2017 began in Africa .  This was not something I or my family ever believed would happen until we started planning the trip in early 2016. Nor was it something that we could fully imagine in all its detail, however prepared we tried to be.  We read, we had vaccinations, chose the anti-malarial tablets, studied the climate, the route we were taking, the planned itinerary  and packed as little as possible , not forgetting the insect repellant.  It all looked straight forward as we boarded the plane at London Heathrow on the 28th December.

Our destination was Tanzania but we could only get there via Kenya where we needed to pick up a second flight from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro.   A second flight that unfortunately never took off.  The cancellation was announced just before the departure time and threw us, and some fellow passengers, in to a degree of panic. This was suitably fuelled by the chaos at the airline’s transfer desk.  As the day dawned and with it our realisation that there was no guarantee we would get on another flight that day, or the next, we were advised that “by land” was our best alternative. ” By land??” We were in the wrong country, not just the wrong city!  This was not an African vision I had anticipated.

We were advised it was three and half hours drive to the border where we would be picked up by a rep from the tour company – followed by another 3 hours to get to our destination.  Long, but not impossible, and we would get there by the end of the day, provided there was no hitch with Kenyan visas or the border immigration. Thankfully there wasn’t.

It was a good plan that none of us regretted.  The drive across Southern Kenya to the border was our first introduction to East Africa and despite the fact all of us were exhausted the expansive landscape absorbed us whole heartedly – the vast open spaces, the trees, the villages, the colours, the roaming Masai , the waving children and the road side stalls and shops. Everything made was brightly coloured – painted shop fronts, fabrics, clothes and trinkets.  Kenyan locals sat under trees and by their shops alongside the road as we passed through the villages. Clusters of people were gathered around local bars as well as stalls and shops.  There were busy markets in some of the bigger centres but all activity happened along the roadside , the well trodden route to economic survival.

The Collective is fortunate to have two “studies” by Kenyan born artist Michael Armitage, who works between London and Nairobi. He draws most of his inspiration from observations and memories of Kenya but interweaves his images with reflections on the deeper social problems associated with the effect of globalisaton on East African cultures. Michael’s main medium is oil painted on lubugo bark cloth, made from beating the bark for several days before stretching it out as a canvas.  The two studies we have in our collection are drawings – studies for larger oil paintings not yet done, but beautiful works in themselves.

Our first contact with Michael was during a collaborative project I ran between my employers UBM and Drawing Room, a Southwark based public, non-profit gallery of international reputation.  Michael featured in the exhibition “Connecting worlds” (held at UBM’s previous Ludgate House premises) which highlighted the diverse communities and cultures we live and work between.  The Collective visited most of the exhibitions over the three years that this project ran, and as the works were available for purchase we bought Michael’s two studies of “people by the roadside”  in Kenya.

I have always found the drawings compelling – their simplicity and yet their ability to capture  a scene, a way of life, a gathering, a community, a moment in time in a culture that interacts with our own and yet is so different.

Now when I look at these drawings multiple visions of Africa come to mind – not just the people of Kenya and Tanzania but the landscapes, the colours, the heat and the feel of once being there.  African visions that can overwhelm and are never forgotten.

It’s been a longer summer recess from blogging than I imagined – or wished for! Though that shouldn’t be mistaken for inactivity . The opportunity to step back, assess and think can be the most active and creative of tasks and all too often swallowed up by the process of daily life.

One of the highlights for me in the last couple of months was an opportunity to talk to Ceri Hand, Associate Director (Institutions) at the Simon Lee Gallery in central London.  With 25 years of experience working in the art world  as a curator, arts manager, director, commissioner, producer and fund raiser (to name a few!), it was a perfect opportunity to ask how she saw The Collective. With our own method of collective buying and dialogue with artists , our interaction with galleries and yet our existence outside the gallery programme, gaining an experienced outsiders view on how we fitted in to contemporary art thought and practice was what I was hoping for. I wasn’t disappointed.

The Collective’s first meeting with Ceri was as Director of the Ceri Hand Gallery  where

we purchased Mel Brimfield’s “On Board” [2010] A bold and evocative print with suggestions of an antiquated notion of women and domesticity (or death of!) that has inspired many conversations amongst visitors and viewers in our homes.  Watching male members of my household iron always evokes an image of this work in my mind!

One of Ceri’s first remarks about the Collective was around the “the ethos of the collection itself” where the collection is in “the hands of multiple people in multiple houses who are having multiple conversations with multiple ideas and voices around one piece of work”.  This principle is then in dialogue with other works which creates an exciting dynamic that artists would naturally support.  “If one took a snapshot of an individual household at any one time and put it alongside the snapshots of five other household interiors, the kind of dialogue that is generated would be fascinating” 

Finding new audiences and expanding discussions on individual artworks can also stimulate a wider discourse on contemporary art and culture more generally.

I was interested to find out from Ceri what her experience was of the way in which individual collectors interacted with artists whose works they purchased?  Were they buying for investment? From favoured galleries and curators? Did they rarely meet the artists, or was there potential for a deeper interaction, which is so favoured by the Collective where we regularly visit artist studios? “Everyone is unique”, says Ceri.

Ceri explained that there was a lot of education and discussion by the gallery curators around an artist and their work, and some collectors do form very deep relationships with the artists and continue to buy their work through their careers.  For others however it is not about wanting “to know” the artist but about the significance of the work to the buyer, who may feel that by meeting the artist that “meaning” might be altered, and so shy away from any interaction.

This was a fascinating insight and a reverse process to many of us in the Collective.  As we are a mixed group of people with different tastes the purchasing panel may buy work that is not to the taste of every member.  By meeting and talking to the artist that perception often alters, combined with living with the work on a day-to-day basis so that what starts out as “unlikeable”changes to “likeable”.

“The Collective is great in the way you encourage each other to look again” says Ceri  “and exciting from a gallery’s perspective in terms of bringing you in to see different works”. For Ceri, working with museums and institutions, any opportunity to open up conversations to a wider audience is a top priority.

I was very interested to hear Ceri’s view on our “what next” dialogue for the Collective and possible suggestions for a new direction.  Ceri felt that as supporters and investors of contemporary art thought and practice through The Collective that we have become, as a group, “patrons”. Viewed in this way we should look to other ways of making contributions that could support arts organisations and widen the audiences and dialogue around works, whether emerging artists or entry works from known artists that are rarely covered.

Loaning (or even donating) some of our works to regional galleries where there is less resource for acquisitions would be one such route.  At the same time programming talks around such loans would be a way to expand the idea of “the Collective” and draw on new regional audiences.  Partnerships with arts organisations where we could support research ideas in different areas through our own acquisitions was another idea (e.g performance art, women artists).

Despite the short amount of time I had with Ceri, it was idea intensive and very thought provoking.  I arrived quite drenched and anxious (thanks to a cloud burst at the moment I walked out) but left both dry and inspired by our conversation.

My favourite take away remarks was her view that the Collective was “a portrait of a group of people as individuals and as households” which held great potential with many multiples for an extended dialogue around art works.   How true.

Many thanks to Ceri Hand.