Online/Offline Spring School
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Keen to not let current apocalypse circumstances ruin our dreams of a week together working on self-initiated art projects, we tested out Online/Offline Spring School with Rabbits Road Press staff and friends. The aim was to create a space for us to remain connected, creative, supported and to get a sense of what sort of activities and offerings our near-future public programming could include. Lisa Rahman, a multi-award winning Creative Director & Visual Artist who attended last year’s Summer School, joined us for the week and reflects on her experience.
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As a creative, I believe learning never stops, it just gets rarer to find spaces to develop your design practise with your peers in a non-pressured way. Many of us are used to institutions with structures, rules, deadlines and internal hierarchy strains but if I were to describe Spring School it would be something along the lines of an art residency, club, makerspace, skill-share and art therapy hub where you throw out the traditional rules of teaching and learning to make your own. Sofia Niazi and Rosalie Schweiker, who are exceptional educators and artists, are key parts of making the school work. Before the official “London Lockdown” was announced, the pair extended an invitation to RRP staff and friends, all from different design practises and disciplines, to join them in taking one week off to work on self initiated projects and to support each other to create work in their unique space in Old Manor Park Library. Like many of us, the circumstances around COVID-19 meant our plans had to be put on hold, reworked and taken digitally if possible. Thankfully, a new structure, including daily meets online, gave us freedom to create as little or as much as we liked whilst staying connected.
Here’s my journal of the week, loosely chronicled in days because really, “what day is it again?”
Monday
Each Spring Schooler decided on a project they wanted to focus on that week for a suggested minimum of 2hrs a day. We shared our project briefs/aims with the group so that we could see what each of us had chosen to work on. This is a rough daily schedule:
Hear/read a new Sermon which will be published at 8am
10-11am coffee and stretch with Rosalie via Zoom: a very low-key morning hang out, with no need to chat, you can just have it in the background. It's just there”
Read what people have been writing in response to the Big Questions.
Chat about all the small questions via Telegram group chat
I guess that “excited and nervous” feeling before school starts never changes… I join the Zoom hang out, and instantly felt comfortable hearing the many honest accounts of what people were experiencing during this time, much of the group is made up of freelancers who related to a guilty feeling/sense of immense pressure to use this time to “create” or “make”, we agreed that this was an impossible thing to navigate during a global pandemic.
Hearing daily thoughts encouraged me to document my morning moods into two feelings (see picture), and I feel it sums up the frequency of our changing emotions during this uncertain time. In a classroom you multiply that, shuffle it around, add a tonne of other emotions, and accept that right now there will be days of productivity vs. days of stillness and that’s all ok.
Tuesday
Our “morning sermon” landed at 8am, and it was a video of Sister Corita Kent speaking, you may know her as the “Pop Art Nun” of the sixties and if you’re not familiar with her practise, check out more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3ZoKodAZJU&feature=youtu.be
It felt like a timely reminder to hear Corita speak on the theme of creativity sometimes be a by-product of pain, that beautiful work can come out of those difficult moments, and whether these outcomes are shared publicly or privately, both can hold a unique power. This feels relevant especially now, whilst many industries are trying to digitise their jobs to this long period of working from home, as Creatives, what role do we play in contributing to what is shared online? especially when the social-media landscape feels so saturated? I turned my focus away from creating content for social media or participating in what felt like already noisy space and towards sharing openly with Spring Schoolers my struggles and creative thoughts whilst listening to theirs.
Whilst we all navigated how to spend our time at home, Spring Schooler Aleesha shared with us a sketchbook from her childhood. Interestingly, she found that work she had drawn as a child (featuring nature and trees) shared some very similar themes to the types of things she enjoys drawing now. That whimsical thinking meant on her daily walks she started noticing trees more, and as a result created illustrations using negative space as a starting point, drawing around a focal object and then adding in some detail. This is a perfect example of learning from your peers and many of us were inspired by this approach of reflecting on past work to inform our current practise and also taking up quick drawing exercises.
Not to forget, Rosalie played a quick game of spot the difference with her ordinary household set ups and we all were engrossed (see picture).
Wednesday
By this point the daily sermons and morning Zooms were already adding structure to my day, for the first time in weeks, I was not losing track of what day it was. A conversation that kept coming up in our chats was the art of “mindless making”, the idea of making without purpose, and that it soothed us to make things with our hands.
RRP Technicians, Sadie and Etta, offered us a FREE Embroidery tutorial, teaching us different stitching techniques. Rosalie showed us her Easter decorations saying “I thought I’d go back to doing what I liked doing as a child and I made a little theatre for a story which we usually listen to around Easter time in my family", Sofia was hand tufting an entire mat from scratch.
Thursday
I dedicated Thursday to celebrating animals, creatures and thoughts big and small.
It’s safe to say I remember nothing of Thursday’s ZOOM after Etta introduced us to her adorable kittens, just look at the joy in our faces. We all wondered how improved our days would be if kitten cam was a thing. I'll leave that thought here so you can think about it too.
In other Animal news, Rachel, our Animal Crossing gamer kept us up-to-date with the beautiful virtual world she was creating in the cult game. She posted some thoughts in our Telegram group on gaming being an analogy to life that really made me think: “I think there is definitely a lesson in the game about taking your time! I follow a YouTuber who has been figuring out how to make the most money, optimum ways to crossbreed flowers and seems to have about a million Excel spreadsheets on all his research. I had to sit back and say to myself, that it's cool if he wants to do that and complete it all as soon as he can but I think it's fine for me to play it in a more leisurely way and I think that applies to real life too!”
Meanwhile Sophie M (there was another Sophie too) was making a video of Dolly Parton (who soundtracked her week) together with “jellyfish overlords. In the lyrics, Dolly is humanity singing to the jellyfish ‘Here you come again (to dominate the ecosystem), just when I've begun to get myself together (after near economic collapse)’”. More great food for thought.
Friday
The week ended with a Private View, except it was a Google doc, where all participants had to upload and share something from their projects or work in progress by 6pm. The low-fi technology required to do this was exceptionally true to RRP’s not overly techy ways. It took viewing art to it’s basics where it was about engaging with the works and ideas which were accompanied by heartfelt and not overly complicated captions. I leisurely scrolled up and down through the document watching people live commenting, I went away to grab a hot drink, and came back, pacing myself through the work like I was solo-browsing through an exhibition space (again, a Google doc) I was viewing it from my new workspace in my bedroom. The document was a cool 75 pages, and for our eyes only, but some of the Spring Schoolers kindly allowed me to share their work below, it’s a reminder of what can be created when given a safe space with encouragement of your creative peers.
I feel like Spring Schooler Kerri summed up RRP Spring School beautifully in one of the comments in our Gdoc: “I feel lots of gratitude to RRP and to you all for holding this space. The morning Zoom chats have been a super nice space to give the day structure, check in with peeps and share where people are at alongside the telegram *water cooler*. I’ve felt present and cared for. I have also really loved taking time in the day to listen to the sermons ~ it is so nice to listen to someone speak to you like that. So thank you from the bottom of my physically distant heart. “
I think the sign of any good creative institution is when the School continues on and we’re three weeks into our Friday morning check ins, with us happily taking Spring School into Summer… and beyond.
Lisa Rahman is a multi-award winning Creative Director & Visual Artist who divides her year freelancing between commercial projects and those with more of a grass-roots community focus. Follow her @lisrah.
Head over to our instagram @rabbitsroadpress where Lisa will be doing an insta takeover all week!
