Fresh Milk is very excited to be traveling to Glasgow to participate in the International Artist Initiated (IAI) project, presented by the David Dale Gallery & Studios as part of The Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme taking place alongside this year’s Commonwealth Games.

About IAI:

International Artist Initiated is a programme of exhibitions and events devised by David Dale Gallery to coincide with the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Developed over the past year, the project is intended to act as a catalyst for discussion and collaboration between artist initiated projects internationally.

The structure of the project is designed to be malleable and open source, in that it can be taken and applied elsewhere with different organisations – not that there is anything particularly ground breaking about the idea, but sometimes simple ideas are the most effective – let’s gather a diverse collection of people with similar interests and see what we can create.

Working with artist initiated, or focussed, organisations from across the six Commonwealth territories, the programme consists of a series of exhibitions and events by the invited organisations that respond to either the context of the Commonwealth Games within Glasgow, or is representative or indicative of contemporary culture within their nation through the lens of an artist-led organisation.

The word ‘international‘ is a daunting one, and a little bombastic. There is no intention within this project for the selection or execution to be conclusive in any way. The selection of the organisations, has by definition, meant the exclusion of thousands of initiatives – we consider this selection to supplement existing dialogues through opening up another network, another platform.

A self-critical capacity seems to be one of very few universals inherent within artist initiated organisations, and this project has grown its own criteria quite organically. The privilege within this project is the access to the plurality of voices. Fresh eyes that can say ‘yeh, but…’. The six disparate organisations represented within IAI all contribute separate and distinct critical and discursive components to the overall project: considering their own place and histories; the architectonic context within which they’re placed; the cultural historic context in which we work; specific cultural relationships towards the present invitation context; and whether the project can work and grow. Instead of an incessant list of questions, however, what develops is a wonderful narrative of sorts – a cyclical story in which everyone pitches in to embellish.

Fresh Milk’s contribution to IAI is in two parts. The first will see the installation of works by three emerging artists on a billboard, on railings and on the surface of the sidewalk. The artists include a recent graduate from the Barbados Community College, Ronald Williams, who’s crisp digital montages critique the stereotype of the black athlete and will be installed on an extended billboard while Mark King’s temporal, geometric, site specific work will be installed on a pavement.

Alberta Whittle‘s fête (party) posters show the artist masquerading as both man and woman in her critique of gender stereotypes through her engagement with the local fête posters often seen posted throughout Bridgetown, Barbados’ capital city. The posters will be reproduced in multiplies and plastered throughout the streets of Glasgow.

Fresh Milk’s second contribution will be a discursive project called “Notions of common/wealth versus single/wealth“. This dialogical component will provide a platform for representatives of the seven specially invited networks to participate in conversations with each other and the Glaswegian audience. The aim of the conversations will, in part, be to unpack ideas related to the Commonwealth of Nations – the association under which countries gather every four years to celebrate sport in Glasgow in the summer of 2014.

The intention is to explore the context of the IAI, as a gathering of Commonwealth Nations, and delve into how that relates to the work we all do as artist led initiatives. The concern is to unpack the Commonwealth as a macro, historical entity and understand our relationship to it, if any, and all that entails. Interrelated are ideas about the definition of wealth and value, both single and common, in our local contexts.