It’s All About Relationships
Welcome to our blog where we will share insights, experiences in the studio and community, and various genres of narrations representing the journey of our work. Our project is multi-layered, informed by a convergence of methods, which include our individual studio practice, qualitative research, public treks, and deeply engaged community collaboration. The thread holding this project together is a commitment to building reciprocal and authentic relationships. Sometimes this means years of cultivation, and others are brief and spontaneous. This happens within communities, a fusion of people from home and afar, and everything in between. Either way, there is interconnectedness and interdependency that values individual voice and expression, as well as the collective.
We have many illustrations of relational work and the bounty it yields after years of practice, the process of relationship building and network often takes time and persistence. It can messy and unpredictable, and above all requires flexibility and responding to community identified needs, which can only be ascertained through listening, embedding in communities over time (going to garage sales, attending community events, informal visits, reading documents developed by the community, and learning about the history from multiples sources and perspectives). We don’t do drive by engagement or research, it is grassroots and bottom up, not top down.
Examples of implementing relational practice:
As we live in Maine, it was easier to make contact on Long Island through frequent visits; however, we used Zoom to create similar dialog in Greenland prior to our visit in June 2022. Humility matters—we are not experts imposing our “brilliant” plans, we look to a cross section of the community to inform us of what they want, what they think is helpful, and their ideas on how to go about it. We can present and propose as a starting point; however, our intention is to remain flexible and humble, and build relationships and ideas with those that have the most at stake.
Collage portrait workshops in Long Island, ME and Qaqortoq, South Greenland: The collage portrait workshops were magical in both locations—photos, videos, and qualitative interviews do it justice; however, “success” is a tribute to the process of relationship building over time, which is more difficult to document but just as important.
Participatory Treks on Long Island, ME and in South Greenland: Group walks organized in both locations provided a way to learn more about the natural environment through direct sensory experience. Participants responded to prompts designed to elevate awareness of relationships between walkers and the environment. By walking together, conversing and sharing visual responses and written reflections walkers connect with one another and contribute to a repository that informs the project and will be distributed to public audiences.
Interviews in Qualitative Research: An hour or so in conversation centered on someone’s lived experience (or you could say story) provides a deep understanding for knowledge building from a research perspective, and also inspires and informs the artist’s studio practice, which can result in various mediums of work (paintings, installation, multimedia). Qualitative interviews offer an opportunity to learn about a person and community, their history, challenges and assets. As artist scholars, it has been our experience that people want to talk and share their stories, and the process of doing so is mutually beneficial. Our work on this project affirms the richness of gaining deeper understanding of these stories, and elevating voices often overlooked. Individual narratives anchor collective ones, and vice versa. The emerging themes also represent shared concerns, and experiences, as well as what makes us unique. Sharing our findings with the generous people who spend time with us is part of our relational practice.
What does relationship-building look like more specifically? And what does it have to do with the work of artists or activists or researchers? Everything. In the coming blog posts and through examples of our work we hope to convey the magic and significance, so stay tuned and join our community. After all, it is all about relationships.
