1. F/O/R/C/E
Current projects include a collaboration with artist Paul Harrison on F/O/R/C/E
FORCE IS DEDICATED TO CREATING A RADICAL, FREE FORM VISUAL SERIES OF TALKS THAT ARE: STRONG IN HEART, GENEROUS IN SPIRIT, DARING AND UNAFRAID IN CONTENT.
It was around the end of 2011 when my super good friend, and great artist & writer, Paul Harrison and I got together in a Cafe Nero in Doncaster (The only place to get a decent chai-tea latte in the area at the time… maybe it still is) and we talked about how we thought new media art and ‘socially engaged’ art were crucial tools to help enable critical thinking— and therefore —- more openness. Perhaps it could help enhance a more epistemic justice. Because gosh knows there needed to be. It was a crucial time. The Tories had just gotten into power the year before and their cutting of projects, programs, funding, closing libraries and youth centres and the trippling of universities fees was happening right in front of our eyes. Lots of protests, lots of petitions to sign in the beginning. It felt important to try and provide a place where people could connect – learn – listen – without needing much more than 10 mins. But give it light, give it time, give people a space, and elevate it.
We were sick of the insular systems surrounding the artworld (& outside in a lot of institutions) – who gets to speak and from where? What kinds of voices are not as-well-acknowledged and represented as they should be? We also wanted to share people’s passions- unedited. it didn’t need to be a flow funny or deep narrative that’s curated like TED talks are (which they are). it can – and should – just be words that needed to be said. No scripts. Not really a time limit (tho for our art making needed to be around 10 mins & also increase the likilhood someone would have time to listen)
We talked at ends and decided that our individual practices might not be the vehicle for it. So that’s where we decided to create F/o/r/c/e– which stands for Free. Online. Radically. Collected. Education.
The mission: A force for good! In Italian forza means strength. To give voice across to anyone, to give strength – especially to those who don’t usually get to. And we’d create art/videos that would go with these stories/ideas/thoughts/journeys/whatever the person wanted to talk about.
We created it, together. Website, got people to provide us with their loves. wrote a manifesto. Found things we thought was F/O/R/C/E-y – and then after our first video I got super sick where fatigue & pain over took my life & it lasted fucking ages, so Paul did a lot of the brunt of the work.
Leonardo Romanelli - Young Old Tree from F/O/R/C/E Lectures on Vimeo.
Ashley Holmes, 'Nothing To Lose' F/O/R/C/E from F/O/R/C/E Lectures on Vimeo.
David Mcleavy - F/O/R/C/EUntitled from F/O/R/C/E Lectures on Vimeo.
Yvonne Yang Guang - 'The Stingy Artist' -F/O/R/C/E from F/O/R/C/E Lectures on Vimeo.
Joanie San Chirico from F/O/R/C/E Lectures on Vimeo.
Time went by and then I decided that this experience and the experiences I had gained – was to be in healthcare to deal with the episetmic injustices there but also be one of the people who provide deep listening and empathy with compassion of a persons experience with illness and this treatment pathway. I went to study radiotherapy & Paul went to Tokyo to work. We had a conversation maybe 2 years ago? Maybe it was a year ago. We weren’t sure whether we should close this project that had only just felt like it had begun, and be able to maybe do something else. I wasn’t too sure myself. Part guilt, probably from not pulling my weight as much as I would have liked back in 2012 and in 2014/5. I said, let’s leave it open. Not sure the action of closing is the right way. We did default on our website domain website payments tho. So now we lost an archive of material somewhere in the web.And F/O/R/C/E has sat here. With cool videos on our vimeo page https://vimeo.com/user15467645 – a twitter page full of incredible links – archived stuck in a set of time https://twitter.com/FORCElectures (not sure i’ll be able to re-open this account as our email is long dead).
But I realize under this year’s events – in particular (though we did start it in the upheaval of austerity Britain) – we need something like F/O/R/C/E more than ever. We need spaces away from the oppressive & recessive histories and structures that crush voices, that tell people that their thing or stories are that that ones no one wants to hear about.
We need Spaces to document these turbulent times – whether its a pandemic or a call for equity and epistemic justice. We want to make art with a persons talk – to show that it deserves attention.
The core of most of our problems in society today, whether its care experiences in healthcare, or Brexit, or racism, or kids not paying attention in school, etc – is that people want to feel like they’re being lustened to – and feel valued. that they have your attention. So many of us feel unheard and it’s a harm. These harms come in many forms – either hermunatically or testimonially (predominately) – and if we keep on ignoring the and changing the structures that keep alowing such harms than i feel like it will continue to get worse.
and I think F/O/R/C/E is one of those many spaces here, and to come, to help house and store and share and platform this stuff / these experiences. It reminds me a lot of how we’re taught these days, and how systems and money is used, that everything needs to be spent by the next finacial year – that courses need to be complete in x amount of months. We give up when we don’t see results after so long. We might be forgetting the joy and the revelations in the long game – and this reminds me that we can not rush things – especially when they involve listening. For listening and really hearing are timeless.
So it’s now my turn to carry most of our next engagements/work forward. I’m going to recollect all our bits together – and the content will likely be slow and steady – but that’s because deep listening takes time. I hope you’ll follow along.
I’ll leave you with Paul Harrison excellent essay post about it from 2014 on the excellent Aesthetics of Protest site: http://aestheticsofprotest.org/force-lectures/
And I hope you’ll give our Facebook page a like if you haven’t already F/o/r/c/e