Planning: Making maps

Armed with tin felt tips and a large sheet of paper Joanna and I mapped the course of the project.  By clearing the 'fog'  a route for mediation appeared through, in and between, DAD, the artists, the installation and the public.   Joanna would also like Charlotte and I to share learning experiences, possibly leading to an interesting base for a report.   Hope i wont let any of them down but at the same time, i need to remain aware that an eagerness to please the artists or DAD, if i am to be ruled by it, can be counter-productive to the mediation process!

Thought about arts organizations and the small but often ingrained ‘not for you’ messages.   Talked over the reticence, and objections of some areas of the Dover community to previous work. Perhaps this isn’t a negative, at least they are engaged, it is an emotional response, one that can be built upon. I talked about my feelings when faced with artwork that i don't 'get' immediately and subsequent defense mechanisms.  Joanna and i both mulled over the tagging of artists as  'mad' and removed from 'normal' life and concerns of the public.  Possibly mediation  can de-mystify the artist and her work by suggesting points of access and a basis for reflection for the public to connect  the ideas of contemporary art to the concerns of contemporary living, their life. I see mediating as orchestrating creative encounters with the work that are mentally and/or physically engaging. I feel responsibility to nurture a fluid and democratic environment where ALL, regardless of academic points of reference, feel able to reflect, to explore, to question and express their well-founded and valued opinion drawn from their diverse experiences. 

Understanding my role as perhaps ‘context rather than a content provider’ perhaps is a tentative step towards remedying the alienation of the public to the artwork. 

Process base workshops?

I NEED TO GET MORE PRAGMATIC IN THE PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING OF THESE STRATERGIES NOW,  start to make community contacts,  make contact with local press to  encourage debate and get people talking about art.   Also think about accompanied visits and workshop invitations.