In this online workshop Helen will share her definition of access within her own art practice, which in the last few years has increasingly responded to her lived experience of a chronic pain condition. As part of her Public S/Pacing project Helen spoke with practitioners to explore how conventions around labour, time and space in art practice might be challenged and in this session she will share some of the thoughts that emerged from these conversations. She will also facilitate a diagramming of what access and work means to each attendee, playfully subverting the productivity-enhancing flowchart for self-reflection.
Helen Stratford’s practice spans across architecture, fine art, writing and research. Through performative workshops, site-specific interventions, video, speculative writing, and discursive platforms, they propose ways of challenging spatial prejudices produced at the intersections of social, cultural, economic and political relations. Her work has been developed, presented, performed, and exhibited at international residencies and platforms, including Oslo Architecture Triennale, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, g39 Wysing Arts Centre and RIBA. Helen is also Senior Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University.
This event has been organised by Bloc Projects for The Kaleidoscope Network, a collaboration between Spike Island (Bristol), Eastside Projects (Birmingham), Primary (Nottingham), The NewBridge Project (Newcastle) and Bloc Projects (Sheffield). Formed in response to a need for mutual support, the network has come together as a way to share resources, increase what each partner is able to offer and create new connections between communities of artists. Membership of any of the above organisations automatically makes you part of the Kaleidoscope Network.
