A Report on Mayday Artists Conference in Chelsea College of Art 2001
11:00-11:40 Organising facilities +Reception.
11:40-11:50 Zuky Serper opens conference.
11:50-11:55 Susanne Clausen (SZUPER Gallery) + Alun Rowlands hand out a statement about recent incident in Austrian Embassy. Ella Gibbs asks for any documentation of the conference for a future publication.
11:55-12:20 Artist Brian Chadwick talks about Soviet Russian revolutionary poetry. Reads in Russian from Mayakovski and Khlebnikov.
12:20-12:40 Artist Gustav Metzger talks about the exploitation of nature and animals by civilisation, the shame he feels about the way we treat nature, the prospect destruction of the world and all life on earth.
12:40-13:00 Discussion following Gustav Metzger's talk.
13:00-13:30 Poet Bob Maycock describes the condition of literature and poetry in contemporary Britain, funding, dissemination, relations between poetry and visual arts. Ends his talk with four of his poems
13:30-14:30 Lunch Break.
14:30-14:35 Em Druif of Dilston Grove (In The Event of Emergency) asks the audience for information about forthcoming events.
14:35-16:00 Joint discussion group: B+B (Sarah Carrington+ Sophie Hope) highlight the way socially engaged art projects are submerged in New Labour funding jargon. Discussion erupts around politics of art funding, relations of art and politics; ATAC presenting their view. Other issues mentioned: An alternative way to operate artinstitutions, based on collective effort and collaborations, trade unions for artists; Ismail+ Jenni Boswell-Jones present BECTU.
16:00-16:30 Coffee Break
16:30-18:30 Two discussion groups: Group 1 (Cafe)- Artists in Society. Artist Mary-Rose Sinn, anthropologist Loraine Harnett, artists Holly Allen, Dave Robison, David Lillington, Amanda Mcgregor , B+B (Sarah Carrington+ Sophie Hope), Ismail. Smadar Dreyfus recorded the discussion.
Group 2 (Sculpture Seminar Room)- Art and Politic; ATAC- (Art Tendency Against Capitalism) show video extracts from the anti-capitalist demonstrations in Prague. Artists Noel Douglas + John Wild, Philip Kane (art collective Mutiny). Yeonah Paik recorded the discussion.
18:30-19:00 Report from discussion groups.
19:00-20:00 Travel to Public Life, next to Spitalfield Church in the East End.
20:00-00:00 Public Life open its gate on the occasion of the conference thanks to the generosity of Seraj Izhar.
Good Night everybody.
thank you siraj Izhar.
Good Night everybody.