Proposal for old town carnival week 2006

By Nathan Burr

I am a student studying fine art at Winchester school of art and currently working on a project that I thought might be of benefit to the residents and carnival goers of this years old town carnival week.

 I am currently very interested in art being used within a social framework, integrating directly into society outside of the tradition of the gallery/museum. Events such as the old town carnival have particular interest to me in there way of bringing people together and the ability of strengthening community identity. I see the old town carnival and other events during this festive week as great opportunities for local artists to showcase their work in and around the old town. Through local artist’s work a community can be revised and given a new identity. Though not always directly. The decision to show their work in Hastings particularly during Old town carnival week, wittingly or unwittingly, has an effect on how the work is read. The same is to be read of the place and time which showed the work. An artist whose painting is to be shown in a gallery, for example, should be aware of the conditions of the particular space and lighting the gallery offers. This consideration should by know means stop at the door of the gallery for me; there is the geographical and social situation of the gallery and the types of communities it should represent.

  This understanding becomes integral to the art piece. These considerations I prioritise and push to the forefront of my current practice. For my artwork to become fully realised I need the framework of a location, and interactivity with the local community.

I have been a resident of Hastings for a majority of my life and naturally Hastings and its residents have been a running theme to my work. After finishing secondary school in 1992 (The Grove) I worked as a hairdresser in three salons in the town Krisdees, Toni and Guy and @ hairdressing. Becoming a hairdresser gave me the platform to work directly within the community; I saw my position as not only a creative one but also as an important social role. I was in an invaluable position where I got to know a cross section of the community from all walks of life.

Social interaction is of the up most importance to my work and as I was a born and bread in Hastings myself would like contribute to the old town carnival week with two projects I am currently working on.   

Project

I am currently working on two projects that I feel would work within the framework of the Old town carnival week. The first is my “Bread birdhouse” project.

The bread birdhouse project is designed to work with a local bakery that will provide loafs of bread that I can turn into birdhouses. The loaves of bread are then put in various locations for the birds. Will they move in, will they eat them or just leave them alone? These are some of the initial questions the birdhouses raise. In the context of them being used in the old town for Old town carnival week I believe the bread birdhouses will provide the interaction and awareness of another local community that is usually overlooked even though anybody who lives or ever visited Hastings cannot help but be aware of them. The birds! In Hastings particularly the seagulls.

I know that seagulls are seen as a pest to some people but there is no getting away from them and the proposed week for the piece there will be enough rubbish in the bins for them to scavenge anyway so to involve their inevitable eating of the bread birdhouses as an art piece is making something productive and interesting from a inevitable occurrence. I believe also that the bread birdhouses will only last for a week at the most and I again see the old town week as a fitting time to show the piece with the emphasis on the spectacle and enjoyment. On another level the work speaks of the temporality of events such as these and the importance of them in strengthening community bonds. Hopefully people will take something from seeing the work and as the bread birdhouses are easy to make needing only a loaf of bread and a breadstick (perch) anyone can make one.

 See my artworks as gifts asking nothing more than to subvert the banality of the everyday.

I would also like to propose showing some of my films during old town carnival week. I am enquiring into using the Electric Palace cinema in the High Street as a venue to show them. Again having lived in Hastings for many years I have acquired many interesting short films that may have no other relation to one another than the fact they are all made in and around Hastings. Some are filmed in my kitchen and others in the castle on mayday. Again I hope the context provided by old town carnival week will emphasize and strengthen there meaning.

I have participated twice before in old town carnival week, having two exhibitions in Harris’s restaurant. I believe this proposal is the next logical step for me to take in my practice.

 The work can be mostly carried out independently but would need some technical support in putting the bread birdhouses up. I would find local bakers to provide the bread and be sure to associate them in any advertising.

For my university project I would document the whole event though photography, film and any other medium that captured the spirit of the piece, and would in fact use the documentation as the artwork in a gallery situation. The documentation could indeed be shown in Hastings at a later date as a reminder of the time and place of old town carnival week 2006.

I hope that this idea is of interest to you.

Yours Nathan Burr

Email: nathanburr@hotmail.com

Telephone: 07958446552.