The artistic superpower hidden in your subscriber list

Rediscovering socially engaged art through 30 strangers' 6-word memoirs

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Between 2011 and 2017 I made what art boffins would call "socially engaged art"—art that somehow involves the public in its conception, production, and/or presentation.

​One of my favourite pieces of socially engaged art (SEA) is Turner Prize-winner Jeremy Deller’s Sacrilege 2012, where he turned Stonehenge into a giant bouncy castle.

The playful name anticipated the criticism it got, while the work let visitors physically connect with their heritage in a fun way.

It also questioned how landmarks become tourist attractions or political symbols.

Here's one of my own SEA pieces that I'm particularly proud of—a video piece full of people answering the same mystery question.

Looking back, there were several things motivating me to make this kind of art:

1. I wanted my work to include real people, not just those in the art world

2. I'd never had a creative community around me and I wanted my work to help create that community

3. I found human beings to be easily the most interesting subjects

4. And I enjoyed the buzz of giving lots of people the same prompt and seeing what they'd do

By making SEA, I learned that people are very willing to do weird things if there's a creative story tying it together 😂

But I also learned that one-to-many prompts were an amazing way to see peoples' unique personality as well as their shared humanity.

SEA gave me more excitement—and it taught me more about the generosity of people and how to build rapport with them—than any work I've done before or since.

However, in 2017 I stopped making art as I went into business. In doing so I lost my artist's power to rope people in. I no longer had a way of justifying strange ideas to them. And nowhere to present the work even if I could.

Things went on that way for…shit…almost ten years! Which is a long time to go without being able to express your socially engaged urges.

But. Recently, it struck me, like an encounter with a stranger in the street, that writing this blog gives me similar artistic powers!

It gives me a way to justify those creative-social experiments.

A way to invite participation without roaming the streets.

A way to present the outcomes on a neat and tidy platform.

And a way to put the work under many peoples' noses.

As you can imagine, I'm pretty excited about this. So a couple of weeks ago I put out a call for submissions to my subscribers and others on Substack to submit their "6-word life story" so I could publish them all together.

Honestly? I was worried very few people would do it. I thought they might find it uninteresting. Or uncomfortable. Mostly I was worried they'd think it was too weird.

But the best thing about the internet is being able to connect with people who do understand what I'm trying to do.

30 people submitted their mini memoirs. Many others gave it likes and comments.

I'm super glad, because it made me feel validated. And it got my brain racing with ideas about what else is possible!

I talked to my wife Corina (who’s an artist and poet) about this project and she showed me a drawing she was doing inspired by our time here in Mexico. As soon as I saw it I knew she should combine the 30 submissions into her drawing.

So here it is, an image made by Corina, comprising all submissions. I love how it looks. But I also love the tapestry as a metaphor for everybody’s stories.

Here’s what Corina said about making it:

When thinking about the order the stories should go in, I noticed that there were common themes. I arranged them into a pattern that shows that we all have different experiences but there are so many overlaps. That’s why I think it works well as a tapestry—many threads coming together to form a whole.

As part of this project, I said I'd include participant's names and websites too, so here's everyone who took part with links to their work, in no particular order:

1. "Germany unhappiness trap England fresh start" - Corinna Schiffer

2. "BIG BABY TURNED SASQUATCH BECOMES CLOWN" - CansaFis Foote

3. "Dad examines life 4 purpose fun" - Jeffrey B Shaw

4. "Rootless living via countries & domains" - Ved Shankar

5. "Staggering Safely Beyond Broke but Amazing" - Andrew

6. "Roller Coaster Ride in a Tornado" - Roxanne, The Sparkly Eyeshadow Girl

7. "Fiercely independent woman who defied expectations" - Samira Gupta

8. "I live a brutally beautiful life." - Heather Zoccali

9. "Buried in fear. Joke's on me!" - Larry Urish

10. "Lost in awe so many times" - Latham Turner

11. "He can play the bagpipes. Elsewhere." - Simon Emslie

12. "Longing to be taken care of." - Jessica Murdoch

13. "Dream house becomes dollhouse; life persists." - Jeremy

14. "Verbal Hemophilia. Why can't I clot?" - Scott Mebus

15. "Fantasy, procrastination, complacency. Now, finally, action." - Neha

16. "(Not) The end. To be continued." - Danny Oak

17. "Dreamed, struggled, grew, awakened, love endured." - Nick Pledger

18. "Overachieving robot discovering powerful human connections" - Nat

19. "The rain returns the African heart." - Rochelle Gosling

20. "Windsurfing, writing, helping people: that's me 😀" - Karen Cherry

21. "Council estate dreamer discovering life's magic" - Sarah Ennett

22. "Creator land of corn and steel" - Judy Murdoch

23. "A relentless pursuit of the Truth" - Anuradha Pandey

24. "not a robot since age 52" - ed mirago

25. "She grew across latitudes, longing nothing." - Elizabeth Bacon

26. "Inner palace peeps through a keyhole." - Corina Jensen

27. "followed two passions, finding the next" - Ben Mercer

28. "Found, lost, mended—wild peace endured." - Brigitte Kratz

29. "Lake of monsters in fur coats." - Claire Coley

30. "Shouldn't be here, showed up anyway" - Becky Isjwara

Finally, I said I'd organise a social zoom call for participants to meet each other. That's happening in March and I'm going to reach out to participants directly with more details about that.

So, what did I learn from doing this?

I think the most surprising thing was how long I blogged for (2+ years) without realising that SEA is possible with blogging. Even enabled by it!

I want to do more. I want to do another experiment but make it even more exciting.

I'm opening this up to you if you've got ideas. What was it about this project that you found most interesting or fun? And how can you see it being taken to the next level?

Could there be a visual element?

Could we do something more risky?

Could we do something just completely stupid or absurd?

Send me your ideas and I'll concoct something. That goes for everyone, even if you didn't take part this time.

A question I've been thinking about a lot is: what cool things does this one-to-many blog dynamic make possible beyond the ordinary?

People like SEA because it moves art away from being simply looked at to being experienced together.

Artists use SEA to confront social problems, raise awareness, foster dialogue, or just have a good time. ​It’s about strengthening social bonds and creating collective experiences that unite​ people across differences.

I think there's tremendous potential in writing if we see it ​less like content creation and more like community participation.

Thanks to everyone who took part in this! Your stories made me smile.

I’ll see you in the next experiment.

Harrison 👨‍🎨

⬥

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Thank you Corina at

Corina's Sketch Book

for reading drafts of this and making the artwork x

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