No Picnic

by Jo Hodges Community Engagement

This national project commissioned four artists, and four writers to work with both urban and rural communities. Jo Hodges worked collaboratively with a community group in NW Dumfries to exploring what poverty and social exclusion meant to them. The group produced the idea for the installation as well as the lens based images that were incorporated into it. Mary Smith was the writer working with another group alongside Jo.

The project culminated in a launch night at the Tramway Theatre in Glasgow in June 2004. The installation was then sited in the Scottish Parliament as well as The Tramway and various other venues across Scotland during 2004. The installation also toured a number of community based venues across Scotland and in all, around 2,000 people are estimated to have seen the exhibition during the tour.

In addition to the direct benefits of the project to those who took part, photographs from the project have been used by a wide variety of organisations to illustrate the reality of poverty, including the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, the Big Issue and the Scottish centre for Urban Regeneration. Discussions with those who had taken part in the project also formed the basis of responses submitted by the Poverty Alliance to the Enterprise and Culture Committee Inquiry into Arts in the Community, and the consultation by the Cultural Commission. A writers group was formed in Dumfries to help continue the work of those who had been involved.

The project was curated by Street Level in Glasgow. The installation design was by Street Level

No Picnic was a commission for Poverty Alliance in collaboration with Street Level, Glasgow and The Big Word, Edinburgh.

Categories: Community Engagement, Exhibition, Installation, Jo Hodges, Participatory, Pre 2013

Jo Hodges's avatar

Jo Hodges

Jo Hodges is a multidisciplinary public artist based in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
with a background in Human Ecology, community development and social justice.

Her work investigates ecological and socio-cultural systems, processes and relationships, and explores new strategies for working in public. Her practice takes many forms; temporary and permanent works, site specific installations and socially engaged projects and processes. She is often led by context, where the outcome is determined as a result of process.

She is interested in research, experimentation and collaboration at the intersection of environment, culture and technology and exploring the role of art in social change. She is joint Director-Curator of Sanctuary Lab, a public art laboratory in the Galloway Forest Dark Skies Park.