Simon Morrissey is the Director of Foreground (UK). Based in the Somerset market town of Frome, Foreground delivers an ambitious program that spans commissioning new temporary and permanent artworks in the diverse social and physical structures of communities, and inspires audiences through learning, participation, and critical discussion.
Middle of Nowhere, Centre of Everywhere.
For a long time the art world has been dominated by dichotomies of centres versus peripheries. Centres are our highly metropolitan cities. Peripheries are, well, everywhere else. But that is where most of us live.
These ideas influence everything: funding, cultural provision, the ecology of ideas. This seminar looks at a simple but radical idea: how do we turn the ‘middle of nowhere’ (the dull town you grew up in, the small town you now raise your kids in) into the ‘centre of everywhere’? How do we kindle ambition, quality and criticality where we chose to live, no matter how ordinary?
photo credits: Andy Ford