Thrive Visual Hub: description, news and contact info

THRIVE

Our Thriving Tribe curatorial project began in 2019 at Visual, Carlow in Ireland as part of the Arts and Humanities Entrepreneurship Hub (AHEH) Project.

As a curatorial project Our Thriving Tribe (OTT) aims to expand upon the current discourse on entrepreneurship within the arts in Ireland. A process of enquiry into the context of artistic practice by researching entrepreneurship from the perspective of the artist in order to generate new knowledge within this field.

As a curatorial project OTT uses a process of enquiry as ‘case studies’. Research through practice by the curators aims to expand upon the current discourse on entrepreneurship within the arts in Ireland. An inquiry that extends into an artist residency, symposium, a digital hub of online resources and publications. Developed within the wider framework of the AHEH project and produced by Visual.

OTT is Co Curated by David Francis Moore and Juliette Harvey at Visual. David and Juliette’s collaboration on OTT began in 2020 and has brought their individual practices within the disciplines of Arts and Humanities into conversation. A collaboration and conversation that is relevant for the AHEH project whose aims are to develop a tailored Arts and Humanities entrepreneurship model that improves the long-term entrepreneurial prospects for A&H students.

Investigating entrepreneurship from the perspective of the artist in order to generate new knowledge within this field emerged from conversations with partners within the AHEH project. OTT was initiated in 2019 by Visual’s David Francis Moore, in response to these conversations. It was developed into a curatorial project in 2020 by David and Juliette with support from AHEH partners. OTT encourages conversation within activated spaces, its primary research benefits the aims of the AHEH project: to develop a tailored Arts and Humanities entrepreneurship model that improves the long-term entrepreneurial prospects for A&H students, by engaging with Arts professionals in Ireland.

Our Thriving Tribe as a Curatorial Mode of Enquiry

As a curatorial project OTT uses a process of enquiry as case studies. This ‘research through practice approach’ by the curators, aims to expand upon the current discourse on entrepreneurship within the arts in Ireland. Curatorial research is open to interpretation. The curators of OTT value how curatorial research practices can be used as a vehicle for imagining possible futures. Recently published work by Elisa Ricci, a cultural producer, activist, and dramaturge, has also been influential to the development of OTT.

‘activating temporary spaces for research, exchange, presentation and formation….which is through modes of doing, ways of dealing with possibilities, a compound of ritual and improvisation, a manipulation of spaces, the development of networks, and the art of combining.. activating critical spaces, in which to rehearse possible futures that deal with specific local conditions and concerns’ (Ricci:2019:41)

OTT is future focused, in keeping with the ambitions of the Arts and Humanities Entrepreneurship Hubs (AHEH) Project. Within the collaborative research and constellation of ideas that are continuously emerging through this process of enquiry, the curators consider work by Anthropologist and Academic scholar, Prof Tim Ingold and support of his vision of the Arts and Humanities as being ‘future-oriented disciplines, united in the common task of fashioning a world fit for coming generations to inhabit’ Ingold 2019. The process of enquiry that occurs within OTT, creates a conversation between arts and humanities. Guided by Ingold’s ideas of how these disciplines can converge. The curators of OTT consider how these ideas can act as key principles that unpin this project, which exemplifies a common collective goal for how the Arts and Humanities can explore and realise a new future collectively.

‘These, in my view, are fourfold. The ﬁrst is generosity. This means listening and paying attention to what others do and say, receiving with good grace what is offered rather than seeking by subterfuge to extract or elicit what is not. Enshrined in the principle of generosity is an ontological commitment to give back what we owe to others for our own intellectual, practical, and moral formation, indeed for our very existence as beings in a world. The second principle is open-endedness. An inquiry that is open-ended seeks not to arrive at ﬁnal solutions that would bring life to a close but to reveal ways along which it can keep going. Far from rendering the world habitable for some to the exclusion of others, it is about making room for everyone and everything, both now and for the indeﬁnite future. That is what I mean by a sustainable world, and I shall return to it. The third principle is comparison. It is to recognize that no approach to life is the only possible one, and that for every approach you take, others could be taken which lead in different directions. Thus, the question ‘why this direction rather than that?’ is always uppermost in our minds. The ﬁnal principle calls on us to be critical, for we cannot be content with things as they are. By common consent, the organizations of production, distribution, governance, and knowledge that have dominated the modern era have brought the world to the brink of catastrophe. In ﬁnding ways to carry on, we need all the help we can get. But no one – no science, no philosophy, no indigenous people – already holds the key to the future if only we could ﬁnd it. We have to make that future together. And this can only be achieved through conversation.’ Ingold 2019

Our Thriving Tribe’s curators have also considered how ‘digital media and technologies are part of the everyday and more spectacular worlds that people inhabit.’ Horst et al 2016 within their process of enquiry. They are particularly drawn to activating spaces within the digital realm of public culture both as part of their research and to disseminate knowledge to society. These spaces exist in real time, continuously evolving and adapting in keeping with the progress of this curatorial project.

A combination of technologies are used within OTT’s process of enquiry and the dissemination of current research, for example within primary research, or to open conversations between stakeholders. Technologies have also been used to relate findings of the contextual report published by the AHEH project. The report is titled “Research findings: an investigation into European entrepreneurial support for arts and humanities students and graduates’’ and is accessed through the AHEH project’s website.

Practices within digital ethnography have been incorporated into the curator’s process of enquiry. Such as using digital media tools and technologies for research and then reframed as online resources for stakeholders of OTT and the AHEH projects. For example: Facebook @OurThrivingTribe, Instagram @our_thriving_tribe, and Twitter @OTT_Thrive, web pages on the Visual and AHEH website.

The curators particularly value how digital media and technologies extend access to their current process of enquiry in real time thus growing networks of people within the public realm. For example, part of OTT’s primary research has been curated to form the ‘Our Thriving Tribes Zoom Room Sessions’. Disseminated online, across the aforementioned digital platforms. These sessions are an example of how knowledge exchange is mediated by technology in OTT at various times in the project.

As a curatorial project Our Thriving Tribe (OTT) uses a process of enquiry as ‘case studies’. Research through practice, by the curators David Francis Moore and Juliette Harvey aims to expand upon the current discourse on entrepreneurship within the arts in Ireland. An inquiry that extends into an artist residency, symposium, online resource and publications. Developed within the wider framework of the AHEH project and produced by Visual.

Exploring Entrepreneurship in the Arts in Ireland

Our Thriving Tribe Zoom Room Sessions exploring entrepreneurship in the Arts in Ireland. All episodes are available on OTT Zoom Room Sessions.

An intimate connection exists between the word, the mythos, the sacred, tales of a tribe, on the one hand, and their ritual acts, their moral deeds, their social organization, and even their practical activities, on the other (Mallinowski 1948:96)

Gesture

GESTURE, is a new space within OTT where invited arts professionals are commissioned to consider entrepreneurship from the perspective of the arts in Ireland and respond with a gesture.

A gesture can migrate much more deeply into our understanding of ourselves and, more broadly, into the worlds in which we live than we might at first glance, or in our common sense, expect. (Ness 2008: 26)

Each Our Thriving Tribe GESTURE is digitally documented, this documentation becomes part of Our Thriving Tribes research materials. Each unique GESTURE remains with the arts professional. The commissioned documentation from GESTURE will be exhibited online soon.

The drawing that tells is not an image, nor is it the expression of an image; it is the trace of a gesture. (Ingold 2013: 128)

Perspective

PERSPECTIVE is a new space within Our Thriving Tribe, one that invites multidisciplinary perspectives outside of arts professionals in Ireland. Yet one that closely considers their perspectives.

The study has shown that there is a significant difference in the survey answers between academics on the one hand and students, graduates and enterprises on the other hand.

(Arts & Humanities Entrepreneurship Hubs Contextual Review report – Rev 1.0: Research findings: an investigation into european entrepreneurial support for arts and humanities students and graduates.pp50)

The PERSPECTIVE open call will be announced in June 2020!

Our Thriving Tribe publication

A publication will be available in 2020, drawing from the in-depth knowledge exchange, and process of enquiry that occurred in Our Thriving Tribe. The publication will be made available in two forms. As a printed book and as an online resource. The online resource will be made available as a portable, handy, convenient, easy to use file. This option can also be considered as being kinder to the environment as it saves on the energy consumed by book production, saves trees from destruction, reduces the use of paper, eliminates packing materials and the energy associated with packaging and delivery.

References

Chapter 3 Can We Curate Dance without Making a Festival? On Dance Curatorship and Its Shifting Borders Elisa Ricci in Curating Live Arts, Critical Perspectives, Essay, and Conversations on Theory and Practice Edited by Dena Davida, Jane Gabriels, Veronique Hudon, and Marc Pronovost. 2019. Berghahn Books. NewYork.Oxford.

Art and anthropology for a sustainable world. Tim Ingold. 2019. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 24& 25, 659-675. Accessed 13.4.2020.

Horst, Heather & Pink, Sarah & Postill, John & Hjorth, Larissa & Lewis, Tania & Tacchi, Jo. (2016). Ethnography in a Digital World. In Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practices. Accessed 17.4.2020