Conversation with
Curator David Cleary

 At the beginning of 2024 we hosted curator and facilitator David Cleary at our Platfform 2 reading room, for a curatorial residency supported by Jerwood Arts.

The residency followed on from Peak’s participation as a host organisation in Jerwood’s Curatorial Accelerator Programme, which supported curators from working class backgrounds to take part in a year-long curatorial development programme.

David Cleary is based in North Wales and his curatorial practice seeks to improve access to cultural and natural spaces. During his residency, David undertook research towards the development of Conveyor - a nomadic arts initiative and curatorial platform. Through this in-conversation, David shares more about Conveyor and reflects on approaches to convening, learning from others, entangled practice, and tools and strategies to stretch and frame ideas.

You’ve very recently launched conveyor - a nomadic arts initiative and curatorial platform that will facilitate collaborations between artists, people, and place. How did this come about?

I moved to North Wales around three years ago for work, just as pandemic restrictions were eased. I initially worked in a gallery setting, curating public programmes which aimed to facilitate collaboration between artists and communities. I quickly realised getting people to the gallery was a lot to ask of people because of the economic and access barriers involved in moving around the region, so I started developing projects which were situated in the landscape or online. Then during Jerwood Curatorial Accelerator, I had the opportunity to speak with directors at arts organisations Super Slow Ways, Atlas Arts, Fieldwrk and In-situ, and you folks at Peak, which helped me think about cultural programming and models which worked across different geographic, social and environmental conditions without a fixed site. conveyor is the culmination of these experiences and conversations.

Creating fluid spaces for those who are queer, disabled and working class, is a key motivation in your work. How will conveyor create and facilitate these spaces to gather and how do you imagine them?

I think rather than working exclusively with a specific group, I’m more interested in intersectional practices and ways of working which break down social, class and access barriers. These barriers are relational to their surrounding cultural and social values and I’m still figuring this out in the Welsh cultural context of the rural and coastal north. Off the back of the Peak residency, I secured funding through the Arts Council of Wales which will give me time to learn and meet with artists and communities towards understanding the existing methods of convening and imagining new ones.

 

During your recent residency with Peak, you developed a series of questions for and with curators you met at Platfform 2. Please could you tell us about these questions and how your thinking has shifted based on those conversations?

I started with a long-list of questions I’ve been asking myself. These were mostly variations of things people often get asked: Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do? I then invited Lucy, Anthony and Jo, curators who are all working in different contexts along the North Wales South Wales line between Holyhead and Cardiff, to meet me in Abergavenny. Through individual conversations and sharing our experiences, three questions were refined from the long-list. It gave me a framework to critically review the motivation of the work and subvert any assumptions, taking questions that were initially personal and opening them up. They’ll be the bedrock of my ongoing research.

 

You’re interested in how intersecting identities are entangled with rural and coastal social ecologies, please could you tell us more about this and describe the potential you see in these entanglements?

Social ecology was a term I learned after reading “Social Ecology and the Royava Revolution”. It's a theory by Murrey Bookchin to articulate the entangled relationship between social and environmental justice. It made me think about the cultural, social or legal frameworks which are prescribed to us and on land. Personally, the way I identify and work is informed through my relationship to my body, people around me, and the more-than-human networks and memories of the places I grew up and live in now. I find it hard to quantify who I am under singular terms and this shapeshifts in different circumstances. I think a lot of people may feel the same way and I’d like conveyor to explore these variable relationships.

During your residency we spoke about how you’ve been developing strategies and toolkits to stretch and frame ideas. What could you share of this, for others who are growing projects of their own?

This was inspired through a chat with a friend, curator Kaliopi-Tspini Kolaza before the residency. I tried to think about a tool which could help develop forms - the methodology of the collaboration and what is produced. Especially in the projects I aim to develop, there are hierarchies, disciplines and agendas that overlap, and this device could be a means of questioning who or what is directly and indirectly involved, and how.

I imagined this as a selection of words which collaborators could arrange together into different configurations. I honed this down into three groupings. The first area is the creative format, the material practice and the way it’s delivered, such as a workshop, performance, festival, film or walk. Next is the people who contribute to the project, which includes paid workers, participants and volunteers, and the indirect network of collaborators such as suppliers and information services. Lastly, is the sites: the public spaces, the vessels which carry people to the activity, the invisible areas where ideas and thoughts are processed and communicated. Hopefully laying these words out would let people choose how they would like to be involved and form a collective agreement in how the work is shaped and moves forward.

Links to further reading and references are at the bottom of the page.

Sgwrs gyda’r Curadur
David Cleary

Ar ddechrau 2024, fe groesawon ni’r curadur a’r hwylusydd David Cleary i’r ystafell ddarllen yn Platfform 2, ar gyfer preswylfa guradurol oedd wedi’i chefnogi gan Jerwood Arts.

Roedd y breswylfa’n dilyn cyfranogiad Peak fel sefydliad lletya yn Rhaglen Cyflymydd Curadurol Jerwood Arts, a oedd yn cefnogi curaduron o gefndiroedd dosbarth gweithiol i gymryd rhan mewn rhaglen datblygiad curadurol dros gyfnod o flwyddyn.

Mae David Cleary yn byw yn y gogledd, ac mae ei arfer curadurol yn ceisio gwella mynediad at ofodau diwylliannol a naturiol. Yn ystod ei breswylfa, bu David yn gwneud gwaith ymchwil i ddatblygu conveyor, sef menter celfyddydau nomadig a llwyfan curadurol. Drwy’r sgwrs yma, mae David yn rhannu mwy am conveyor ac yn myfyrio ar ymagweddau tuag at gynnull, dysgu gan eraill, arfer cyd-gysylltiedig, a dulliau a strategaethau i ymestyn a fframio syniadau.

Rwyt ti wedi lansio conveyor yn ddiweddar iawn, sef menter celfyddydau nomadig a llwyfan curadurol a fydd yn hwyluso cydweithrediadau rhwng artistiaid, pobl a lle. Sut daeth hyn i fod?

Symudais i’r gogledd tua tair mlynedd yn ôl gyda fy ngwaith, wrth i gyfyngiadau’r pandemig lacio. Ro’n i’n gweithio mewn oriel yn wreiddiol, yn curadu rhaglenni cyhoeddus oedd yn ceisio hwyluso cydweithio rhwng artistiaid a chymunedau. Buan sylweddolais i fod dod â phobl i’r oriel yn gofyn llawer gan bobl, oherwydd y rhwystrau economaidd a hygyrchedd wrth symud o amgylch yr ardal, ac felly dechreuais ddatblygu prosiectau oedd yn y dirwedd neu ar-lein. Yna, yn ystod Cyflymydd Curadurol Jerwood, cefais gyfle i siarad gyda chyfarwyddwyr yn y sefydliadau celfyddydol Super Slow Ways, Atlas Arts, Fieldwrk ac In-situ, a chi yn Peak, ac fe helpodd hyn fi i feddwl am raglennu diwylliannol a modelau sy’n gweithio ar draws wahanol amodau daearyddol, cymdeithasol ac amgylcheddol heb safle penodol. Mae conveyor yn ganlyniad i’r profiadau a’r sgyrsiau yma.

Mae creu gofodau hylifol i bobl gwiar, anabl, a dosbarth gweithiol yn gymhelliant allweddol yn dy waith. Sut bydd conveyor yn creu ac yn hwyluso’r gofodau yma i gynnull, a sut wyt ti’n eu dychmygu nhw?

Dw i’n credu, yn hytrach na gweithio gyda grŵp penodol yn unig, bod gen i fwy o ddiddordeb mewn arferion croestoriadol a ffyrdd o weithio sy’n chwalu rhwystrau cymdeithasol, dosbarth, a hygyrchedd. Mae’r rhwystrau yma’n gysylltiedig â’u gwerthoedd cymdeithasol a diwylliannol amgylchynnol, a dw i’n dal i geisio datrys hyn yng nghyd-destun diwylliannol ardaloedd gwledig ac arfordirol y gogledd. Yn dilyn preswylfa Peak, cefais gyllid drwy Gyngor Celfyddydau Cymru, a fydd yn rhoi amser i fi ddysgu a chwrdd ag artistiaid a chymunedau er mwyn dod i ddeall y dulliau presennol o gynnull, a dychmygu rhai newydd.

 

Yn ystod dy breswylfa ddiweddar gyda Peak, datblygaist ti gyfres o gwestiynau gyda ac ar gyfer y curaduron gwrddaist ti ar Platfform 2. Alli di ddweud ychydig wrthon ni am y cwestiynau yma, a sut mae dy feddylfryd wedi newid ar sail y sgyrsiau yna?

Dechreuais i gyda rhestr hir o gwestiynau dw i wedi bod yn gofyn i fy hunan. Amrywiadau ar y cwestiynau mae pobl yn eu gofyn yn aml oedd rhain yn bennaf: Pwy wyt ti? O ble wyt ti’n dod? Beth wyt ti’n ei wneud? Yna gwahoddais i Lucy, Anthony a Jo, curaduron sy’n gweithio mewn gwahanol gyd-destunau ar hyd y llinell o’r gogledd i’r de rhwng Caergybi a Chaerdydd, i gwrdd â fi yn y Fenni. Drwy sgyrsiau unigol a thrwy rannu ein profiadau, mireinion ni dri chwestiwn o’r rhestr hir. Rhoddodd hyn fframwaith i fi allu adolygu cymhelliant y gwaith yn feirniadol, a gwyrdroi unrhyw ragdybiaethau, gan gymryd cwestiynau oedd yn bersonol i ddechrau a’u hagor nhw. Byddan nhw’n sylfaen i fy ymchwil barhaus.

Mae gen ti ddiddordeb mewn sut mae hunaniaethau croestoriadol yn cydgysylltu ag ecolegau cymdeithasol gwledig ac arfordirol – alli di sôn ychydig yn fwy am hyn a disgrifio’r potensial rwyt ti’n ei weld yn y cyd-gysylltiadau yma?  

Roedd ecoleg gymdeithasol yn derm ddysgais i ar ôl darllen “Social Ecology and the Royava Revolution”. Damcaniaeth gan Murrey Bookchin yw hi, i fynegi’r berthynas gydgysylltiedig rhwng cyfiawnder cymdeithasol ac amgylcheddol. Arweiniodd hyn i fi feddwl am y fframweithiau diwylliannol, cymdeithasol neu gyfreithiol sy’n cael eu rhagnodi i ni ac ar y tir. Yn bersonol, mae fy hunaniaeth a fy ngwaith yn cael ei lywio drwy fy mherthynas â fy nghorff, y bobl o fy nghwmpas i, a’r rhwydweithiau mwy-na-dynol ac atgofion o’r llefydd cefais i fy magu a dw i’n byw ynddyn nhw nawr. Dw i’n ei chael hi’n anodd meintioli pwy ydw i mewn termau unigol, ac mae hyn yn newid ei siâp mewn gwahanol amgylchiadau. Dw i’n credu efallai fod llawer o bobl yn teimlo’r un ffordd, a hoffwn i i conveyor archwilio’r perthnasau amrywiol yma.

 

Yn ystod dy breswylfa, fe siaradon ni am y ffaith dy fod ti wedi bod yn datblygu strategaethau ac offer i ymestyn a fframio syniadau. Beth allet ti ei rannu am hyn, i bobl eraill sy’n datblygu prosiectau eu hunain?

Cafodd hyn ei ysbrydoli drwy sgwrs gyda ffrind, y curadur Kaliopi-Tspini Kolaza, cyn y breswylfa. Ro’n i’n ceisio meddwl am declyn a allai helpu i ddatblygu ffurfiau – methodoleg y cydweithio a’r hyn sy’n cael ei gynhyrchu. Yn enwedig yn y prosiectau dw i’n anelu i’w datblygu, mae yna hierarchaethau, disgyblaethau ac agendâu sy’n gorgyffwrdd, a gallai’r ddyfais yma fod yn ffordd o gwestiynu pwy neu beth sy’n rhan uniongyrchol ac anuniongyrchol, a sut.

Ro’n i’n dychmygu hyn fel detholiad o eiriau y gallai cydweithwyr drefnu gyda’i gilydd yn wahanol ffurfweddau. Mireiniais i hyn yn dri grŵp. Y maes cyntaf yw’r fformat creadigol, yr arfer materol a’r ffordd caiff ei gyflawni, fel gweithdy, perfformiad, gŵyl, ffilm neu daith gerdded. Y nesaf yw’r bobl sy’n cyfrannu at y prosiect, sy’n cynnwys gweithwyr cyflogedig, cyfranogwyr a gwirfoddolwyr, a’r rhwydwaith anuniongyrchol o gydweithwyr fel cyflenwyr a gwasanaethau gwybodaeth. Yn olaf mae’r safleoedd: y gofodau cyhoeddus, y cyfrwng sy’n cario’r bobl i’r gweithgaredd, y meysydd anweledig lle mae syniadau a meddyliau’n cael eu prosesu a’u cyfleu. Gobeithio y bydd gosod y geiriau yma allan yn galluogi pobl i ddewis sut hoffen nhw gymryd rhan, a ffurfio cytundeb casgliadol o ran sut mae’r gwaith yn cael ei siapio ac yn symud ymlaen.

Mae dolenni at ddarllen pellach a chyfeirnodau ar waelod y dudalen

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