Raft made from Clyde flotsam by Martin Campbell, as part of public art event Nothing about us without us is for us, led by artists Matt Baker and t s Beall, 28 April 2012 [Photo by M. MacLachlan]
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Performative event as river crossing
On Saturday 28 April, 2012 approximately 1200 individuals, 20 organisations, and several institutions in Govan participated in the public enactment of a three-hour performative event. Nothing about us without us is for us was an experimental field where language was hurled, launched, wafted, and flown from either side of the River Clyde using a variety of obsolete technology. Staged immediately outside the Riverside Museum and occupying both sides of the Govan riverfront, the event used humorous communication methods to connect opposite sides of the River Clyde. Transmissions were attempted using marine signal flags, trebuchets (medieval catapults), lost languages, human megaphones, song, storytelling, string-and-cup telephones, banners, and The Govan Armada – a flotilla of mailboats made from Clyde flotsam.
Nothing About Us Without Us Is For Us was a project grounded in locally rooted collective action. Envisioned as both action and mini-festival, it sought to increase communication between disparate groups and organisations on both sides of the Clyde. The project was led by artists Matt Baker and t s Beall and presented as part of The Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2012. In addition to envisioning the event as an attempt to increase connectivity, the project sought to employ The Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art as a lens to critically examine the role of art in the transformation of places, in Glasgow and beyond.
Six weeks of activity in the studios and workshops of Govan culminated in a one-day celebration of the impossibility of communication. Nothing About Us Without Us Is For Us commissioned 16 artists and makers to work with 20 partner organisations to develop and deliver 10 different communication methods or strands. Each strand had workshops, lead artists or makers, and multiple participants. Whenever possible, the project paired larger organisations with smaller ones, aiming to develop long-term, reciprocal partnerships. These pairings and the resultant commissions also intentionally troubled the relationships between established ‘contemporary’ artists, ‘community’ artists, craftspeople, community groups (as ‘service users’), larger institutions, and smaller constituted organisations.
Methods of communication included
- Marine signal flags
- String-and-cup telephones
- Messages-in-bottles made from Clyde flotsam (The Govan Armada)
- Trebuchets hurling bespoke gifts across the Clyde (The Govan Charm Offensive)
- Banner-making / signage
- Choral serenades
- Human megaphones, shouting lost and/or new languages of the Clyde (River Patter)
- Poetry and storytelling
- A raft made from Clyde flotsam
- Flotsam ferry tokens
Each communication strand was led by artists and/or makers working collaboratively with local organisations. Some strands, like The Govan Armada, were made in a series of workshops open to the public. Others, like the marine signal flags, paired artists with specific groups. Govanites, partner organisations, and visitors to The Glasgow International Festival were invited to six weeks of workshops – designing and making marine signal flags, constructing vessels for The Govan Armada from Clyde flotsam, and more… And all were invited to participate in the public enactment of Nothing about us without us is for uson Saturday, 28 April 2012.
Nothing about us without us is for us – title as engagement strategy
The title of the project is a protest slogan with an illustrious history. Matt Baker discovered it posted in a shopfront window on Govan Road in July 2011.For those involved, the phrase was both an inspiration and a warning, as artists and artistic projects are often seen to prescribe solutions for communities without being members of those communities. The slogan also posed questions as to the relevance of the Glasgow International Festival to the local publics in Govan, and highlighted development and planning decisions that have been and still are taken for these communities without consultation.
At the core of the project was an intention to create a space for both multivocality and dissonance – and a sense that there can be no such thing as a single unified voice of any public or place. For the project, Baker and Beall gathered fragments of language spoken from or about Govan — including the protest language of the 1971 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Work-In, the Rent Strikes of 1915-16, current Development and Regeneration plans for the area, engineering patents, and ships logs. This, together with commissioned writing by poet Jim Ferguson, formed the ‘Wordbank’ of the event — material that was shouted, whispered, narrated, scrawled, and fired over the River Clyde in the public enactment of Nothing about us without us is for us on one Saturday in April 2012.
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2012 with Matt Baker, collaborative community performance / public art event, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, Govan riverfront.
‘Nothing about us without us is for us’ was a public art event using obsolete technology to hurl language across Glasgow’s River Clyde. Organised and conceived by artists t s Beall and Matt Baker, the project commissioned 15 artists and makers to partner with 18 local organisations. Together, they delivered 6 weeks of activities which culminated in an event on Saturday 28 April, 2012 – where over 1500 people sang, shouted, and sailed across the Clyde. Visitors to the Glasgow International Festival were invited to the Govan waterfront to participate in transmissions using human megaphones, siege engines, string-and-cup telephones, messages-in-bottles (‘The Govan Armada’), choral serenades, and more…
Nothing about us without us is for us, govan, Glasgow, GI 2012, GI Festival, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, art, community, local, communication, language, gaelic, translation, patter, river, clyde, integration, scotland, ts Beall, Matt Baker, flags, banners, string and cup, string & cup, trebuchet, ferry, ferry token, boats, ships, choral, message in a bottle,
Alexandra Bowie
Belinda Gilbert-Scott
Colin Thomas Begg
Fiona Fleming
Geraldine Greene
Grant Leckie
Ingrid Shearer
Jim Ferguson
Kate V Robertson
Martin Campbell
Matt Baker
Riccardo Buonaccarsi
Sophie Manhire
Steven Anderson
t s Beall
Tam McGarvey