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| Jamboree 2018 Photo: Andy Ford |
Developed by LOW PROFILE, the event was a response to a situation many
of us recognise: the struggle to meet other visual art professionals for reasons including money, geography, time, other work and family
commitments.
Participants co-delivered a programme of presentations,
micro-exhibitions, activities and discussions to share practice. The hope
was that attendees would meet new people, find out about each others’ work,
build new relationships and make connections that led to new projects.
Jamboree 2018 also offered the “chance to stop, engage,
interact and recharge in a positive, critically-engaged environment”. I will confess,
I didn’t quite believe the part about recharging. I thought it was an important and useful
event to attend, but I never expected it to be quite so liberating or quite as much
fun.
It began in quite a familiar way, with a series of
presentations by four curators and one artist: Alistair Hudson (Manchester Art
Gallery), Simon Morrissey (Foreground), Sonya Dyer, Lucy Day (A Woman’s Place) and
Ingrid Swenson (PEER), and a communal meal by the Real Junk Food Project of Plymouth.
The following morning I attended a further talk/provocation by Alistair Hudson
about ‘useful art’, drawing on his experiences at Grizedale and MIMA.
But then things started to get really interesting. Choices
were difficult in such a packed programme but I went on a Walk & Talk with Bettina Wenzel where we discussed rules and restrictions in the context of
our work. I then joined Simon Bayliss for ‘Landscape Painters Anonymous’ by the
river, where I was faced with a situation I haven’t encountered for years: a
view and a box of watercolours. It was indeed a “guilty pleasure” as billed – once we realised
we were all pretty bad watercolourists, let go and had fun. I then returned to the river to paddle alongside
Simon Lee Dicker’s ‘Silent Swim School’.
The next day I joined ‘Telling Time’ a voice and text
workshop run by Mark Leahy, where we created a wonderful group performance, reflecting on personal and abstract time, in just two hours. Next came a session led by Lara Goodband: communal
poetry-making by the river. Finally I
joined Zoe Toolan for ‘Lone/ly Wolf. I
think it was at this point, as I looked around me at a group of adults howling uninhibitedly in the forest, that I remembered making art can be joyful and playful when, in recent
years, it has sometimes felt like quite a slog.
There were also 20:20 artist talks, artist film screenings,
plus the camp shop selling artists’ editions and a show of artists’ miniatures,
giving every participant a chance to showcase their practice. And, of course, a wild and noisy party on Saturday night. The event ended on Sunday morning with a standing ovation
for the organisers and helpers who had made it happen.
Jamboree had a very special atmosphere, It was a place away
from the hard grind of day-to-day life, helped along by perfect weather and the idyllic Dartington
setting, but, more than anything, by a spirit of generosity, openness and
kindness between all participants. It
was the best kind of professional networking because we did it by having fun
and making memories together. Roll on Jamboree 2020.
Jamboree was developed by LOW PROFILE in partnership
with a-n The Artists Information Company and Plymouth College of Art
and was part funded by Arts Council England.
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