Small Acts of Being: creating space, shifting perspective, holding time.
Small Acts of Being is an exploratory excursion of the space you are in to encourage different ways of looking, thinking and being. The project is a collaboration between artists Heather Barnett and Sarah Christie and philosopher Betti Marenko, who share a common interest in exploring the space between art and experience, being and knowing, theory and practice. Born from curiosity and the desire to co-create, we invite others to join the process of enquiry, experimentation and invention to discover ways of being with our circumstances.
Focusing attention on the small, rarely noticed places, things, and timescales, we will make time for playful investigation of physical, virtual and imagined places. Our aim is to provide positive interruption to trigger divergent activity, coaxing us out of established grooves and creating the conditions for interesting unexpected things to happen.
We don’t know what we will find (or what will find us) but we know it is worth looking.
Act 1: Encounters with the familiar
NEW DATE: Saturday 28 November, 3 - 4.30pm GMT, Zoom. Further information and booking information below
SOLD OUT!! Saturday 14 November, 4.00-5.30pm GMT, Zoom. Further information and booking details below
What it is:
Small Acts of Being encourages refreshed attunement with surroundings, sensations and subjectivities. Through a series of prompts and actions, we invite you to re-inhabit the familiar, opening up space for new observations, insights and encounters. We will seek out the minute, the hyper-large, the immediate, the near and far, and the often overlooked.
Within the current confinement in this assemblage of digital space and physical restriction, we will explore ways to adapt. Rather than resisting or looking for escape, we seek agency within the micro-sphere and to navigate the uncertainty and fatigue of our times. Small Acts of Being is both an individual and a collective endeavour, prompting actions, interpretations and conversations. It is creative, responsive and emergent.
How it works:
We invite a small group of up to 12 people to meet on Zoom, with each participant invited to respond individually to given prompts which we have developed and tested over time. Following a couple of short exercises, we will discuss our observations and findings as a group through the chat function and in open discussion. Experiences can remain private or be shared. Activities are designed to adapt to any space and can be done anywhere - though we recommend that you are somewhere without too many distractions. The duration of the session is 90 minutes.
This will be an active event: we will stand up and move around our spaces. Cameras and microphones will not need to be switched on at all times, however it would be warmly welcomed during the introduction and group discussions.
How to book:
Saturday 28 November 2020 3-4.30pm GMT, Zoom
Pay what you can - suggested donation of between £3 - 10 depending on circumstance.
Numbers are limited, so to participate we ask you to complete the very brief online form here indicating why you’d like to join us. Deadline is 5pm Friday 20th November. You will hear back from us by Monday 23rd November. Further dates will follow according to demand.
Recording: we intend this to be a safe space, and invite you to contribute freely. Sessions will be recorded for the purposes of evaluation and anonymised content may inform, as yet unconfirmed, future research. Recordings will not be shared or made public and will be stored securely for a limited period of 12 months, after which time they will be deleted.
Who we are:
Heather Barnett is an artist, researcher and educator working with natural phenomena and complex systems. Working with live organisms, imaging technologies and playful pedagogies, her work explores how we observe, influence and understand the world around us. She is Pathway Leader on the MA Art and Science at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London), Honorary Research Fellow with SHOAL Group (Swansea University) and a Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellow.
Sarah Christie is an artist and educator with a strong interest in material interactions and place, emergence, embodiment and the senses. She works with clay in a variety of states, from liquid to dust, and of her most recent work has been site-specific and ephemeral, and has invited public participation. Sarah is Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins and Visiting Artist at Imperial College Medical School, teaching observation skills, creative reflection, sculpture, and supervising students. She also runs clay and drawing workshops, including at King’s College London.
Betti Marenko is a design theorist, academic and educator with a background in philosophy. Her transdisciplinary research explores ways of enacting thinking-in-action, and future-building, knowledge-making, design-led speculative-pragmatic interventions. She is Reader in Design and Techno-Digital Futures at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London where she runs the Contextual Studies programme for Product and Industrial Design. She is Specially Appointed Professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology where she researches transdisciplinary methodologies that can furnish educators, learners, and practitioners with hybrid tools of exchange and debate across design, science, technologies and the humanities.
Contact: smallactsofbeing<at>gmail.com Instagram: @smallactsofbeing