Livelyhood

The location of this practice as research project was Cardiff Market Hall, a grade 11 listed building in the heart of Cardiff city where I was artist in residence (partly funded by Arts Council Wales and the University’s TMD Research Group) and directly opposite The Cardiff Story museum, where the work was first exhibited. Lively Hood is a multimedia practice-as-research project, which I conceived and directed. Over the past decade I have produced several community participation projects which record experiences of objects and places that are interpreted for screen as documentary narratives. Lively Hood continues my exploration of the themes of identity place and memory. In this project, behaviour in relation to space, rather than the amassing of personal narratives, becomes the subject of the artwork. The aim was to investigate the possibility of creating an ethnographic, participatory artwork(s), in which multiple-subjectivities within a working community would be the subject of an aesthetically adventurous exploration. Research questions being explored were: how might documentary filmmaking extend its repertoire of formal and aesthetic strategies in ways that maintain the integrity of the documentary record? How might the strategies and approaches available to the makers of experimental fiction films and fine art practitioners be utilised by a documentary filmmaker working in a participatory [applied?] arts context? Lively Hood addresses the subject of labour and identity using the artifice of film grammar and engages with developments after Finish filmmaker, Laura Horelli (Helsinki Shipyard/Port San Juan, 2003) and Estonian, Liina Siib (Unsocial Hours , 2011). It comprises a series of documentary films, video art works & events, including Blue Line (8.24 mins), Folk Glance (3.43 mins) and Veil Trance (6.18 mins). The installation also includes a series of documentary portraits of the stallholders exploring identity and labour, in and outside of the market hall.