Relational Possibility
How do we build new creative space together?
Friends,
If you’ve read Still Life for a while, you may recognize Sanctum. It comes up from time to time for me, and I honestly can’t shake it—it’s so good! I’ve shared it with new friends last week, and I wanted to return to this artwork and, hopefully, some new ideas emerging from it.
First, the basics: The artist Theaster Gates built a temporary performance venue inside the ruins of an old cathedral in Bristol. For 24 hours a day and 24 days, locals could show up and be surprised by local artists: poets, bagpipers, breakdancers, singers, and more. Anything goes as long as (1) the artist was local and (2) the attendees weren’t allowed to know who was performing. The result? Locals took a risk and showed up, and they were rewarded with performances that celebrated their shared local identity.
One of the features of Sanctum that really underlines this grounding, connective quality is the artist’s choice of material. The venue was built out of lumber recovered from local lumber yards; it’s literally built out of the real wood and soil of the place around it. If we went to one of those performances, we might not consciously know that—but I bet we’d feel it. Feel that we were a part of something that could only happen here, could only happen now, could only happen through the community around us. Here’s more from the artist:
Part of the value of listening to each other is you start to realize that your voice is connected to a ton of other voices that are interested in the same thing—there's just been no connectivity apparatus. Sanctum, at least for this moment, was attempting to be that apparatus. I've been excited to learn how to create platforms for that kind of connectivity so that the challenges of our society are resolved because people listen longer and sing louder and try harder to know each other.
So how does that connectivity apparatus work? What makes it become something so special instead of something generic, another venue like any other? I’ve been thinking about it for years, but if you asked me today, I’d say what makes Sanctum work is the community was willing to focus on the right people, the right time, the rights space, and the right material. Here’s a diagram to show you what I mean:
Here’s an example of the left-hand side. Years ago, Lindsey and I met up with friends an hour south of Los Angeles for dinner and a movie. Our plan was to meet at a chain restaurant in the shopping center before the film, and when we arrived, we were baffled. They were nowhere to be seen even though they told us they had arrived. We called and realized that we were each one exit away from each other: two completely different outdoor malls with the same restaurant and same theater, two completely different locations. How many places are like that in this country? Where when you arrive you could literally be anywhere? What do we do when that sense of dislocation seems so common now?
And here’s an example or the right-hand side. The other night, Lindsey and I were with old friends and new at a dinner in Saint Paul. We were in a cozy house, surrounded by local art and family photos. We had homemade meatballs, lovely wine, garlic bread, and more. We talked about art and ideas, about our families. We laughed as the children showed off dance moves and talked about the struggle of having jobs and trying to stay creative. It was intimate and casual, an utterly unrepeatable night.
So how do we cultivate more “connective” experiences like this that could only happen here, could only happen now? What other connective moments do you have like this? When you’re proactively engaged with a group of people, grounded and gathered, around a meal or a performance or a living room coach? If it’s true we’re still recovering from an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, what role might something like shared meals and local art and culture have to get us out of the funk? Here’s some more wisdom that comes to mind from the social creative thinker and designer Melanie Kahl:
Wendell Berry said, “A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other’s lives.” This notion has defined my practice for nearly 20 years. I've carried this quote into schools, empty storefronts, and boardrooms. Cultivating possibility isn't a buzzword or province of designers. It's a moral imperative of belonging to a place and to each other. Our work is to uncover and unlock relational possibility.
Ah, I love that phrase: “relational possibility.” That’s what we're after here. Some breathing room to encounter new people and experience new art, some time and space to practice a new habit of attention, one where we step out of our blurred lives and celebrate the people and places right in front of us.
Sanctum’s 552 hours of performance are long gone, living on in the memories of that particular community. So what new voices might we hear, and what new art and music and poetry might feed us? Where are new “connective” spaces like that people are already building around us? And how do we join in and start building together?
Take care,
Michael
“Love after Love” by Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread, Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
TWIN CITY LIFE is a new monthly calendar for local art and community in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. December calendar is launching soon!
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