Didge Dowley: I really enjoyed coming on Sunday, I thought it was a really lovely experience actually.
Neil Rose: I’m glad you liked it.
D: I think it gave a whole different perspective on how you view art, which BAS7 doesn’t do.
Jess Young: I think all of the things that we’ve looked at that Come to Ours do has a very different feel to a lot of BAS7 and a lot of other fringe activities- more intimate, less rigid.
N: That was our overriding desire with all of these activities. We specifically made these 6 activities because we’re coming from a place where all of us involved in Come to Ours; Neil Rose, Rachel Dobbs, Hannah Jones, Mark James, Chris Green, Bryony Gillard, Beth Richards, essentially have all had experience of just landing in cities for things exactly like BAS7. So we were like ‘how do we assist people who don’t know the city, to navigate the city? How do we assist them in achieving those things that they need?’ So video takeaway for sure is based on supplying places to go and eat- endorsing places where it’s okay to go and eat, by just having a curated program of films in there. Also Low Profile’s badge project is about identifying 5 pubs that it’s okay to go and drink in.
J: So the Come to Ours program is like a tour guide?
N: Pretty much yeah, to Plymouth. And it is about welcoming people to Plymouth, and assisting them while they’re there. In this kind of art way.
D: Have you had lots of visitors come, tourist that have come specifically o see the British Art Show that have come across Come to Ours?
N: I think the video takeaway may be the most successful for that. Obviously it’s very hard to count audience figures to takeaways... the badge project as well, it’s surprising, you see people... I’m tuned in to seeing these badges. You see builders walking around with like four badges. We have had people turn up at our door, and when they come we make them a cup of tea.. Even between tea and cake events... if somebody turns up we make them a cup of tea. It’s really nice to offer that window into Plymouth’s art world for anyone that wants to have a look really.
J: There’s been a lot of talk about BAS7’s accessibility, about going into a gallery, these places being quite an intimidating thing, so especially the Fireplace Gallery is a very different look at what a gallery space can be, and inviting people to view art in a really different, more familiar atmosphere.
N: We’ve obviously adhered to a certain level of convention for a gallery... it was really important to us to get the vinyl lettering... And you know, it’s totally unnecessary...
J: But that’s really nice, it’s sort of tongue-in-cheek
N: Absolutely... and you do know that everybody who was invited to submit for an open call has stayed in our house, and that was really important to us as well. And that’s important that they would understand the domestic nature of the gallery... Make works that directly respond to that. So all the works are really small scale...
D: Intimate. That’s what I found, intimate and warm. So for me it really did tick a box that I’ve not experienced art in such an environment before.
So are you hoping to carry it on?
N: We’ve tried to have meetings to discuss the future of Come to Ours, and none of us at the moment are certain. We do need to have a bit of a comedown. But me and Hannah are making a commitment to continue the Fireplace Gallery in some way- but we need time to work it out.. Because obviously this part of it has been funded, so how to make it sustainable, and self-sustainable, whereas while we’re not interested in making a profit, or taking a profit, we do need to not be investing our own money into ensuring that it happens.
So we’re having meetings with other artist-led spaces to discuss with them and talk about the potential future of it. But we’re definitely going to do it... It just for sure wouldn’t be as regular.
D: Do you know if there are other people in other cities where the British Art Show has been that have done something similar to what you guys are doing?
N: I have no idea, but the whole artist led activity is not a new thing. In South Brent (one c???), were opening their house to people and having full on events. And that was going on for a number of years, and they only stopped when they moved to Devon, and then they took that collective and moved it to a different... (?) Experiencing art in people’s houses I think is a very traditional method of experiencing art. Collectives frequently will allow people into their houses to see work, so maybe this is something that’s been forgotten possibly, in the formalised nature of today’s art.
D: I should think a lot of people don’t believe they can see art in people’s houses; aren’t even aware of the fact that they can. They recognise the fact that they can go to a museum or art gallery, but probably wouldn’t go because they don’t want to... But this whole world, this underground world of houses...
N: It’s a similar experience to some of the streets in London. There are galleries in the street, essentially someone’s house, and you ring on the door... It’s the same thing. But absolutely, you have to know about it really. You have to be initiated. Esoteric, that’s the word.
J: Has this been something that you’ve worked with before- These people people/ideas about Plymouth?
N: Yeah... I mean the group of us have never worked together before, but we’ve become very good friends. But Bryony brought us all together... Was like ‘look guys, do you want to meet up, and we’ll discuss... do stuff for the Fringe.’ Because she knew British Art Show was coming before British Art Show was coming. And she knew, rather shrewdly, that if we all came together that we’d have much more weight in getting a collective Arts Council funding. We couldn’t have done any of it without the money. Well, we had a b-plan, but that was a much more scaled down version of it. But we didn’t need the b-plan.
D: How long did it take to prepare?
N: A year and a half
D: So you were a year and a half ahead of going for the funding... Planning ahead?
N: within the city I think we were 6-8 months ahead of most people.
J: Is that just because you knew about BAS7?
N: Pretty much... maybe we did have a bit of a sly insider. But also, Photo Now, and... a year before it came we had a meeting with all of the Plymouth arts groups., and we just sat down and said ‘this thing’s coming, what do we do?’; And we all just decided that we would just do our own things- there’s no point in making a collective Fringe chair.. Because Plymouth’s too small for that. So if we just did all our activities then people would just find it. There’s no reason for us to waste further money trying to promote these things in a collective way. But that’s also why me and Rachel made the website, the Fringe website, as a self-maintaining Fringe resource.
J: What about the Plymouth Aural Survey?
N: That was kind of a one-shot thing. So me and Donna Howard stood in the city centre for 7 hours, and we stopped anyone who was wearing headphones, asked them a series of relatively stupid questions, just to get them into the mode of a survey, and recorded 20 seconds of what they were listening to. And it kind of just is what it is basically. You could view it in many different ways; as a bit of a mapping project, as a weirdly voyeuristic project... But ultimately it is just mapping of people moving through the city centre based on what they’re listening to.
J: I think voyeuristic is great, because in a lot of ways that’s what Come to Ours is about... Peeping into what you do.
N: Into the hidden-ness... But in a welcoming way. I think that’s key to it all- this notion of welcoming people into a city. Actually a city that none of us in Come to Ours are from, but have all chosen to work in, and are all very fond of this city. And I think that’s an interesting thing in itself because there may not have been a generation of artists who have got to our age, or our point in our careers who have stayed in Plymouth before. So they get to our point and they go to London, or they go to Bristol, you know, we’re choosing to stay here.
J: Make it a happening place.
N: So there’s why there’s this whole massive change, because it’s not just us, there are lots of other people as well at a similar point in their careers who are still here, who haven’t moved out. And that’s why we’re getting this quite large, more recent flux of art activity.
D: With your help
N: With everybody’s help- everybody works together. And that’s the thing, that’s really nice. That’s why maybe some of the more official venues, official committees potentially aren’t delivering what they should be. And that’s why all of us, artist led groups have come together and are working together, because all we have... our interest is in ensuring that art happens in Plymouth. We’re not interested... Because we don’t need to do that whole ‘I’m a star’, because that stuff comes from the more official committees.
J: Could you tell us a bit about A Circle? (Which has now finished)
N: A Circle was curated by Beth Richards and Bryony Gillard. They curated an exhibition of female artists primarily in performative mediums. And what they were keen not to do was generate a show based on performance, but on performative actions. So there’s quite a lot of video work, drawings, sound stuff.
D: You had a stage in there...
N: there was a stage... at the stage at 1:30 every day, Selena Taylor, wherever she was in the world would get on her laptop, they would connect via Skype, and she’d sing a song. Every day she sang the same song. So if she was on a bus, she’d have to get her laptop out...
