Service Wash Tales

Service Wash Tales
Camberwell Arts Festival
June 2007

Customers waiting for their laundry to wash and dry at Tumble Wash were invited to exchange stories about clothes. Each story was then handwritten by Davina and Daniel, and given to the customer to take home with their laundry. Stories were either taken home by the customer or displayed in window on the notice board. Only users of Tumble Wash could participate in this event.

Special thanks to William Nightingill of Tumble Wash

I and Me TOO

I and Me TOO
Studio Voltaire and Cubitt Gallery
June 2007

Where as I & ME aimed specifically to encourage young people and artists to explore contemporary notions of identity, I & ME TOO focused on developing notions of social and cultural / artistic exchange through a series of workshops and an end of project event.

THE WORKSHOPS

Took an interdisciplinary approach to exploring aspects of contemporary culture and forms of communication. For instance the social implications of music, language and slang, peer relationships and online social networking such as myspace were investigated as means to developing understandings of social and cultural / artistic exchange.

The workshops were held in two separate locations, one at Cubitt in Islington (North London) and the other at Studio Voltaire in Clapham (South London).

Each series of workshops (the first at Studio Voltaire) was held over four consecutive weekdays, followed by a one-day event held at the weekend. At this event, the workshop participants in one location hosted the group from the other location, and the two groups of young people and members of the public engage in the activities devised during the workshops.

This process was repeated in the following week at Cubittt studios.

THE EVENT

The reason for having an event, rather than a more traditional exhibition following the workshops, was to place a greater emphasis on the role that the young people have in actively devising the project, and the activities that occur in each of the project spaces, and to encourage participation in the event from members of the public.

By looking at different forms of exchange during the workshops, the artists and young people had an opportunity to put their explorations into practice by creating a day of activities that invite exchange, both through dialogue and making.

It was impossible to say what form the two events would take, as it is only through collaboration and discussion amongst the participating artists, and the artists and young people during the workshops, that the events could be defined.


Participating artists: Yara El Sherbini, Neil Taylor, Daniel Lehan, Kerry Duggan & Oli Cloke, Nina Jan Beier & Marie Jan Lund, Gabrielle O’Connor, Abigail Hunt & Kieren Reed, Davina Drummond

Participating Sixth Form colleges: The BRIT school, The Community College Hackney and Hampstead Sixth Form

For more information please visit: www.iandme.org.uk

lonely heARTs

lonely heARTs
Space Station Sixty-Five
14 February 2007

lonely heARTs 2007, Davina and Daniel’s first collaboration was a date-specific evening of romantic interactions and dialogues held at Space Station Sixty-Five in south London on Valentines Day 2007. An advertisement was placed in a local newspaper inviting readers to text their ‘Would Like To Meet’ messages. These messages were subsequently digitally embroidered, and the texters were invited to attend the event as well as the general public.

All those attending the event were invited to type Love Letters, decorate Love Cakes and write postcards to ‘advertise themselves’. During the evening, the postcards were displayed in the gallery window. On the one hand present were people people who had described the person they would most like to meet, and on the other, there were people who had described themselves.

At the end of the evening if texters hadn’t found their ideal partner,
then they were each given their embroidered perfect match.

Image courtesy of Phil Polglaze