A Blade of Grass

On a regular ongoing basis, Create staff will recommend an article, book, or performance that has caught their eye.

This month, we’re doing something a bit different! We’re so often impressed by the work of A Blade of Grass, that we wanted to highlight just some of the great resources – videos, articles, and interviews, they regularly feature on their site.

Some readers may have been lucky enough to see Prerana Reddy from A Blade of Grass speak as part of WithForAbout hosted by Heart of Glass this week, but for the rest of us, let’s get stuck into these fantastic resources.

As part of Issue 2 (“Who”) of A Blade of Grass’ magazine, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Director of The Showroom, London, was interviewed by Jan Cohen-Cruz: “Curating as Caring: Tending to Partnerships Between Artists and Communities”. This conversation focuses on the role of the curator, and the centrality of care – for the art, the people, the space – in that role, before broadening out to highlight the importance of the durational and relational aspect of collaborative/ socially engaged art.

A Blade of Grass also produce videos for their Fieldworks series. One notable feature is “A Space for Belonging”. As part of the exhibition documenta 14, A Blade of Grass Fellow Rick Lowe worked with local, immigrant, and refugee communities in Athens in the midst of the Syrian refugee crisis to create the Victoria Square Project. This shared public space offers a place for people to belong, and offers an example of a future in which diverse experiences and cultures are shared and embraced. Attendees of the 2017 Create National Networking Day will recognise Rick Lowe from his keynote talk. This video allows us to be part of the project for a short snapshot in time. Their magazine also features an interview with Rick, “On the Difference Between a Civic Action and and Art Project”.

Check out the rest of A Blade of Grass’ resources and read more about their work on their website.