Local Mithila artists participating in a pop-up mural at Gangasagar, Janakpur.
The Together Spaces series explored the different creative practices that are realised outside the art gallery. What did we learn from this?
In the West, the gallery is the default space for encountering creative works. Exhibiting in a gallery provides an artist with recognition and potential sales. The vocational pathway from art school is based around this kind of exhibition practice, supported by catalogues, curators and arts council grants. The downside is the potential capture by cultural and economic elites. We need to explore the alternatives. How are
- How, then, do we give value to work found in everyday life?
- How can it be credited as important as exhibition practice?
- How can the makers of objects for the wider world sustain their work?
Beyond the Gallery draws on the work done for the Art Jewelry Forum publication, Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective (2013). This proposed a framework for contemporary jewellery that included not only the gallery (plinth, page and drawer) but also the bench, body, street and world (link). The idea was that these spaces each had their own specific interests against which their work could be valued. In the case of the Together Spaces series, this also included spaces beyond the gallery including land, table and temple.
You can read a report and watch the video of this event in the Knowledge House for Craft here.
