Reciprocity in the Patchwork by Fiona Macbeth
Reciprocity was a consideration throughout. Carina, the visual artist, took care that the material people chose and held was valued as an act of receiving prior to the act of giving. The participant/interviewee was asked to share something but no one left feeling that something had been taken from them. Both the participants in the venues and the visitors to the installation felt that they received something. The need to be needed was met in the initial stages of the project as we made connections with people and communities who would be interviewed. We asked people who maybe are less familiar with being needed or who may not see themselves in a position of having the capacity to be generous. We talked with people who were dealing with homelessness and addiction, with young people who had been homeless, with elderly people in a care home and with clients of a community centre who have come to the UK and are dealing with dislocation and the struggle to communicate in a new language. In accepting our request that we interview them, all these people had the experience of being needed. And they welcomed it.
At the start of the interview they were asked to choose a piece of fabric from the basket. A piece that they liked, that maybe reminded them of something, or that simply pleased them. AS they spoke they held this piece of material and when the interview was over the interviewer cut the piece of material in two and the interviewee kept one piece and the interviewer took the other, explaining that prior to the installation the material would be sewn together with other pieces and the resulting patchwork would be the added to by visitors to the installation.
The careful attention to reciprocity was beautifully summed up by this act.
Reciprocity was a consideration throughout. Carina, the visual artist, took care that the material people chose and held was valued as an act of receiving prior to the act of giving. The participant/interviewee was asked to share something but no one left feeling that something had been taken from them. Both the participants in the venues and the visitors to the installation felt that they received something. The need to be needed was met in the initial stages of the project as we made connections with people and communities who would be interviewed. We asked people who maybe are less familiar with being needed or who may not see themselves in a position of having the capacity to be generous. We talked with people who were dealing with homelessness and addiction, with young people who had been homeless, with elderly people in a care home and with clients of a community centre who have come to the UK and are dealing with dislocation and the struggle to communicate in a new language. In accepting our request that we interview them, all these people had the experience of being needed. And they welcomed it.
At the start of the interview they were asked to choose a piece of fabric from the basket. A piece that they liked, that maybe reminded them of something, or that simply pleased them. AS they spoke they held this piece of material and when the interview was over the interviewer cut the piece of material in two and the interviewee kept one piece and the interviewer took the other, explaining that prior to the installation the material would be sewn together with other pieces and the resulting patchwork would be the added to by visitors to the installation.
The careful attention to reciprocity was beautifully summed up by this act.
