Contemporary Community Textile Artist Derbyshire UK
Collaboration Kindness Carbon Sensitivity
Work On Walls
Community Exhibition Project
Deepening Community Relationships Through Artist Collaboration
Period
2023
My Role
Community Engagement Officer | Artist and Community Liaison
Project Type
Collaborative Project
Location
Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry
Project Overview
Work On Walls was a major community exhibition project at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry, running from 23 June to 3 September 2023. Eight contemporary artists were commissioned to make work directly on the gallery walls in response to the Herbert's collections. Four of those artists worked with community groups as part of the wider exhibition. My responsibility was for two of those relationships: Art Riot Collective working with Mim, also known as Jemima Graham, and Escape Arts in Stratford upon Avon working with Roo.
Both groups were already known to me through my Turner Prize 2021 community engagement work. I deliberately wanted to continue those relationships rather than treat each exhibition as a separate one off encounter. For me, the primary purpose of community engagement was to build relationships between the museum and the people it serves, and that takes time. A museum or gallery can represent another institution that people feel nervous about approaching or excluded from, particularly when cultural spaces have not previously felt as though they belong to them.
Art Riot Collective & Mim
Art Riot Collective worked with Mim on a response to images of Coventry Cathedral held within the Herbert’s collections. The process included spending time at Coventry Cathedral as part of the group’s research, looking, talking and making observational drawings before the work developed into large wall hangings. I coordinated the relationship between the group, artist and institutions, including dates, times and venues, and worked with the Cathedral around access and risk assessment so the visit could happen safely and comfortably. You can read more about Art Riot Collective and their wider practice on their own website.
Escape Arts & Roo
The young people from Escape Arts worked with Roo through the Herbert’s animal collections. They spent time looking closely at animal references, drawing and developing ideas before moving into making, including butterfly forms and a spray painting session. The activity also contributed towards their wider Arts Award learning. At the time, Art was not available to them at GCSE through school, so the collaboration gave them another route into sustained visual arts activity, direct contact with a practising artist and the chance to make work connected to a major museum exhibition.
Building Relationships Beyond One Project
I had first connected with both groups through Turner Prize 2021 and wanted Work On Walls to deepen their relationship with the Herbert. I do not believe one workshop or one exhibition visit is always enough. My aim was that, over time, people would feel more comfortable in the building, more connected to the staff and collections, and increasingly able to return without needing me to be the person who brought them through the door.
That belief is personal as well as professional. Textile and art teachers did this for me: they made creative spaces feel accessible, encouraged me to take my ideas seriously and helped me feel that I belonged there. I have always wanted to pay some of that forward. At the Herbert, that meant using the opportunities available to me to help people build confidence in their own relationship with art and with the institution, rather than making that relationship dependent on me.
For me, this is part of building citizen power. A community’s relationship with a museum cannot depend on one member of staff. When I left the Herbert, I made sure contacts, relationships and relevant project information were handed over so whoever took over my role had enough context to continue those connections. The aim was continuity: people feeling able to enter, ask questions, participate and belong in their own right.
Making The Collaborations Happen
My role was to act as the conduit between each artist, the community group and the Herbert. Alongside the relationship building, there was a practical layer of work that often stayed out of sight: communicating between everyone involved, coordinating dates, times and venues, planning access, carrying out or coordinating risk assessment, and making sure the conditions were in place for the artist and group to work together. The groups developed their own creative responses through the process, while decisions about the final presentation of the work in the exhibition remained with the individual artists.
The resulting collaborations formed part of Work On Walls from the beginning rather than being added after the exhibition had been developed. The Herbert’s official Work On Walls exhibition page records the eight artist exhibition and its direct to wall approach.
