Image: Drawing on the Outside Workshop May 2023 at God’s House Tower, Southampton

In September 2022 I embarked on a new project with local visual artist Sarah Filmer called Drawing on the Outside – a space for men who are experiencing isolation to come together and draw and make. The project was always centred around creating a space for men to connect with each other and experience drawing and making perhaps for the first time.

We started out with just 1-2 men coming along to our bi-weekly sessions held in church halls, train station ticket offices and outside in the beautiful Riverside Park. Our intention from the start was to build this group with the men in an honest and messy full of the realities of life way – the creative process when working with communities is not straight forward. Over a year later since our first workshop we only now feel like we are starting to be able to co-produce the group together with the men helping us to make decisions and taking ownership of the work they are making, and in some cases, working on pieces outside the sessions and sharing their progress in the project’s WhatsApp Group. It’s only after allowing time we have built trust, connection and friendship. Co-production takes time, it doesn’t happen from the start and it’s important to create a framework in which it can develop.

Alongside the making and drawing with the men Sarah and I also wanted to think about, discuss and examine what it means to be delivering a socially engaged project at a time when resources are scarce and artists are being relied on more and more to provide social care. We also wanted to think about and interrogate the term ‘co-production’ and what it means to work in a ‘socially engaged way’ because these terms have become such buzz words amongst funding bodies, policy makers and local authorities – frequently misunderstood or homogenised.

When we started working on Drawing on the Outside, we spent some time with a local housing association worker. We asked her what success of a project with the community looked like to her? She wanted the community to take full ownership, going forward without her involvement and that’s what she wanted for Drawing on the Outside. Our initial reaction was to think about the artists position and the realities of co-production because this process doesn’t happen quickly. Artists employed for a short time to get a project off the ground only to lose their employment and become redundant? How could we make the case for the importance of the artist and what they bring to a project in long term engagement in the community/ socially engaged projects? We have asked the men several times if they would like to take the group forward without us, but their response has always been ‘no’ because part of the reason they return is Sarah and I are there gently offering ideas, materials and conversation. We’re not leading the group but participating in it, drawing and making with the men, providing some initial inspiration for the men to take in the direction they want. Our skills and knowledge are important we create enabling frameworks, which allow for unexpected ideas and directions to happen.

We continue to discuss these ideas amongst others in our AN: Artist Information Company Blog

Sarah and I are also thrilled to have Drawing on the Outside featured as part of a new research digest ‘The Role of the Artist in Society’ produced by the Centre for Cultural Value where some of the points raised above are discussed in further detail.

Read the full digest

Some of the highlights from the digest include …

• Socially engaged artists take issues and problems facing humanity into their art making practices. In doing so, artists are in a rare position to highlight and reframe these problems for other disciplines, industries, policymakers and the wider public.
• Artists are not a homogenous social group and, like anybody else in society, have multiple roles. Artists’ funding and support needs to reflect this complexity and be tailored, flexible and accessible. Moving away from short-term project funding to longer-term approaches is vital.
• There is a danger of conflating the role of artists with that of social workers, which could devalue both within society.
• Policymakers, funders and organisations should take practical steps to ensure fair, equitable pay and conditions for artists, who are often “portfolio” working. An important first step would be to commission research into the effectiveness of different targeted social security measures for artists.
• Emerging research into culture as a commons and artist-led collective practice has the potential to shift our understanding of organisational relationships and generate new knowledge and methods which go beyond competition based economies. Learning from these collaborative practices starts to open conversations about how sharing resources, knowledge and developing support structures can benefit not just arts and culture but other sectors.