- by Eelyn Lee, Artist

Since graduating in Fine Art in 1990 I have been making work through collaborating with groups of people - some of whom have been young, old, artists, parents, unemployed, school-excluded, fishermen, coastguards and single mums. Places where I have made this work have included old mills, warehouses, housing estates, schools, youth clubs, streets, homes, theatres, parks, canals and estuaries.

Over the past 25 years my work has been called live art, performance, visual theatre, installation, film, video, moving image, community art, education, participatory, collaborative, creative learning, co-produced and now socially engaged - and with this new label comes new kudos! Never before has ‘my type of work’ been so en vogue and who’d have ever thought a community project in Liverpool would ever win the Turner Prize?

Given the renewed interest in collaborative working it seems like a good time to reflect on some past work, interrogate the new and contemplate the future. I am also at a pivotal point in my practice whereby I am currently transferring creative processes developed over twenty years to a two-year investigation in to improvised filmmaking. Using methods of devising I am collaborating with local people, artists, actors and musicians to make a feature-length film set on the Thames Estuary.

As I journey through the project on the estuary I will be sharing my experiences with the forum and through this blog. I am also interested in questioning how the wider economic and political climate plays a part in causing ‘socially engaged practice’ to trend.  

I have invited the other artists and guest speakers to join the forum because I feel we share some ways of working; we all have extensive experience of making work through collaboration and the mix of personalities will make for stimulating and dynamic conversation.

I am looking forward to learning more about everyone’s work and interrogating ideas around process, collaboration and engagement.