Interfaces of location and memory: An exploration of place through context-led arts practice.

Interfaces of location and memory is a conceptual framework that invites an understanding of context-led arts practice that is responsive to the particularities of place, rather than a model of practice that is applied to a place.

‘Socially engaged’ and ‘relational’ practice are examples of contemporary arts field designations that suggest a modus operandi – an operative arts strategy. The presence of such concepts form the necessary conditions for investment in public art sector projects, biennales, community outreach and regeneration programmes. The problem here is that the role of the artist/artwork can be seen as promising to be transformational, but in reality this implied promise can compromise artistic integrity and foreclose a work’s potential.

This research project proposes that a focus on operative strategies applied to a situation (as a prescribed or desired effect) is counter-productive to the context-led processes of responding to the relational complexities of a particular place. As such, Interfaces of location and memory calls for an integrative conceptual framework to make sense of the immersive, durational and relational processes involved.

Practices and theoretical texts concerned with place and process within the fields of arts, geography and anthropology inform the development of the research and the fieldwork project – caravanserai – an arts residency based at a caravan site in Cornwall, UK. Expanding on Lippard’s educative proposal for ‘place ethical‘ arts practice (1997: 286-7) Interfaces of location and memory offers a contribution to existing knowledge in the field of contemporary public arts; as well as being of interest to disciplines beyond the arts, concerned with the understanding and future visioning of the places we inhabit.