the Lost Properties work we did in Manchester...

Dear lois,

Thank you so much for the experience of taking part in your project. After my daughter, Olivia, wrote on the card about my Mum (her Nana) we then spent the rest of day talking about her and reliving times that my daughter remembered. It was lovely afternoon.

It is a beautiful project and probably more relevant because death and loss is something we don’t like to discuss in our society.

Best wishes

Gail and Olivia

Denial- the 8th stage of genocide

As part of the 'Eyebright' pilot project during our artist residency at Delamere Forest School, we looked at the 8 Stages of Genocide, for direction and inspiration.... Stage eight is Denial:

8. DENIAL is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. They block investigations of the crimes, and continue to govern until driven from power by force, when they flee into exile. There they remain with impunity, like Pol Pot or Idi Amin, unless they are captured and a tribunal is established to try them. The response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts. There the evidence can be heard, and the perpetrators punished. Tribunals like the Yugoslav or Rwanda Tribunals, or an international tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or an International Criminal Court may not deter the worst genocidal killers. But with the political will to arrest and prosecute them, some may be brought to justice.

Quotes from The 8 Stages of Genocide by Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch

Polarization

As part of the 'Eyebright' pilot project during our artist residency at Delamere Forest School, we looked at the 8 Stages of Genocide, for direction and inspiration.... Stage five is Polarization:

5. POLARIZATION: Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda. Laws may forbid intermarriage or social interaction. Extremist terrorism targets moderates, intimidating and silencing the center. Moderates from the perpetrators’ own group are most able to stop genocide, so are the first to be arrested and killed. Prevention may mean security protection for moderate leaders or assistance to human rights groups. Assets of extremists may be seized, and visas for international travel denied to them. Coups d’état by extremists should be opposed by international sanctions.

Organization

As part of the 'Eyebright' pilot project during our artist residency at Delamere Forest School, we looked at the 8 Stages of Genocide, for direction and inspiration.... Stage four is Organization:

4. ORGANIZATION: Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, often using militias to provide deniability of state responsibility (the Janjaweed in Darfur.) Sometimes organization is informal (Hindu mobs led by local RSS militants) or decentralized (terrorist groups.) Special army units or militias are often trained and armed. Plans are made for genocidal killings. To combat this stage, membership in these militias should be outlawed. Their leaders should be denied visas for foreign travel. The U.N. should impose arms embargoes on governments and citizens of countries involved in genocidal massacres, and create commissions to investigate violations, as was done in post-genocide Rwanda.

Quotes from The 8 Stages of Genocide by Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch.

Delamere Forest School day 4

Eyebright pilot.

This was a good day - our relationship with the students grew stronger and we had a big push on the work too. For the first time it felt that the students had settled us into their regime, their guardedness (and the reserve of their teachers) was coming down and they took risks with the pieces because they'd begun to trust us. The atmosphere was clear and focussed in comparison to the previous day, though there were still tail-ends of tantrums at breakfast. In this school, it is a priority to establish a safe environment, otherwise the young people are so brittle they can’t relax enough to give their best.

We worked them very hard, requiring levels of attention that I don’t think some of them realised they possessed. They unpeeled layers of protection, starting to show their vulnerabilities and allow themselves into the pieces. Little revelations came moment to moment. Suddenly we were rewarded with painstaking effort and personal expression, the excitement of making something that is true.

There were many notable incidents on this good-style day. One of my favourites was the opportunity to work with J – who has a diagnosis of autism, attention deficit syndrome, depression and anger management issues - and is embarrassed about his handwriting on top of all that. With constant supervision and cajoling he wrote a deeply felt piece explaining his difficulty with words, with expression, with people and with himself. During the writing, he actually fought with himself to try to stop his own self-interruptions and allow clear thinking. It was a small piece of paper containing a large personal victory for him.

Another piece, read out by A, described the fits that he suffers from and how they pursue him through his life, wrecking days and leaving him shaken, agitated. This was a heartbreaking piece of prose, read despite a stutter, but with great intensity. I actually had tears in my eyes, witnessing this desperately forlorn little autobiography. Everytime the word ‘fit’ came up – and it was mentioned many times – it hammered the point deeper in.

During all of this there were visits from the headmaster, school governors, the music teacher, art teacher, and a string of other adults. Although we were preoccupied, it was a wonderful set of interruptions – it was as though we were receiving blessings.

In the late afternoon we were getting close to exhausted and were grateful for a final session with the beautifically calm art teacher who generated such tranquillity that we all let go of our various tensions and made pieces in happy suspension.

Going home seemed terribly sad.

(arthur+martha would like to thank all the students and teachers at Delamere Forest School for their kindness during our visit.)

for more photos please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthur-and-martha/sets/72157618318696037/

Delamere Forest Residency day 3

Eyebright pilot.

Day three at Delamere Forest started with some confusion – a policeman had come into the school to give a talk on bullying and so the first session was cut to two people. The resulting pieces were interesting but something of a diversion, and a little distracted.

Y wanted to pursue his longer poetic ideas – and brought with him a mix of great dynamism, a restless intelligence and compulsive need for attention. He is sharp, insightful and full of the desire to create - either art, or chaos - fortunately for us, he voted for art. It felt like he was not only making art with us, but also making a role, constructing himself as a possible artist. K meanwhile launched into making nine word, three line forms which were caged in a grid. This was a neat little idea, which we are appraising and have put to one side for later consideration. K then started on writing the headings of the eight holocaust stages. Throughout our time he poured his effort into making badges with us; I was later told that his attentiveness was unusual and a big compliment.

The next session was interrupted by an argument between two pupils, one teasing the other – a poisonous little spat which wrecked the creativity of one person and soured the atmosphere.

The main breakthrough of the day came with the next set of poets who worked on love poems. They struggled against embarrassment, sarcasm, the urge to cover their vulnerability and a basic fight with the inadequacy of words themselves. The results were extremely moving and worked fabulously when cut into triangles and worn as badges – they were coy messages, given an edge by the context they’d been put into.

The afternoon sessions were low key and relaxed but did not really produce any great shifts in the project. Unfortunately, the last session ended in tears because I inadvertently cutup someone’s artwork – clumsy and done because of rushing the end of the day – it was a sad little postscript.

The school is a crucible for intense feelings to cook to temper level. It is several times over sealed away from the outside – it is in a secluded place, many occupants live there for most of the year, the pupils are categorised as having ‘special needs’, the school is accentedly Jewish and therefore apart from the educational mainstream. Finally, the students are suffering the delights, diversions and horror of being hormone-ridden teenagers. All of these things gather together and multiply each other effect. We arrived into the midst of this as artists with the deliberate intent to stir things up – and we became a catalyst.

Interpersonally, the pupils are often very kind to each other, and are strongly guided toward supporting one another. But the very nature of their issues force a clash against each other’s needs. Someone who has a racing mind and a short attention will conflict with someone else whose thought processes and comprehension are much slower. But some of the less hyper young people can deal with change better than their faster companions who cannot cope with new faces and possibilities.

We were tired by the intensity of the atmosphere at the school – and had brought some of our own worries along too. A pair of pretty battered arthur+martha artists had our tea with the school, bid our farewells and slipped off to the B+B for well-earned walks in the country and a kip.

Artist's Residency at Delamere Forest School

Eyebright pilot. Day 2

Our second day began promisingly with an excellent session that grew out of a discussion about the holocaust. The students were the oldest group we’d met and they were well-informed and impassioned about the subject.

They inspected yesterday’s work and decided that it wasn’t communicating the message clearly enough. I suggested that they try making some pieces that they felt would bring some teeth to it all and they set to. After initial misgivings and rebellions they settled into making a powerful sequence of works that were striking, subtle too. Blending numbers and the iconography of the concentration camps, they came up with a set of works that had great clarity.

Two of the standout pieces used a grid of barbed wire for a template and morphed the barbs into numbers. One of them simply had the word ‘smoke’ overwritten onto the design. This particular artist was S, who had become interested in the holocaust because one of his relatives was a camp survivor. Through them he had met other survivors and so the history for him was very alive. His badge became a talking point for many of the teachers who dropped in.

Next we worked out in the playground and the students drew chalk triangles into which they wrote their names as number sequences. It was energising to get outside and the group loved being able to transgress by ‘vandalising’ the ground. In particular, H adored the naughtiness of it. When we came back into the classroom she was fairly dancing with glee and filled with energy.

Y joined our group. He’s one of the older boys, thoughtful and insightful – and more than a little sad at the future in store for many of his companions. “What chance has a 19 year old who can’t tie their own shoe laces, cant put on their own clothes, got in the real world? … Give the kids here as much fun as is possible, because they aren’t going to have much when they leave.”

It is very easy in this environment to pick up the convenient diagnostic labels (ADS, autism, etc) that are provided for us and use them as though they were signifiers of character or identity. How gruesomely ironic it would be to embark on this project - also about the labelling of people - and slip into those habits. And yet how easily names stick, and what useful weapons. At a recreation session one of the kids used the word 'Downs' as a putdown for a fellow student. He was instantly reprimanded, but the sting of it stayed in the air. Part of the reason of course was so that the insulter would distance himself from his fellows and the shame of being labelled 'special'.

In the afternoon we tried some collaging, and some charcoal work, which looked appealing but again strayed from the main thrust of the collection. As Lois said, it's like it needs glue. Perhaps we will find it tomorrow?

Delamere Forest School, artists in residence

Eyebright pilot. Day 1

This is written in the evening of the first day of our residency at Delamere Forest School, which is a school for (mostly) Jewish students with special needs. A first day of trial-and-error experiments.

Our idea was to use the ‘eight stages of genocide’ identified by the Genocide Watch organisation as a framework for our work. We would play with visual poetry ideas engaging with each stage of the eight and make work that examined or contradicted each stage. The poems would be in the shape of triangles, recollecting the triangle badges worn by concentration camp prisoners during the nazi regime. But in contrast to the purpose of the original ‘Winkel’ badges, we would make pieces about the unity between people, the things that bring us together rather than divide us and also celebrate the quirks of individuals. That was the theory.

However we decided not to directly talk about the holocaust on the first day of sessions – didn’t want to launch into that dark place too quickly and without knowing our companions - so on this day we mentioned our main subject only by implication.

Nevertheless, the students piled in with great gusto, making pieces full of vigour and humour. We were working with dip pens and it was a pleasure to see the wide variety of expression in the marks, the discovery of new modes of communicating. Just as the pieces of art assumed character, so the characters of the students began to shine through and we began to make friends. In fact, meeting people was the biggest part of the day.

The triangle badges became more accomplished through the day as our focus sharpened and we began to fine-tune ideas. The art in making group pieces like this is in finding the rules of play. The makers’ work should be complemented by the process given to them. The balancing act we are trying to pull off is complex. Eyebright needs to be simple enough for many people of widely differing abilities to join into. At the same time it needs to reflect upon an extremely traumatic and knotted area of modern history.

By allowing both complex and much more physical and raw work – and by allowing in people whose vulnerabilities become another layer of saying – we hope to make a delicate, elliptical piece. The result of the first day: thirty or so triangle badges which are full of wit, personality, cheekiness, resistance, petulance, fun, consideration – in some tiny way antidotes to the original triangles and their terror.


To see more photos from the day, please visit our on line portfolio at http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthur-and-martha/sets/72157618318696037/

This project has been made possible by the generous funding by Sparks: The Clore Jewish Development Fund.

Delamere Forest School- artists in residence

Next week as part of our holocaust related project Kindness, Phil and I will be ‘artists in residence’ at Delamere Forest School, in Cheshire ( http://www.delamereschool.org.uk/ ). It’s a Jewish special needs centre, catering for pupils aged 6 to 17, we will be there Monday to Thursday running workshops combining text and art. We’re hoping some of the work produced during the week will be exhibited as part of Holocaust Memorial Day activities next year. We will investigate with the pupils through art and poetry: identity, fear, bullying, acceptance, difference, kindness and aspiration… We’ll be posting more blogs, poems and photos during the week here and at http://arthur-and-martha-poems.blogspot.com/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthur-and-martha

The Grin Variations

PHILIP DAVENPORT WAS POET IN RESIDENCE AT INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL HAGUE FEB-MAR 2009, WORKING ON THE GRIN VARIATIONS A POETIC COLLABORATION BETWEEN STUDENTS AT THE HAGUE AND AT PARENTHORN HIGH SCHOOL IN THE UK, AS PART OF THE 2009 TEXT FESTIVAL. DAVENPORT ALSO DEVELOPED HIS OWN ONGOING PIECE A SHARED LONELINESS.


One of the delights of the world is making a mess. Over three weeks I aided and abetted students at International School Hague (ISH) as they splashed ink across paper (and desks) held pens in their teeth to write and abused photocopiers. This was the ISH instalment of poetry project The Grin Variations. The freedom to mess up, in all senses, is one of the greatest human liberties. With it comes a rush of creative ideas and this is what I’d hoped to capture – serious play.

The Grin Variations is a giant poem made up of hundreds of individual pieces written by students of all ages, mostly attendees at Parenthorn High School in the UK, the rest at ISH in Holland. It is a visual poem, in the form of a short film made out of handwriting, intended for the screen rather than the page. The project is part of the international Text Festival in the UK, which brings together poets and artists who are interested in the outermost possibilities of the word.

For three weeks, I early morning-ed on trains and trams from Delft to ISH in Den Hague, bringing my collection of ideas and a hankering for caffeine. Students were shown the visual (or ‘concrete’) poem Grin by the celebrated British experimenter Bob Cobbing - a deceptively simple piece of writing in the shape of a smile. I then asked students to make their own variation on Cobbing – using dip pens and ink and the priciples of concrete poetry – to employ shape rather than rhyme and rhythm to make poems.

People don’t use dipping pens and ink anymore of course (but why ‘of course’?) and many young people don’t write by hand at all if they can avoid it. The sense of touch has been removed from their communications; the trace they leave is a digital one. But losing the physical act of writing can strip words of expressiveness. Shake, blots, imperfect lines tell us much about the writer, just as hand-making anything gives it a unique human presence.

The project is divided into three sections (one for each of the large screens in the plaza at ISH) Grin, Green and Grim. The Grin pieces describe the act of smiling – many of them are joyous little riffs on happiness – others delve the complexity that a smile can portray. The Green pieces are both a celebration and a damnation of mass-produced objects, especially cars. Finally, Grim brings destruction – verses mostly made by cutting up and processing war reportage in newspapers. Put together, the three are reflections on pleasure, consumption and violence – as viewed by young people – and they collectively ask the question: what lessons do we really teach our children?



My three weeks at ISH were a tumble of feelings and faces. Most people welcomed me. I was touched by the attentiveness and thoughtfulness of the creative writing group. Conversely, the sheer exuberance of the primary schoolers gave me a much-needed jolt on a sleepy morning. The art department were my base – their openness to the idea that poetry and art can cross borders into each other was heartening. Head of the department Mark Jalland helped organise my residency, lent his house and was a constant support along with Johnny Regan. The English department were more cautious because I come from an avant garde tradition that hasn’t yet percolated into the syllabus – but very graciously let me into their classes, despite the ink spillages. Carrie Stockwell – whose students were enthused by her inspirational teaching – was especially kind.

Standing clearest in my memory are the students who plunged so enthusiastically into it all, especially the team who helped with the editing of our work-in-progress Filip, David, Desiree and Yakayaki and Charlotte and Alexander who laid out hundreds of manuscripts from ISH and Parenthorn in the school plaza, under the watchful eye of Uka, for an impromptu showing. What we saw laid out for us on that day seemed to me a kind of handmade mirror of the media, reflecting back the litany of pleasure, consumption and war that the papers offer, the more poignant for being the work of children.

The Grin Variations is a partnership project between Parenthorn High School in the UK and International School Hague, devised and overseen by poet Philip Davenport. It is supported by Bury Metropolitan Council and Stroom Gallery, Hague, with additional support from Arts Council England. The project will be exhibited as part of the UK Text Festival in the UK and Holland from 30th April – mid-June 2009.

Working in the Great Outdoors

The sessions today were lively and enjoyable. I'm just really glad it wasn't raining so we could be outside as planned. I invited the young people to work with whatever materials there were to hand in the environment. No paper, no pens, no paint, just leaves, flowers, car tires, logs and litter. The imagination was stretched and they rose to this creative challenge fantastically.

They were enthusiastic and continued to work with themes from last of "what matters to me". Friendship and family were a recurring issues, as was music. They used their bodies again to work with, to find ways of leaving their mark, stating their own identity.

A personal scupture trail was created and left for others to see or the wind to scatter.

Christine

more images at www.flickr.com/photos/arthur-and-martha/

Football, crisps, friends and family

Friday 6th June

I worked alongside Rebecca Guest inviting the group to think about making their own piece of art using the topic of "what matters to me". Giving them limited materials of pen, paper, masking tape and their own bodies they set too with great enthusiam. Topics ranged from football to crisps, friendship to family.

We then took the budding artists outside to the sculture trail where I asked them to consider how they could use their enviornment to place their work. They showed tremendous creativity by coming up with repeated options and displaying their pieces, both using thier bodies and the locality as additions to their expression.

Christine Evans

more images www.flickr.com/photos/arthur-and-martha/

A trip to Irwell Valley Sculpture Trail 20th May 2008

On Friday, we went on a visit to the Irwell Valley Sculpture Trail, to work with the two groups from Riverside School. The groups took Polaroid photograph portraits of each other, amongst Ulrich Ruckreim's sculptures (http://www.radcliffe.info/aboutradcliffe.html) which were hole punched and threaded through with string. These were then sited throughout the area - on trees, hung in mouths, wedged into the sculptures, held in hands.

Everyone was given two evidence bags, and asked to collect objects from around the park, things of beauty or of disgust. The group gathered a range of objects, leaves, flowers, sheep dung, rubbish, broken glass… these bags were placed in situ and photographed.

For more photos, please go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthur-and-martha/

Inscape: a stone walk 7th May 2008

On the 25th April, arthur+martha, started a new series of workshops with school children from Radcliffe, Bury. We started work gathering material for a
series of art/textworks that are representations of imaginary sculptures, to be devised by the children themselves;

These pieces will be placed along the Irwell Sculpture Trail at an event in July. They will be temporary works, many of them very discreet, which engage with the sculpture trail and with the landscape, the form of these works will emerge during the forthcoming workshops.

Last week we worked with Bobby, Steffan, Michael, Oscar, Jordan, Nathan in the morning and Phil, Josh, Kay, Rebecca, Sadaef, Mathew and Page in the afternoon. Activities included experimental drawing techniques, text art, photocopying, poetry and photography. We investigated issues such as, what would you leave behind? What unfulfilled dreams people have? what defines our existence? what is sculpture? and positive images of yourself and others.

Thanks to all the contributors and staff who helped.

To see further photos go to our flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/23521380@N07/