DIY: 2010 – Simon Bowes Take This Longing

Professional development projects BY artists FOR artists across the UK

DIY 7: 2010 – Call for Participants

Take This Longing off in search of something distinct, be it a project, a practice, an ethos, a movement, a hope for the future.

THIS DIY PROJECT IS NOW FULL

Project summary:
For a weekend, outside Edinburgh, off from the Fringe, we will encourage each other. Participants will negotiate between themselves (and then name) an achievable outcome – a project for the future – enriching our various practices and creating a point of convergence between us. Together we will identify needs, wants, and frivolous wishes and aim, somehow, to fulfill them. We might discover common ground or shared need (or we might discover we have nothing in common). Whichever the case, we will find a way to agree on what needs to be done. We may end up calling this “a project”, a practice”, “an ethos” or “a movement”. Open to “early-” or “mid-career” artists. Produced in association with Forest Fringe.

Dates, times and location(s):
Project Dates: 20-22 August, 2010
Times: from Friday 17.30 to 15.00 on Sunday
Location: Marthrown of Mabie, Mabie Forest, Dumfries, Dumfries and Galloway, DG2 8HBwww.marthrownofmabie.com

Bunkhouse accommodation for 9 people will be provided for free at the Nith Building, at the Marthrown of Maybie, which also boasts a cosy lounge with a wood burning stove. A £15 contribution for meals is requested from participants; we’ll have a discussion about menus by email.

Application procedure:
Please write an email introducing yourself and responding to the following tasks:
1. “Describe your hopes for an art of the future” (50-100 words, or equivalent).
2. “Describe a work you wish you had made and why” (N.B. This can be a real-world real-artist’s work, or not) (50-100 words, or equivalent).
3. “Remember the time…” (50-100 words, or equivalent).

Please email neilsimonbowes@gmail.com by Friday 16 July 2010.

The artist:
Simon Bowes: I am lead artist for “Kings of England”. For our first show, I ask my 73-year-old father onstage for a song and a dance, as we considered love, loss, happiness, and the passing of time. “Where We Live & What We Live For” went to SPILL National Platform (’09), BAC Burst Festival (’09), Forest Fringe (’09), Mayfest Bristol (’10) and Atelier Real, Portugal (’10), and made the Guardian’s Best of Theatre 2009. Aside from the theatre, my work moves between public engagement projects, discreet works, interventions, singsongs, short walks, long conversations and grand days out.

This DIY project is supported by Forest Fringe, an artist-led organisation making space for theatrical experimentation at the Edinburgh Festival and beyond. www.forestfringe.co.uk