Fran Allison

Today we had Fran Allison come and talk to us about her practice as an artist and her collaborative work with a group called 'Weeds'. A collaboration is where you work jointly, especially in literacy or artistic production. Allison is a jeweller who, along with three others, formed a collaborative art group called Weeds.

Collaborations are becoming more frequent in artistic disciplines, they are sometimes seen as a production line of art, as inplied by the essay 'Production Lines' by Irit Rogoff (www.collabarts.org).

I think that working in a collaborative art practice could have some major upsides. The idea of a group of minds coming together to brainstorm for one project seems like it would have a far better chance at coming up with the most amazing ideas, rather than just one person. A group of artistic minds is always better than one singular one. Allison spoke of a collaborative group called 'Workshop 6' this group sounds to me like the royals of collaborative art thinking. In 2003 Workshop 6 has an exhibition called Tin Years to symbolise their ten year anniversary of the collaboration. This symbolises how well a collaborative group can work together to produce some beautiful works.

Working in a collaborating group would definately extend your practice and broaden your knowledge of the specific area you are working in. I would like to be able to regard myself as a designer, as that is the discipline I want to pursue. I wonder if being a designer I could work in a collaborative group? The more I think about it, it becomes more obvious that I always will be. Once finished this degree and I have a job as Graphic Designer (hopefully) I will be working for clients and addressing their needs. I will have to work with the clients, other designers and the company I work with. (One day my own :D)

Working in a business where you are completing jobs for clients, you will always be working in a collaborative group. Mechanical Enginners for example, work with the designer, the enginneer, the client, the testing companies, and all sort of other groups of people. Therefore automatically making them (or yourself) part of a collaborative group.