March '09 - Yvonne Cullivan, Terms of Collaboration

Terms of Collaboration

by Yvonne Cullivan

About the Author

Yvonne Cullivan is an artist who has been working with children and young people for seven years. She is currently Research Coordinator for Practice.ie. You can read more about Yvonne in her Member Profile

Introduction

I have been using the term ‘collaboration’ with relative ease when interviewing artists for Practice.ie about their work with children and young people. The more artists I interview, however, the clearer it becomes that collaboration cannot be used as a blanket term to describe this engagement. There are simply too many forms of communication within each exchange and not every artist is comfortable using this word to describe how they work. Perhaps collaboration is not a sufficient term to denote what is, in fact, a very complex and many-layered system of approaches on an individual level, and within that again, influenced by others involved or by circumstances.
In this essay, I will present what I have discovered so far through research for Practice.ie in relation to collaboration in artists’ practice working with children and young people. I will refer to some of the artists whom I have interviewed, while also offering thoughts on the term in relation to my own experiences. I will also present the collected thoughts of the artists I have met through Practice.ie Professional Development Days. This essay is not meant as a conclusive writing on collaboration, as I am only referring to a small number of experiences and only within artists’ practice with children and young people, but I hope it will provide a stimulus for discussion, perhaps on the Practice.ie forum

Please click the links below to continue reading the essay. You can also access the printer-friendly version below.

Image courtesy of Artist: Yvonne Cullivan, Memory of Place, willow construction and video installation, 2007