Considering Collaboration

Zoe Sawyer

The idea of co-curation is a contentious concept in some circles. For the individuals that make up the curatorial team at The Tetley however, it’s a method we’ve tried, tested and actively developed for the past 10 years or more, through collaborative curatorial projects prior to Project Space Leeds (PSL), the collective curatorial practices we’ve maintained alongside PSL and The Tetley, and our approach to collaboratively curating projects and commissioning artworks with artists within these organisations.

Our partnership with PAGES was entered into in this spirit. Recognising a similar way of working amongst its existing curatorial collective (Louise Atkinson, John McDowall and Chris Taylor), we anticipated an equally fruitful cross-fertilisation of ideas and interesting array of exhibitions would occur through the process of working together.

This is just the second year of PAGES at The Tetley, yet collaboratively selecting and curating the projects already feels like second nature. Nevertheless, we remain excited about the potential for exploring new directions together in future years. As interest in printed matter and self-publishing continues to soar amongst practitioners, and having firmly found our feet at The Tetley (now that over 100,000 feet have passed through our doors), we can think about ways in which we really interrogate every aspect of what PAGES endeavours to be: the international element, the history and contemporary practice of book arts and the work it proliferates into and nudges up against – language acts, text art, spoken word, narrative, graphic arts, typography, print making, craft and sculpture – the limits are boundless.

This year’s curated projects uncover the more collaborative nature of producing publications. A publication (artwork or exhibition) which is produced in a vacuum is a very rare thing. Sourcing, producing and collating material or ideas for a publication may sometimes be an autonomous process but more often than not other vital elements of the production process are drafted out or shared amongst a wider group. Editing, design, print, binding, stocking and distribution are rarely done single-handedly.

Collections and Collaborations also examine the collections, accumulated from collaborations, which exist as an archive of these creative partnerships. Several of the exhibitions this year, developed through open calls among artists’ networks, illustrate how productive working together and showing as a group of artists can be. Projects like The Kippenburger Challenge and The Editions are testament to the productivity and momentum that arises from having a shared ambition and working towards a common objective.

In this increasingly individualistic age, it’s good to be honest and acknowledge how much of what we do is actually achieved through working in unison, however invisible those day-to-day support networks and creative commons where collaboration and co-production takes place, actually are.

Zöe Sawyer, Curator at The Tetley