Community of Practice: Stories Beneath the Surface

Today I attended the first workshop of the Community of Practice: Stories Beneath the Surface workshop programme I have enrolled on.

What is it?

It is a series of powerful workshops that supports the development of the creative practice led by practitioners/researchers within contemporary ceramics. It is a space to explore the authority and versions of told history.

“The programme seeks to explore how absent identities and people can be centred in stories told through contemporary ceramics using museum collections, archives, oral histories and unofficial archives”.

I signed up to the workshops because I want to explore the recording of the renovations at Theatr Clwyd but through ceramics. I wasn’t sure how I was going to achieve this and then came across this programme and thought it would greatly increase my understanding of the “told history” and ways in which to record it.

There are three artists leading the programme: Jacqueline Bishop, Paul Scott and Matt Smith.

Jacqueline led the workshop today. She is a visual artist, writer and academic with expertise in interviewing oral history. Her recent work includes, ‘History at the Dinner Table’ where she explores the familiar bone china plates used symbollically in Caribbean homes that hide a sinister past of slavery and oppression. https://jacquelineabishop.com/

What is oral history?

We started the workshop by learning about oral history. It is the interviewing of eye witnesses/participants of events/places of the past for the purposes of historical reconstruction. It is seen as the social change within the telling of history. History is defined by the past being told. Typically, this is through official archives and told through an elite white male perspective: Kings, Generals etc. Oral histories disrupt the norm by including in the historical record the experiences of hidden people. This includes everyone-every gender, class, age, race, ability etc. It creates a truer sense of history through a people centred approach.

We discussed how an oral history takes you into the lives and events and shifts the enquiry to the people or community involved. Where will the project reside afterwards is important. Some of the reading for this workshop delved into place for oral history including a really interesting project in London where you use a radio to listen to oral histories being told through transmitters on lampposts. It is a public art installation called ‘Linked’ by Graeme Miller. https://www.artsadmin.co.uk/project/linked/

Jacqueline explained how she had previously worked for UNESCO in Paris and how when she worked there, there was an incursion in Jamaica. She wanted to record some oral history interviews with people but she was denied. The government denied the violence and instead changed the narrative to the need for education. We discussed the politicised official history vs the unofficial oral history. From this, we were tasked in groups to come up with a pitch to persuade a fictional Minister of Jamaica to fund an oral history project exploring the violence women faced in the country. Our group well and truly failed at persuading Jacqueline (acting government Minister) to fund our project. We tried to explain how the eye witness accounts would give the government a better understanding of the violence and strengthen communities. Jacqueline was playing devil’s advocate and denied any violence in the first place. One group managed to persuade her to commit to the project by pitching that they would interview women about their communities for tourists to better understand the people providing services in the tourist spots. 

Main things to remember from the workshop

• Definition of oral history

• Uses - what are these interviews going to be used for

• How to interview for an oral history project:

• Interviewee doesn’t know you are nervous, they think you are an authority

• Best starting line, “Tell me about who I’m talking to” gives the power to the interviewee

• Don’t go into the interview with more than 5 questions

• LISTEN

• Then base the rest of the questions on what they have told you

• Answer any questions they ask you

• No Yes/No answer questions

• Decide how you are going to record, get permission and make notes as you go along

• Listen to what they are repeating - shows emphasis

What does silence mean? We were advised not to be afraid of silence. It can mean several things; are they thinking, emotional, evasive. Don’t rush to fill the silence, get comfortable with silence and learn to read the meaning. This will create a more successful interview.

People’s answers won’t always be direct. Try to get them by themselves because they are much more likely to be honest on their own and it helps to build trust. The interviewees can be anonymous if that helps them feel more secure in being open and honest with their answers. Jacqueline explained that she has been back and interviewed people again upon realising that there was something she had missed the first time when going over the data. 

We then practised interviewing each other in front of the whole group. This was a bit nerve-wracking as Jacqueline was critiquing as we went along. I discovered from this exercise that I’m quite good at interviewing someone and changing my line of enquiry depending on what the interviewee has said. I might use interviews as a way of collecting data for my PhD: I see it as another way of recording the renovations at the theatre. 

It was really interesting listening to the interviews. We all learnt a lot about each other and found so many common themes being expressed even though we are from different backgrounds, ages etc. 

Over the course of the workshops, we are being tasked with recording our own oral history. I know I want mine to be about the theatre but I haven’t decided on the details yet. 

I am looking forward to the next session in a couple of weeks where the leading artists will be presenting and we will have discussions focusing on practice and themes unearthed through those presentations.