workshop-word-work

workshop-word-work was a performative-making-dialogue, between Bruce McLean, Conor Wilson and Richard Winfield. It was held over a full day, Tuesday 24 July 2018, in the main Ceramics workshop at the Sion Hill Campus, Bath School of Art & Design.Three raw-clay tile panels (122 x 122 cm each) mounted on easel-like stands created a central space of action. Each stand held nine clay tiles (40 x 40 cm each) in a square formation. A camera was set up in front of each panel, on the perimeter of the space. Three stools faced each other in the central space, with a voice recorder mounted in the centre.An interview format was set up, adapting Wilson’s ‘Writing in’ research method, where text, or language is used as a tool for, a material in, or somehow as an element of, the making process. The interview process was intended to facilitate, or to contaminate, the decoration of the tiles. Apart from the tiles and three pots of slip, no materials or tools beyond what is normally present in the workshop were used.Through the adoption of four roles (interviewer, interviewee, decorator, technician), which were interchangeable and to be determined during the activity, the intention was to explore, obliquely:1. aspects of the art school, as a site of production (and productive resistance)2. tensions between practice research and professional practice(NB: Bruce McLean did not share this intention)The event was documented with time-lapse photography and audio recording.Outputs:1. Video2. Audio recordings3. Transcript