Since May 2016, we have been inmersed in the project International Exchange: Resonating Across Borders.The process has been very exciting and challenging and after a number of FCF meetings we decided to expand the project for other artists to have an impact in such an experimental artistic approach. 

Meeting in Gloucestershire UK.

Collecting together the exchanges so far and starting to record the materials. A chance to see the work in wider context and how the individual exchanges work together as a whole; showing trends and patterns. Making some additions to the FCF website to consider making the process accessible to new contributors.

FCF is happy to announce its support to the project called some:when a collaboration by the artists Jethro Brice and Seila Fernández Arconada.

Some:when – celebrating cohesion through the watery heritage of the Somerset Moors and Levels is a collaborative public art project conceived in response to the floods on the Somerset Moors and Levels. It is led by artists Jethro Brice and Seila Fernandez Arconada, together with individuals and community groups affected by the floods. The aim of the project is to support and amplify the remarkable resilience of Somerset communities in responding creatively to the floods. While the Media have often presented the floods as a matter of division and controversy, we have been struck by the voices from the ground which have worked to develop shared responses to the crisis.

Working with local groups in and around Langport, Jethro and Seila will create a replica of the traditional Somerset Flatner from reclaimed materials, sourced in the immediate environment. Designed as a practical and affordable solution for navigating life in a changeable environment, this characteristic Somerset boat is an iconic local design that represents the centrality of both water and human ingenuity in shaping the history of life on the levels.

The boat will be fitted out with a bright and decorative sail compiled from the collected stories of children and young people affected by the floods. Through creative, participatory workshops they will be encouraged to share and reflect on their experiences and articulate a vision of Somerset’s future. Local groups are invited to accompany the Flatner on a triumphant journey from Langport to Bridgwater on the outgoing tide. 

FCF will support and follow this project granted by the Community Foundation and supported by Somerset Artworks. It will take part at the Somerset Art Weeks as the first official event in which workshops will be develop in order to build the Flatner, encouraging collaboration and participation of the public in its whole process. 

For more information: http://some-when.co.uk/

FCF is a collaborative exercise.

FCF works at all levels in a collaborative way not only thinking about the result but the process, the philosophy and the methodology before the work is even conceived.

We are willing to work through ideas and to produce a shared response after listening to each other, learning from each other, arguing with each other and seeing FCF as something that could not have been formed from an individual approach.

By exploring global issues from collaborative perspectives enforces dialogue about the local which reflects the global at all levels. FCF members have the advantage of being made up of different cultures, different ages, different backgrounds but equal status.

A crucial element of the FCF process is time. The commitment to the ideals of the projects and being prepared to devote extended time in order to make it happen.

Collaboration can have many meanings and connotations.

It is a term which carries a dichotomy. It can mean working together in a positive way to achieve a shared goal where the result is intended to operate in a synergistic or Gestalt way with the whole that is more than the sum of the its parts.

It also has a meaning relating to the voluntary or involuntary co-operation with an enemy or dominant regime. Although this latter meaning often relates to wartime occupation, it could be extended to the concept that “if you are not against the system you are part of it”.

FCF seeks operate collaboratively to use art to question the system.


Noun: collaboration; plural noun: collaborations

1. the action of working with someone to produce something.
synonyms: cooperation, alliance, partnership, participation, combination, association, concert; teamwork, joint effort, working together, coopetition.

2. traitorous cooperation with an enemy.
synonyms: fraternizing, fraternization, colluding, collusion, cooperating, cooperation, consorting, sympathizing, sympathy; conspiring.

Antonyms: resistance

Origin: mid 19th century: from Latin collaboratio(n- ), from collaborare ‘work together’.

“We should try to be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past.”
Miguel de Unamuno

As a child I always wanted to be a hod-carrier.  There was something about the symmetry of the bricks on the hold that fascinated me and at the young age of five to eight years it seemed the most elegant of processes and honest of professions. As I matured I preferred the role of architect rather than hod-carrier, although I still find myself noticing the patterns of Flemish Bond brickwork in old houses. 

Anonymous
 

Crisis, economy, politics, religion, poetics, site-specific, direct response, context, rural, public space, social, engagement, intention, human, nature, gesture, ephemeral, intervention, participation, collaboration, together, activeness, work, effort, speech, alteration, organisation, power, narrative, tradition, change, positiveness, belief, storytelling, mirror, remain, memory, value, perception, long term, heroic, allegory, myth, rumour, intuition, creativity, aesthetics, art, everything and nothing.