Output details

Sayingno - an ethnographic research residency and artwork by Leila Galloway in a collaborative community event with Sophie Hope for Deptford X on 3rd October 2010, during an annual visual arts festival

Sayingno was an ethnographic research residency and artwork by Leila Galloway in a collaborative community event with Sophie Hope for Deptford X on 3rd October 2010, during an annual visual arts festival: http://www.deptfordx.org/

Sayingno questioned how individuals might enact the freedom to dream and rebel, despite or as part of the struggle to survive within a capitalist society. This research explored our potential to celebrate creative resistance to daily routine, consumerism and expected norms of living.

Sayingno’s public art engagement adopted ethnographic methodologies whilst working with local people over six weeks. The project resulted in collated stories and anecdotes of unofficial acts of freedom in a culturally and economically diverse neighbourhood, published as a CD recording and a 15 minute film shot on the day: http://sayingno.org/wp/ Both were well received by festival-goers and the wider community: the website had over 2000 hits and tenants reported that they felt more connected to neighbours and the community seemed more cohesive.

In interview, residents were asked about what they did to feel free. This approach combined scientific and poetic, empirical and subjective methodologies to reveal the narratives, behaviour and aspirations of ordinary people; it also referenced the philosophical enquiry of John Holloway’s arguments in Change the World Without Taking Power/ Crack Capitalism that radical change only comes about through the creation, expansion and multiplication of 'cracks' within the capitalist system, and Grant Kester’s theory of the role of dialogue in socially-engaged art, which challenges dominant representations of a given community to create a more complex and empathetic understanding of that community among a broader public.

Sayingno was conceived in response to curator Mark Titchner’s (Turner Prize nominee) statement of intent for Deptford X 2010: “[g]rand and spectacular, ephemeral or concealed, art qualified and created by daily life”.