After a short introductory talk on my work, I set them the task of undertaking a DÉRIVE!!
The derive was one of the frist workshops we did at Art School,with our second tutor Peter MacCaghey from the environmental art department. An exercise in map reading, collaboration, negociation and problem solving, it is a crash course in the most fundamental concerns in any pubic art practice.
Taking a map kindly supplied by Nick Lindsay from the Highland Council, one of the participants, Jack, was asked to draw a circle at random over the street map of Helmsdale.
DériveFollow the line exactly, do not deviate from the line!
Stay together, negotiate, collaborate, investigate!
If you don’t ask, you don’t get!
Document, document, document!
‘’At the door of the house we come knocking
An open door we enter
A closed door, a den
The world pulse beats beyond my door’’
Pierre Albert Birot
I instructed the kids to follow the outer line of the circle as closely as possible! At times this was difficult, particularly when the line ran through private property: houses, shops and gardens. I gave the group two digital cameras, a video camera, pencils and paper to document their journey. The group did very well, negociating access to houses and gardens on their path.
On their return to the gallery , they drew together their documentation and experience of the derive to make a large map of their journey.
