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Introduction Collaborations tend to occur within, rather than across disciplines. This is hardly surprising given the institutional and professional bias towards specialisation which exists throughout the academic world. Projects which take artists outside their cloister are as important as they are unusual. Often the most potent collaborations are serendipitous, their workings as illusive and enigmatic as the creative process itself. As artists we must confront the implicit difficulties, hazards and demands with regards to making a career, or perhaps more importantly, defining that condition which is fundamental and right to the very marrow of one's creative being. Working hard with oneself to define a sure and certain style or 'signature' whilst familiarising oneself with one's own enduring themes and motifs. Because artists feel driven and compelled to report on the world in a certain way, it is indeed rare therefore and perhaps unusual, to find interdisciplinary collaborations, partnerships and overlaps which do, often contrary to popular belief, locate artists of whatever 'species', solidly in the world of social beings. Creative practice can be underpinned, stimulated or triggered from solitary, or indeed simultaneous directions. The creative oxygen is a complex chemical, stratigraphically mapped and cemented into position over years of experience. As practitioners we are all to aware that often the most potent and fruitful collaborations occur out of an almost serendipitous collision, rather than a contrived 'one thing about the other' way of thinking. The actual specifics of artistic interactions are sometimes as allusive as the creative process itself. What we can be sure of is that to be successful the very genes and DNA of the collaborators works must be exchanged, or at least powerfully resonate with one another, whilst being mutually enhanced and brightened. When the often glazed zones between practices are de-iced, this membrane, in becoming less opaque, is rendered more porous, providing a route for certain dialogues to evolve and develop, many of which may not have been in the foreground of creative thought. This artistic connection can be made all the more extraordinary when the parties concerned reside on opposite sides of the globe as in this case (the UK and the US), magnifying the notion that creativity need not be confined or restricted by the peculiarities of one's own culture or geography, and that the creative process is often enhanced and augmented by the very distances we often try and close. The artistic process of the sister arts is ultimately a cyclical one. Within the aesthetic parameters of this project, invention prompts reinvention and interpretation evokes reinterpretation. 'Another Place' is a collaboration that transmits art from the basement of time, creative imaginings from the very alchemical cauldron of prehistory. Just as the organic materials contained within the visual images of this project allow us to envision creation, poetic language enables the image to speak, transmit and convey visionary revisions of two creative minds in compatible universes. - Julian Grater & Nat Hardy |
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