Loraine Leeson

The Aesthetics of Collaboration

Modernist aesthetics is certainly predicated upon the concept of an individualized vision or oeuvre, but it also subsumes under the Western canon modes of collective production in ancient and medieval cultures, as well as from tribal cultures and contemporary Western consumer culture. In the later stages of modernism—Surrealism, Dada, and Pop art for example—and in postmodern practices, this individualized concept has been under attack from many quarters. With the rise of community arts practices in the U.S. and the U.K., the re-articulations of women artists and artists of color, public art, and the increasing use of new technology, group practices and collaborations have increased dramatically. Sometimes these have been driven by ideology, sometimes by sheer necessity. In certain practices the process of collaboration has been paramount, the growth or enabling of individuals or groups being the goal.1 However, in situations where there are ideas to be communicated more widely, aesthetic power becomes es...

Our Land: creative approaches to the redevelopment of London’s Docklands

ABSTRACT Large-scale re-development of post-industrial sites can easily railroad over the needs or wishes of its existing inhabitants, or at best involve them in peripheral consultation. However, when a community is highly organised and also collaborates with others to gather expertise and develop effective means of communication, it has the ability to re-envision a future that can meet the needs of all concerned. In the 1980s The Docklands Community Poster Project engaged with a cluster of waterfront communities, which used the arts to influence the regeneration of the London Docklands. Close collaboration between local people, activists and artists led to a range of interventions implemented over a ten year period that included a series of large-scale photo-murals, travelling exhibitions, initiatives and events such as the People’s Armadas to Parliament and the People’s Plan for the Royal Docks. The article makes an argument for how and why art can be an effective tool in social transformation and highlights its role in documenting and making visible the intangible cultural heritage of the communities it serves.