(un)Survey
( - )
A collaborative social art project with and for artists and cultural workers in Exeter city region.
A Social practice and Peer to peer project.
- Location
- Exeter and online
Feeding my imagination and practice with well-chosen and stimulating new content, ideas and discussions. It's amazing how rare this is for non-students/non-academics... it was an incredibly generous gift to have it chosen, offered and timetabled in this condensed and organised way.
Artist/culture worker participant
When all our work got cancelled or postponed in April 2020, we felt very lucky to receive Covid-19 Emergency Funds from Arts Council England. As part of this, we wanted to make something happen with our artist and culture worker colleagues in Exeter. Whilst the situation was incredibly worrying and stressful, it was also a potential moment of space in our usually hectic and habitual work lives that offered ways to connect differently. We wanted to do some thinking together about how our skills and practice might help facilitate new inspirations for making art that is social, and also does things socially in the city region. To learn from each other, and to try and gently set some new, and hopefully surprising alliances and projects in motion together.
The hard work, generosity, thought and professionalism that's gone into making this happen is very evident and I really appreciate it. Overall, it's given me a sense of hope about what might be possible through working together in social practice.
Artist/culture worker participant
(un)Survey was a five week project that began with an invitation. For any artist or culture worker in Exeter region to answer a set of questions… with questions of their own.
One assumes that ones statements are 'correct'... but of course it's much easier to discuss as a question.
Artist/culture worker participant
Asking meaningful questions can be more demanding than giving answers. It's an interesting process that activates my mind.
Artist/culture worker participant
Working from the responses that we received, and our sense of what was already happening in the city, we put together a programme of online presentations, group discussions, and a series of themed, collaborative writing ‘pads’. We spent five weeks with 39 of our colleagues, thinking, listening, and interacting – remotely and anonymously – with each other. Letting the ideas be the centre of our attention. As the region starts on a tentative journey toward cultural recovery, we look forward to seeing what what new things emerge from this process.
The potential has been exciting - where are we going with this as we all seem to be pretty hungry for change from the status quo and up for doing something decentralised and collective.
Artist/culture worker participant