2005

Here is the blow-by-blow run down of what we got up to every week - there's a lot of it!

10-Jan 18:30 - 20:30
Introduction to Tate Modern, Raw Canvas and an outline of course, we also met existing Raw Canvas team members.

17-Jan 18:30 - 20:30
In Gallery session, we looked at the History/Memory/Society suite and considered the role of the curator, the whole group then compiled a massive list of questions to ask the curator next week.

24-Jan 18:30 - 20:30
Meet the Curator: France Morris in the History/Memory/Society suite, we asked her all the questions we had written last week, and more!

02-Feb 18:30 - 20:30
Went to a panel discussion as part of the 'Derrida's Legacy' series, it was very 'highbrow' and went on so long there was not enough time to meet with Dominic Willsdon, Curator: Public Programmes (who organised the event) so he arranged to come and speak to us in a few weeks.

05-Feb 11:00 - 17:00
Workshops in the gallery with Lucy Wilson and Janet Hodgson, using resources and exploring our responses to works of art in the galleries.

07-Feb 18:30 - 20:30
Met with Caroline Priest, Head of Marketing, we also planned our independent gallery visits. Caroline took us through the different Marketing strategies that Tate uses, and told us all about who they target...and who they don't!

14-Feb 18:30 - 20:30
Went to the stores in Elephant and Castle - moved over 1 ton ( a million quid’s worth) of art with just one hand and found out what keeps John Bracken (Site Operations Manager) awake at night...

21-Feb 18:30 - 20:30
This session we all talked about the galleries we had visited and their marketing strategies, we also took a look at the wonderful world of evaluation with Abby from the Raw Canvas team.

26-Feb 11:00 - 17:00
All given our projects and introduced to the IT and other resources that we can have access to when planning our events and activities. Dominic Willsdon came and spoke to us so we could tell him what we thought of the Derrida talk we went to. I think he even appreciated our less than complimentary questions!

07-Mar 18:30 - 20:30
Individual/group tutorials with Kelly and Jackie, and more planning for our final presentations.

11-Mar 11:00 - 17:00
Presentations of our activities and ideas to the rest of the group.

14-Mar 18:30 - 20:30
Met with Marcus Horley, Access Curator and Dennis Ahern, Head of Health, Safety and Security and gave final feedback from the presentations and activities we had planned for each other.

"During the 12 weeks that I participated in the Raw Canvas training course I found it relaxed and thoroughly rewarding. It was great to take part in something so enjoyable and from which I was able to take outstanding experience. The course was run in an extremely warm and friendly environment alongside a group of fantastic likeminded art enthusiasts, where you feel comfortable enough to ramble on about any interesting ideas discussing these with other team members. The course was rum in a most professional manner whilst still maintaining a very easy to work in environment".
Harry (18), trainee and new team member

Big Ideas
The series continued throughout 2005, with six sessions covering a multitude of subjects and ideas:

29 January: The Artist with Dan Sturgis, artist.
“This bi-monthly series kicked off the new year with Big Ideas: The Artist in January. Speaker Dan Sturgis raised questions about the role of the artist, how the curator can affect the meaning of a work of art and the role of the audience in looking at a work of art. With these issues in mind, we scoured the Still Life/Object/Real Life suite for works to discuss in relation to the theme of ‘the artist’. All in all, it was a fascinating session, and we were left with a lot more thoughts and questions with which to approach this ‘Big Idea’ in the future.” By Katie

26 March: Performance with Aaron Williamson, artist.
“During two and a half hours we discovered that Performance Art is all about and discussed our views and opinions. At first Aaron Williamson, a performance artist, showed us some videos and talked about a few performance pieces, then we went up to the nude/action/body suite to discuss performance art in relation to some of the works of art exhibited in the gallery. Everybody in the group was really nice and I feel that I understand performance art much better now.” By Helene

28 May: The Senses with Fiona Candlin, art historian
“Big Ideas: The Senses began with whiffs of mothballs, lavender and surgical spirit evoking thoughts and memories among the group. Fiona Candlin, senses specialist, then spoke to the group about artists that use sight, smell, sound, taste and touch in their work. An over-run on time meant that we didn't make it up to the Fontana, Manzoni and Burri exhibit, but instead had a fascinating exploration through some of the ideas and science behind art and the five senses.” By Katie

30 JULY: Sculpture with Karin Ruggaber, artist
Once upon a time art was all carved marble and cast bronze now its smashed up sheds, packing tape reading rooms and plaster cast stairwells. What happened? When, Why and Who had an influence? Karin Ruggaber and Raw Canvas took a look a the ways in which materials and meanings have altered in sculpture. “We had big plans For Big Ideas: Sculpture, hoping to take in Open Systems, one of the permanent collections suites and finishing off with the Herzog & De Meuron exhibition in the Turbine Hall. As it happened, those of you who came along to this event got so involved in discussions in Opens Systems that we didn’t get much further! Artist Karin Ruggaber gave a fascinating introduction to her work and notions of sculpture, and made us realise that contemporary sculpture is so diverse we could only begin to uncover some of the issues surrounding it. Some of the ideas we explored included material, scale and the relationship between objects, space and architecture, which left us all excited and hungry for more!” By Abby

24 SEPTEMBER: The Self with Tom McCarthy, artist and theorist
What is it that every work of art has in common? Materials? Theme? Meaning? No way... but every work of art in the Tate's collection has been made by someone. We all have a sense of self but what does that have to do with art? In fact, what is 'the self' and how does it effect our understanding and enjoyment of art. “The artist Tom McCarthy joined us in this session to speak about his work and ideas relating to the self. Tom gave a really interesting and thought provoking presentation, which led to a good group discussion at the end. After the presentation, we moved up to the gallery and Tom introduced the work of Joseph Beuys, giving some interesting insights into Beuys’ work and its relation to the self. Then it was the turn of everyone else, we split up into two groups and tackled a different gallery each, in these smaller groups we were able to discuss how the self is, or isn’t manifested in artworks, looking specifically at works by Gilbert and George and Cindy Sherman. All in all, the session was great, everyone who attended left having learnt something new.” By Somi

26 NOVEMBER: Society with Robin Preistley, artist
We all live in a society, so what influence does an artists background have on the works of art they produce? Robin is a member of the Space Hijackers, a group of artists and activists that try to reactivate the radical nature of public space and the way we use it..

Art&…
The series continued with two monster events in 2005 Art&Performance in March and Art&Identity in September, look out for more Art&.. events in the months to come!

Art&Performance 19 March 2005
A Day of performance of all descriptions!
“When I was asked to co-ordinate “Art&Performance” I felt a little daunted but incredibly excited. I was slightly concerned as to what the balance between the creative and practical sides of the project would be. I needn’t have been! I received excellent support in all aspects of the project. I never felt I was on my own. As a result of this support “Art&Performance” was met with great enthusiasm and turned out to be a very successful event from many different perspectives. I learnt much from this experience and I think the whole team did, especially regarding how we can build on the strengths and work more on the less successful aspects of the project. Not only this, everyone had fun and there were lots of smiling faces on the day!” by Ben

Performance artist Jenny Hunt mid-performance of: Which way is the Art, 2005

Art&Identity: 03 September 2005
Who do you think you are? Art&…Identity was all about you, you, you!

“For some, it was an opportunity to wear crazy hats, wigs, or even full fancy dress. Many then proceeded happily to enter the video booth to have their say.
The badge making station was a hit and the collage + drawing wall was equally busy, filled with collages about where you all live.
We also showcased the brilliant short animated films from this year’s Frida Kahlo: Identity Summer Courses and ‘if you thought this song was about you…’ well, it was! Varied tunes were selected by you and then DJ Tom taught those that were up for it how to spin those disks.
Altogether, it was a fantastic and buzzing day. People mingled and were comfortable being and talking about themselves!
Thank you to all who came - and those that didn’t - see you at the next Art&… in 2006!” By Rina

M.A.D. LIVE! (Festival of London Youths Arts)
23 April 2005
MAD (Music And Drawing) Live! took place in the fantastically glassy East Room at the top of Tate Modern and was produced as part of the Festival of Youth Arts London (FLYA) that took place from April 16-24th.
Saturday evening and, with the panoramic skyscape of London as a backdrop, a variety of musical acts played to a chilled-out creative audience of around 150 young people who made sculptures, slides, projections and experimented with Polaroid’s. There was even the chance to have a go at playing the strange and ethereal instrument - the Theremin.
Acts included Theremin players, man from uranus, a projectionist and sound artist - who created his own unique audio-visual experience, a group of young African Drummers from the KORI Youth Group in North London and last but not least, Django Thief, an up-and-coming hip hop collective from South London who polished off the evening in soulful style as the sun went down.
There was a really great atmosphere on the night with loads of people having fun and participating in all the activities.
“It was great, luved the soul 'n' drums. Atmosphere was riveting. New found value for life“,  Emma, 18
Can’t say fairer than that!” By Holly-Anne

Django Thief do their thing at M.A.D. LIVE!

Frida Kahlo: Identity Summer Course August 2005
“Another year, another summer course?”
“No way! Each year we make a special course just for you and things were a bit different in 2005, instead of two sets of week long courses. We ran four, three day sessions to make it easy for as many people as possible could come along (room for 80 peeps). This meant that we had to squeeze a lot of Raw Canvas goodness into just three days. Needless to say, it was hectic!
This year’s theme was Identity to go with the amazing Frida Kahlo exhibition that was on at Tate Modern. Why Frida? Because her paintings are about her own identity. We looked at how she represented herself and her culture and then used this knowledge to inform our own work. We created short animations with the help of artist Peter Hatton and Blossom and Louise from the Film and Video Workshop to keep us on target.
But what exactly did we do? (apart from make friends and have fun)

• Made short web based animations about identity.
• Learned how to use adobe photoshop and imageready.
• Found out about Frida Kahlo's life and work.
• We also found out a little bit about our own and each others identities.

The animation’s were showcased at Art&Identity and will be on the Raw Canvas web site very soon! So “watch this space!” By Roger.