The Give and Take: An Exclusive Interview with Artist Tim Etchells
Born in 1962, Tim Etchells lives in London and Sheffield. An artist and writer whose work spans many forms and contexts, he is best known as the leader of the world-renowned performance group Forced Entertainment.
Here, in an After Nyne exclusive, he discusses his recent work on the Tate Exchange programme.
Tim how would you summarise the concept of the Tate Exchange?
In the broad sense, it’s an initiative designed to expand and extend the idea of learning and interaction at Tate. That means its a shifting frame for interaction with the public, and an interface between Tate and different institutions. The focus on the idea of exchange (I guess the clue is in the name!) - how to involve people and institutions more, seeing the museum as a place that can, in different ways, convene meetings, work on knowledge exchange, encourage interactions and conversations.
Each year of the project has a theme - year one is exchange - and each year proceeds through a combination of artists residencies and projects at the kick off, and then proceeds via initiatives that come from other institutions who are associates of the project - universities, community groups and others who’ll bring their agendas and their groups into the space.
One way that I started thinking about it - is in terms of space - it’s a space in the institution not devoted to holding displays of artworks, but dedicated to encounters, conversation and the sharing of ideas. There’s something pretty seriously ephemeral about it, and something rather utopian too, in impulse at least.
How did you first hear about the project?
I can’t remember exactly. I know I had a meeting with Anna Cutler and Fiona Kingsman - they were wrestling with the idea, trying to give it more concrete shape. And I think they wanted someone to work with them - road testing the ideas a bit, helping to clarify. It’s been a really interesting process.
Do you think there is still an ‘elitist’ air about the arts?
I wouldn’t generalise in that way. Art has a lot of levels these days, in the UK at least. You can get as full-on high-art, white gloves, super-academic, super-esoteric as you like… but just round the corner there’ll be a rock gig or a hip-hop collaboration that’s also in the frame of art. And round the corner again a family day devoted to workshops and stuff. I think the offer is really broad and there’s quality at all levels, especially in London of course.
How are you tackling audience participation in this body of work?
It’s a question of levels I think. One whole strand of the project was a series of talks, each day, on a myriad of topics related to ‘exchange’ - people talking about human and animal communication, people talking about the history of money, a magician talking about ways to manipulating audiences (and cards!). There were very intense sessions on race, on business and ethics in the developing world and great sessions with artists working in collaboration of different kings. The offer there was all about engaging with ideas - short presentations, plenty of time for discussion and a range of topics that was deliberately a bit carnivalesque. Non-the-less there was a pretty serious edge there and there was definitely a sense that people needed to be up for that, in most of the sessions at least. And it was structured very much as an offer - stuff to watch, listen to, think about and react.
A second major piece I made for the context was an interactive performance called Three Tables. In it three performers (the amazing Debbie Pearson, Harun Morrison and Season Butler) exchanged stories and had other interactions with the public on topics ranging from work and money, love and friendship and the ephemeral. This one was very open, and really drew the greater part of its content from contributions from the audience. Each table we set up had a sign announcing its theme - and visitors were encouraged to take a seat and join the performer (and other members of the public) to discuss, share experiences and ideas. The performers were prepared with a set of questions and strategies to draw people out… but the most amazing thing about this work was that the tables almost ran themselves. There were even times when the performers wouldn’t be there and visitors to the gallery just took the signs by the tables as invitations and gathered to talk together, with no one ‘mediating’ or guiding.
The other really interesting thing about the tables as a project was that the combination of people was pretty intense. You had what I’d think of as live art audience - people who know the field a little, or who knew my work, or the work of the performers (who all have their own practise doing great things) and of course that audience came somewhat prepared for what this work might be. But on top of those people there were also a lot of much more general audience - everything from regular Tate visitors to local residents to lost tourists… and an extraordinary number of them stopped at the tables and got involved. So you’d have these very unlikely combinations of people, in terms of age, race, class, nationally, sexuality, life-experience - the kinds of combinations that just wouldn’t arise any other place. And the quality of the exchanging - the stuff people shared and (maybe more interesting) the way they listened was pretty extraordinary to me. And it wasn’t sappy, or feel good either, which would be my immediate worry… people were talking about tough topics, and they were engaging with difficulty. People stayed long times too. So it interests me that the most open of the two major pieces created this intensity. As if the bigger the space, the bigger the risk people can take entering it.
As part of my project there was also a work called Ten Purposes - a set of instructions distributed on cards for the public to pick up and activate in Tate, private and not-so-private performances which respond to the collection. That’s still going.. and it has a rather more private invitation perhaps. People are asked to explore the museum on their own, or to think about their relation to particular works. It’s offered as another way of thinking about exchange I think.. about exchange with art works, and it’s deliberately in another key than the tables.
Which other organisations do you think have made great strides in bringing art to the people?
Again.. I don’t think in those terms really. I don’t think there’s some stuff for people and some stuff that’s hidden away privately. The wealth of what’s on offer is amazing… and I think it has to be at different levels and scales. Not every programme has to be the same.
I love Sir John Soanes House, the Wellcome Collection, Raven Row, Serpentine with the Marathons - that sense of really intense encounters with ideas and artists.
But at the same time I like what the big museums are doing, what Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Turner Contemporary are doing to open things out in new and interesting ways.
What excites you about the Tate Exchange programme?
This idea of convening a space, setting up the possibility for a meeting between people, and ideas.
What would you like viewers to take away from The Give and Take?
On a content level it’s impossible to answer that - because there was such a lot of rich and complicated thinking and sharing going on. But the key thing I think is to go back to that idea of listening.
We like in a culture that often lacks a real opportunity to think together with people outside the bubbles we inhabit.
Here and there through the four days of the residency I had the sense that there was something opening up - that possibility that art might be a way to open dialogue in different ways.
So I think I’d want people to take away a sense of their own connectedness, and the possibilities that there are in other people.
Tate Exchange: The Give and Take with Tim Etchells
28 September – 2 October 2016
Artwork Image: Seraphina Neville © Tate
