Alison Cotton - Inclusive Arts Practitioner

In Episode Two of the Inclusive Arts Podcast UK, Elaine Foster-Gandey and Cassie Beckley are interviewing Alison Cotton, an Inclusive arts practitioner who recently worked with the Brighton Oasis project supporting women and children affected by substance abuse.

Alison recommends the artist, Cornelia Parker,

[00:00:00] My name is Elaine Foster-Gandey. And in 2016, I enrolled on a master's at the university of Brighton studying inclusive arts. This course helped underpin my work as an arts practitioner coming from a long line of makers and having a career in the fashion industry for over three decades, working as a fashion stylist editor.

PR and setting up designer sales UK that ran for three decades. I was always interested in supporting young people, especially women, whether it was promoting marginalized fashion designers or setting up the real people catwalk show, where we gave voice to people of size, age, ethnicity, gender, and physical ability.

My work has always been about bringing visibility to individuals in groups who are not seen. What I want this podcast to do is to shine a light on projects and individuals who inspire with their work. I hope you enjoy them. And please do leave us a comment at the [00:01:00] end as this helps others to find us. So welcome to the inclusive arts podcast.

Uh, my name's Elaine foster Gandhi and I'm Cassie. So we're here interviewing inclusive arts practitioner. Allison cotton. Allison has worked with the Brighton Oasis project and has a special interest in participatory practice. Welcome, Alison. Hello. It's lovely to be with you. So yeah. Do you wanna tell us a bit about your work?

I started, um, working with Oasis 10 years ago when I was doing inclusive arts practice masters at Brighton, and we have to run a community art project with, with a, with a community group. So I started working with, I kind of fell into it really through linking up with Oasis. I fell into working with children who are affected by substance misuse in their families.

And we work together. [00:02:00] Me and Joe Parker, their young person's therapist on taking. These kids out into the countryside to do creative things in nature, through walking, particularly because we felt like they didn't really do very much walking. You know, it's not safe for children to walk to school these days and the, uh, amount of time that children spend.

Sort of just hanging out in nature and exploring things on their terms as reduced in my lifetime to buy a huge percentage. So, so we, we got formulated a kind of program of taking children outside on by public transport or a mini bus or walk just simply walking from the Oasis center and. Taking them to Woodlands fields, the beach and just hanging out and being outside and [00:03:00] having a picnic and doing things like filming each other and making kind of quick sculptures out of natural objects and taking photographs and exploring all the different ways that they could engage with with their natural environment.

So I've been doing. Over several years going into Oasis and, um, you know, with kind of, it's almost a generation of children now doing the same thing really, but more recently I've started a course to learn about the therapeutic side of this because inclusive arts practice is not art therapy. It's really about giving people access to the creative process who don't have.

So, you know, don't enjoy the kind of access that most of us enjoy. And now I'm doing, um, a course called child therapeutic wellbeing practitioner. So that is really. It's just taking my understanding of this whole area to another level. That's, that's a lovely thing to be doing. And, [00:04:00] and you must, you must love it to have been doing it for so long.

Like almost a generation, particularly now, since, since everything's going up cost of living people, art is always the first thing to be put by the wayside. But I know you say it's not art therapy, but I feel like art is an integral part of. Development and understanding yourself. So that's lovely that you are doing that.

And, and it really like that, that really sort of slots. Perfectly with, with the hope project and everything, doesn't it? It really does. And, um, I worked with Elaine on the hope project in one strand by running a workshop for her participants, for her group of women, a workshop called Hacka, which involves making prints with flowers and plant material that you can go outside.

So you can go out. On a walk pick things, bring them back in, put them between two layers [00:05:00] of fabric and whack them with a hammer. And it's a kind of amazing cathartic fun process. It makes a lot of noise and there's a sort of element of destruction. But from this destruction, you create something beautiful because when you peel back the two layers of fabric inside, Is this miraculous print of the plant.

So sometimes it works really well. Sometimes it just looks a bit of a mess so there's, there's a, there's an element of luck and serendipity about it. And we went out into, we were running the workshop in made stone museum. We went out into the grounds, the beautiful gardens, just outside. We got permission to pick the flowers and we collected some gorgeous colored flowers, went back in and thrashed.

Thrash them to, uh, smithereens, but created some really beautiful images. And these, these pieces of fabric were then [00:06:00] woven into the dress of hope, along with the, the messages of hope that the women wrote. So I was involved in that way. And then I was also involved through the work I was doing with young Oasis at church devised, a little mini pilgrimage for.

Natural materials, making, you know, telling stories, doing making movement maps, which is an, um, an Elaine devised method of sort of picking up the traces of your movements as you walk by just holding a pen lightly on a piece of paper. So you kind of pick up all these vibrations and movements. So we did all these D.

Lovely activities with the children. And then Elaine also brought some of her fabric strips, which they wrote on too. So these messages of hope were woven into her dress by [00:07:00] all sorts of different community groups, including young Oasis, the children I was working with. I just wanna take you back to the Zoie because, um, that's practice that you brought that art practice into the, the hope project has gone on and had a, an amazing sort of, uh, influence for me as a teacher, because I've brought it now into the curriculum and I teach year sevens, eights and nines and key stage three.

And, um, yeah, so we, we, uh, I brought Allison's, Zomi inspired work now into, so all of, really like a lot of Kent, you know, cuz I'm teaching in Tom bridge and Tom bridge worlds and uh, all these kids now, they all know when I say to them, What is this at? Zomi miss and where did it happen? Japan missed, you know, does have to tell me where it came from.

And, um, so I bring it a lot. So that was very inspiring. Thank you so much for [00:08:00] bringing that into the project. I think it, it does this activity does do the rounds of lots, of kind of forest schools and things like that. It's one of those great processes that kids love. Adults love. Everybody likes to do it.

It's it feels a bit transgressive cuz you're smashing flowers up. First of all, you choose the most beautiful ones you can find and then you P them, but you get a, a lovely image. And in fact, I remember when your dress of hope exhibition was on. The people at Mastone museum showed us some photographs of some exquisite shirts that had been a previous display that had been made with Zomi and they were, you know, they were far more skilled than anything we did.

I, I was amazed to see that you could actually. Make clothes because it's not a permanent process. You don't, well, we've never fixed the, the colors and the designs. One of the appeals of it is that it's ephemeral and these things will [00:09:00] probably fade. If you, if you put your picture up on the wall, it will probably just fade away.

I have got some that have been folded away. Out of daylight and they, you know, they do last a few years. I've still got some that are, you know, three or four years old. But, um, yeah. So I wonder what happened to those shirts. Yeah. I wonder if you, if we, if you used a Morant on it, like a vinegar or something that might, uh, you know, seal it, haven't tried that I'll have to try it with my myself.

Well, do try it. Do tell me what happens. Yeah, I will. I will pass it back. . Did you have your own strip of fabric with writing on? I think I must have done. I know I, I did some, some of my hack Zoney went into the dress when you are facilitating a, an art process with other people. There's quite a lot. You don't remember afterwards.

You're so much in the moment and you know, there's quite. Practical problems to be solved and things to be [00:10:00] fetched and, um, people to be helped. Yeah. You, you forget lots. It's, it's like an important, an important incorporation as well, because I know I keep going back, but people weren't able to get outside to see, to see people as much.

So having that reflected in the piece, in, in that way and, and words aren't always needed. I think this is the lesson I've learned here. . Well, the interesting thing about the dress is that you, most of the road, the words can't be read because they are buried in the weave of the fabric and you know, they're there, but they've.

Sort of almost become digested by the dress. So they're, they're imbued into it, which is the, one of the, the magical thing about it. Yeah. That's a lovely way of putting it as well. I love that as a visual image, there were some amazing words that, that were sent to me in the post. Cuz of course there was lots of groups that I couldn't reach.

We couldn't reach as you know, um, in the project, [00:11:00] people that were isolating some of my mental health. Participants visual impaired participants. And to get all these little parcels in the post was so exciting, you know, it was like Christmas, all of a sudden, you know, all these little parcels were arriving and, and then I would weave them in.

So yeah, so, and, and they were, as they went in, cause with, with any weaving, you push it down to then put another layer in and you push it down. So some, some parts of the dress, you can actually see the words. Cause I've deliberately made those kind of stand out. But, um, yeah, a lot of it is, as you say, it's been digested, but it's not, it's nice to think of all those, all those voices and all those experiences coming together to form one big thing that could speak in a digestion could literally swallow you that like the size of dress.

So yeah, it could, it could, you could wrap yourself up in it. Like, was it Cleopatra that, uh, was kind of concealed inside a rolled up carpet and posted. Well, and that, and that just [00:12:00] brings me to the bit of the project that I found. So inspiring. Well, one of them many was the element of it that you just mentioned, Elaine of posting kits, weaving kits to people when you couldn't see each other in person.

And I believe you also taught your. Your school students, were they, were they, um, a level students or GCSE students weaving by via zoom? The whole thing of, of the, the messages of hope, the very, very start was when people received things in the post, this kind of wonderful little kit that could, uh, unfold into a message of hope.

Yeah. Oh, it's lovely that you're remembering that because that was the beginning of it. It was the beginning when I. Deciding, uh, I mean, I didn't have it lost lots of work. Well, we all lost lots of work as artists and arts practitioners and, and lots of us, not just artists, like, you know, loads of us. Some people were lucky and they got [00:13:00] furloughed, but artists very, unless you'd kept your.

Accounts, you know, I mean, I'd started a new business, so I had no accounts to show, so no, no money for, for, for me in that way, but I was very, very grateful to have received some teaching and I was holding up, I was sending kits to them and then having to demonstrate in the camera, you know, and it was quite interesting.

To teach in that way, you know, just show them how to loop a loom and, um, thrust a thready loom, um, little cobbled loom, and then how to weave on it. And you know, these kids were all yeah, about 12, 12 year olds I was showing and, um, they're all in their sort of bedrooms, mostly. It, it was quite a beautiful experience and that was the beginning of it, cuz they were, we were starting to write words on bits of fabric and, and yeah.

Weaving it together. So thank you for, for remembering that. I mean, you've talked quite a bit about, I was thinking about the takeaways or how the [00:14:00] projects informed your work now. Um, Uh, is anything that sort of, you think that sort of cause you also, I I'd like to say you also, you were a speaker, so I asked you to come and speak about the project.

So you came to Mastone museum and you, you know, you were employed not only as an arts facilitator, running a project on the hope, but you also came as a, as a speaker and you, you did a very good job as a speaker. Um, so yeah, just wondering all of that experience, how. You know, were there any takeaways or, or how, how has it informed you in any way as an artist?

It was really lovely to see the, the dress come together from all these individuals inputting into it, and then to see it hanging up in the museum, that was really thrilling. But I think one thing when I was reflecting earlier today on. On what I was really special for me was when we went to [00:15:00] church with your group of ladies.

Yes. So Weese ladies, and it was a small grouped of people from both these communities. And we did the same little pilgrimage that we'd done with the children from young Oasis. So we walked from church to all system church and back, but I was really struck by the spirituality of that walk, how they.

Responded to the walk in nature and the visiting the churches. And we wrote little lines and in response, and we had a bit of silence and people prayed and, um, Yeah. I just remember there was a really powerful moment where we all, we all sat in silence in all system church. And, um, that's not something that happens when I take bunches of children out.

So, uh, that was really powerful for me. And, um, [00:16:00] seemed to represent something that's very special about your project. Thank you. That's really lovely. It's really interesting cuz the last, the last exhibition ended up being in a church. Uh, funnily enough. And just to give people a background is. There was another project that I was involved in another arts concert project that Allison and I were involved in, which was the restoration of Barrett church in east Sussex.

The one, the blooms reset, lots of paintings by the blooms reset. And so I then. Wove in the hope dress into that project where I brought the ladies from the hope project into the Barrett church project, because actually the people that I'd originally worked with the mental health group, I couldn't get access to.

They weren't, I wasn't allowed to meet them. Know, it was, it was very, quite sad and a bit traumatic in a way for me because, and I understand people needed to stay [00:17:00] safe, but there was just no way of having, um, access to that group. And I, yeah, I felt very sad about that really and completely understand it, but it was still that I hoped to be work for hope to work with them.

So I then brought in my ladies from the, from the hope project and that was. Again, very special, you know, it was just lovely. And this was 2021, wasn't it? So it was when we, we had this kind of window of, you know, between COVID. Outbreaks and lockdowns where we had this little window of hope, as you say, it was really difficult to work with some groups.

And, um, we brought children from Oasis to that, to Barrett church for that project under, you know, real constraints where we couldn't have more than a certain number in the mini bars, all sort of thing. So that was. Yeah, uh, uh, that we hadn't really talked about how your, how the, the pandemic really was [00:18:00] woven through your project.

And I suppose we have cause of the posts coming to people, but you know, that was a major theme. Wasn't it for how the whole idea came about. And also what you are touching on, which is really interesting is when you talked about the stillness in the church, is that there's so much bereavement that I experienced in that project.

And people talking about having lost people and not just lost people, but lost something. There, there was a sense of loss, you know? Yeah. A, a bigger, a bigger sense of loss in terms of lost of, uh, contact. Family friends loss of, you know, the sort of what we've been used to. So it was, yeah, we, it was like having the carpet pulled out from underneath us.

And, and I know people who say they've never been to the same since. Yeah. It's often it's older people who can't go back because they, they just lost something. They [00:19:00] lost momentum at a crucial moment of their lives. When you can't get momentum back when you are over a certain age. So some of us are able to do that after COVID so sort of really bad moments of it.

But, um, some people haven't been able to, a lot of people are figuring that there's still a lot of healing to be done even now, physically and mentally and people who were isolated by it. It might not be so visible or so audible, but it's still there. And I think that's, even though you came up against challenges in, in contacting people, I think the key thing is that you, that was the point of the project.

There was the trying, and I don't think you were ever gonna be able to get everybody for, for various reasons, but at least you were actively seeking out these people who yeah. Would particularly suffer from isolation. [00:20:00] and the dress is representative of a lot of people who aren't in it and people that weren't able to take part and people that couldn't be reached at the time, but there, you know, there are messages of hope that are in, it are representative of countless other people.

Yeah, that's, that's just really, you've summed up really the whole ethos of the project. Alison, is that it's giving voice to people, the unseen, you know, people who aren't seen and that, that obviously relates to COVID, but it also. Relates as inclusive arts practitioners. You know, that's what my work has always been about is to give voice to people who don't always have a voice people who aren't not, or not normally seen.

Like there were amazing opportunities. Yeah. And I think, although there were difficulties reaching people, there were wonderful opportunities that opened up for instance, I got access to Avol the volunteers workshop [00:21:00] space, and it's in em, walk in Mainstone, which meant I could have a table there with these guys that were selling their old postcard.

And we were, I, we were completely was lucky. It was a huge space. So we had, we were completely. Social distancing and masks on. And we were able to reach out to the general public. And that was just incredible actually to opportunities arose through those difficulties and actually gave access to people that like the guys that clean all the bins, you know, with their.

Hives jackets. We pulled one in and said, you know, would you like to write words of hope and, and people maybe who wouldn't necessarily do that, you know, were stepping in and doing it like dads with their kids. And of course, made stone is a real, it has a, a real big ethnic mix. Of people. So there's, it's, it's very exciting to talk, to reach people that have low access to arts and, uh, to bring them in.

And [00:22:00] then through that contact, they then came to the museum and saw the dress. You know, we invited them over it. I just want to describe the dress because, um, obviously this is an audio podcast and, um, for anyone who hasn't seen it, it's vast. How, how, how tall is it? 12 foot. Yeah, it was it's as tall as the big room in the museum.

It's kind of an archetypal dress shape with long sleeves. Like the sort of dress, the sort of. Two dimensional Caral cutout shape of a dress that a princess would wear in a fairy 10. And it's thick because it's made of this really substantial woven material. Strips of fabric as you describe woven and then press down.

So there's a lot of, it must weigh a lot. It must weigh a ton, but it's a really impressive thing to see. It has a presence in the room. So I recommend anyone who hasn't seen it to go and go and [00:23:00] experience it. That's lovely. Thank you. Alison one last thing to ask you, if you could, um, recommend an artist to our listeners in on the inclusive arts podcast, who would you recommend if you got any?

Ah, well, I've just been to see the Cornelia Parker, exhibition, Britain, and at tape Britain, and I absolutely loved it. She. Does some work in collaboration with people, but the standout things for me were a piece called the war room. She was invited to respond to the first world war and she went to a Memorial poppy factory, you know, the pop, we all buy for arm stay and she made a film of the poppy factory, but, and that's in the exhibition.

There are several films in the exhibition, but she also took the fabric. With the punched poppy shaped holes in it so that this red [00:24:00] fabric full. Poppy shaped holes and she lined a huge room. It's called the war tent. I think it's the shape of a historical tent that Henry VIII set up to sign some treaty, the cloth of gold, which came to nothing.

And there was another war very soon afterwards, but it's, it's shaped like a long symmetrical tent and it's completely lined with this red fabric and it's quite dark and every poppy shape. Kind of represents a lost life from the first world war. There's not nearly as many in the, in her artwork as there were in reality.

So, um, yeah, I would recommend Cornelia Parker. She also, that's really interesting runs over brass instruments and silver plated artifacts with a steam roller. One of her earlier works is called 30 pieces of silver, where she collected loads of silver [00:25:00] items, you know, unwanted wedding gifts and all sorts of things.

And then. Put them in, along a path and got a steam to roll over them. He's very inspiring. Yeah. She, I love was she trying the.

Point. Yes. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much, Alison, for joining us, it's been an absolute delight. Pleasure. Really enjoyed it. You're so articulate. It's just lovely to hear you. Yeah. So thank you so much, really enjoyed having you. Well, thanks again for involving me in your project.