"Mess Making As Social Glue"
Two intertwined research and making projects exploring and aiming to support making (particularly making a "mess" and making "mistakes") as a form of commoning- sharing culture(s), shaping communities, developing knowledge, supporting collaborative change (click the links below for more info):
"In my experience, socially engaged work is messy- physically, conceptually,
socially, emotionally, joyfully messy.
And, the mess is needed. It’s where the most fun, interesting, useful stuff happens; where people can use creativity to be vulnerable, to ask questions, to solve problems, to understand our own culture, to create change.
The mess is also exhausting, draining, confusing.
"Mess Making as Social Glue" is me thinking and learning about this. Talking to and collaborating with people who who have been / are involved in socially engaged art and in other social practices- paramedics, councilors, social workers. Together making common spaces (physical, digital and imagined) where we can begin working our way through and around the mess. Loving it, embracing it and starting to develop techniques for managing it; recognizing the times when tidying up it needed and finding people who can help."
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Lady Kitt, 2018