Social Art Library—an Axis project, in partnership with Social Art Network—is delighted to announce its first 12 Social Art Library Ambassadors. These are: Jennifer Booth, Wendy Charlton, Sarah Dixon, Nathan Frost, Gabriella Gay, Anna Horton-Cremin, Emma Long, Kaajal Modi, Sara Qaed, Studio Polpo, John Wild, Carmen Wong, Alice Bradshaw and Oliver Cloke.
The SOAL Ambassadors will be working with Social Art Library over the coming weeks to think through innovative ways of documenting and archiving social practice, beginning with projects created in response to the complex and tumultuous events of 2020.
The Social Art Library is open to submissions from all social artists—and those they work with—to help make the stories of social practice more visible. If you would like to share your work, please check out our FAQs here and fill in the online form here.
You can follow Social Art Library on Twitter at @Social_Art_Lib
The SOAL Ambassadors programme is presented with support from Art Fund.
We’ll be showcasing the work of each of our 12 artists individually over the coming weeks, but just to give you a taster of what the Ambassadors are working on…
Jennifer Booth will be sharing work from ‘Is that really necessary…?’ a project created and curated in collaboration with DLAB, People’s Express and pupils from Granville School Derby 2018 which aims to challenge the gender binary.
Photo credit: Jennifer Booth jenniferbooth.carbonmade.com and Peoples Express
Wendy Charlton will develop an online library resource of social practice artists whose work focuses on themes of home and housing issues, in collaboration with artist, Sally Labern (The Drawing Shed).
‘PrintBike’ from The Drawing Shed, Sally Labern http://www.thedrawingshed.org
Sarah Dixon will reflect on her current residency project for UNIDEE in Biella, Italy, which uses a telephone box as focal point for community connection.
Photo credit: Sarah Dixon http://sarahdixonfineart.co.uk/ and the residents of Summer Street
Nathan Frost will create an evaluative toolkit for assessing the digital engagement experiences of young people, exploring how digital engagement can be used in a socially engaged way to offer meaningful support and social development.
Gabriella Gay - will share creative documentation of walks with black and brown women through photography and poetry, undertaken by the Kwanzaa Collective.
Photograph credit: Urban Wilderness
Anna Horton Cremin will present Mycelium Mail - a socially distanced postal game that encourages neighbours to get to know each other through play, growing, sharing recipes and thinking about the future and the climate.
Photograph credit: Anna Horton Cremin https://www.annahortoncremin.com/Games-Generator
Emma Long will develop documentation for ‘The Vital Role of Hands’ - a project exploring the concept of care, undertaken as a Covid-19 Mutual Aid volunteer.
'The Vital Role of Hands' 2020 (Photo Journal Page 6) Represented in The Compendium of Care. Commissioned by Heart of Glass as part of Home Work, with support from Cultural Hubs – St Helens Arts in Libraries, the Bluecoat, Knowsley Council, Rule of Threes, Sefton Council, Human Library, The Atkinson, Halton Borough Counciland Culture Liverpool.
Kaajal Modi will share work from ‘Kitchen Cultures’ - an ongoing collaboration with a chef to think through waste and sustainability from the perspective of the daily lives of migrant women+ of colour in the UK.
'Kitchen Cultures - instagram.com/our_kitchen_cultures
Sara Qaed will present ‘Akml’ a project named after an Arabic verb meaning ‘to continue’ or ‘proceed with’, which seeks ways of visual communication with people through political and social drawings.
Photograph credit: Sara Qaed https://www.saraqaed.com/
Studio Polpo is a social enterprise arts, architecture and research organisation will document the legacy of the ds2 project - a mobile kit of parts to facilitate artists’ engagement, working with artists Sally Barker and Sally Labern.
Photograph credit: Studio Polpo http://www.studiopolpo.com
John Wild will create a podcast based on online workshops around collective walking and mapping the complexity of data centre relations.
'Machinic Dreamings of Limehouse Foreshore at Low Tide’ Photograph credit: John Wild
Carmen Wong will share artefacts and reflections on JarSquad, a sound and jam-making project that addresses waste/surplus/recycling/community food resilience around collective jam and pickle making.
Photograph credit: Carmen Wong
Alice Bradshaw and Oliver Cloke
Come to the Table
