Pairing: BA Fine Art and Calthorpe Community Garden 2017-2019
An activity that brought together BA (Hons) Fine Art students and community members at a London community garden, to encourage dialogue between the ‘pairs’, as they explored interactive, and touch led processes in the context of a constantly changing greenspace. This aimed to encourage new ways of working in response to location, situation and conversation.
Image: © Jodie Michaelides, 2022, BA (Hons) Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, London College of Communication, UAL
Key information
- Participants: it was designed for a maximum of 10 students from BA (Hons) Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, and 10 community members from Calthorpe Community Garden.
- Duration: between 8-10, 2 hour sessions.
- Location: Calthorpe Community Garden, London.
Pairing was a collaborative activity that spanned the spring and summer terms encouraging collaborative learning from and with nature, and each other. It was a collaboration between Fine Art students from Central Saint Martins (CSM) and community members from Calthorpe Community Garden. A community garden on Gray’s Inn Road, local to CSM. Students were asked to draw on the properties and possibilities of the garden and from their encounters with others – to consider both the physical and social spaces the garden provides for community members. The students were paired with a community member, and through their dialogues over 8-10 sessions, explored new ways of working. The project was initiated in 2017 and ran for 3 years before being disrupted by Covid-19. The partnership between the community at Calthorpe and the CSM team was fundamental to the success of the project. With aims to support immersive approaches to participatory place-based practices and create a rich and inspiring programme to encourage new social relationships through experiences.
Pairing was created by Sarah Cole and Margot Bannerman in 2017, and was led by Lucy Joyce until 2019. Partially funded by CSM’s Local Engagement Fund, it was conducted in partnership with Dr. Danny McNally’s AHRC research on Methodologies for Socially Engaged Art. The project culminated in a public event which coincided with London ‘Open Gardens’ weekend and production of a Zine in 2019. This project formed a part of wider action in fostering connection between students at CSM and the local community via the BA (Hons) Fine Art course. This work has included many projects – ‘AIR’ from 2007 to present day in various locations led by Anna Hart and ‘The Usual’, from 2019 to present day in Jaywick, Essex led by Sarah Cole.
Contact
Margot Bannerman, Tutor, Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, UAL – m.bannerman@csm.arts.ac.uk.