Two years in Tether
Tether is an organisation largely run by four people (Liam Aitken, myself, Ben Hargrave and Samuel Mercer) but one that encompasses around a dozen members in total. The group officially formed in June/July 2007 during meetings between soon-to-be graduates from Nottingham Trent University’s school of Art and Design. Tether was conceived as a means of recreating the university studio experience, and was initially intended to comprise mainly of a shared studio space, with the potential for a gallery. The original group consisted of around twenty people and meetings were organised to focus Tether’s development from intention to reality.
With a real sense of shared momentum we set out on finding a rentable space for our studios and began developing a collective event that would take place later the same year, as a launch of our studio group, which later became ‘Tether Festival’. A process of naming ourselves also began.
An air of optimism characterised the group, borne from time spent together on a positive and progressive university course, and our shared aspirations for success. However, once the reality of post-university life hit, the boundless energy and goodwill of the first meetings and the euphoria of the festival subsided, it became very clear that the group was already becoming divided, between those who would make time for Tether, and those who wouldn’t. For many of those involved, it seemed to be perceived that our individual circumstances dictated our standing within Tether, but for me, level of involvement has always been a matter of approach, with this notion of “available time” being used as an excuse. It is certainly not fair to suggest everyone had equal circumstances, financially or otherwise. But there is a difference between generosity and wealth; between a good start and a head start, and it was essentially the group’s inherent internal differences, particularly in values, that really dictated Tether’s development.
Differences of opinion on things such as the studio’s name and the benefits of location offered early inklings into the nature of group politics, and in particular, the limitations of democracy without leadership. Our group’s inability to reach satisfying compromises continued throughout our first year; an unstable arrangement which reached its natural limit in June 2008, during a collaborative project in London. Supported largely by Nottingham Trent University, Tether were invited to exhibit as an artist group as part of ‘Freerange’, “Europe's largest graduate art and design show”, very much on the back of the success of Tether Festival.
We were encouraged by Professor Terry Shave, Head of Visual Arts at NTU, to pursue the project in any which way we desired, but with the suggestion that Tether should approach it with a standpoint different to those of Freerange’s other exhibitors. With this in mind, during early meetings between ourselves, it soon became generally agreed that to work collaboratively for this exhibition would not only distinguish Tether from ‘rival’ schools in Freerange (for whom the event represented an opportunity to show off their individual talents), but would also pull us together as a group. This approach was indeed only “generally agreed”, to the extent that throughout the development of the project unhappy grumblings threatened to undermine the whole experience. Looking back on the first year it is clear now to see that Tether, in its original form, was a group constructed from several friendship groups from university, which soon became factions within the post-graduation studio environment. Our differences were particularly evident when trying to work together for Freerange, with Tether divided between those who initially wanted the project to be collaborative and those who didn’t, and later, those who took group-made decisions personally and those who didn’t. But beyond that, it was our shared visions that kept us in our factions and our stubbornness to shift that prevented those factions from melding.
Hugh Dichmont and Chie Hosaka, Screenshot from Uneasy Dreams, 2007Tether was everyone’s baby, representing as it did the formless dreams for artistic success of twenty young artists; for some, a vehicle for individual achievement, or at least survival after university. Everyone wanted to be in control of their own artistic careers, and seemed to feel as if allowing someone else to make any Tether decisions without their full approval, would amount to a pirate’s hijacking of their dream. In this way, Tether was a boat with twenty captains and no one to man the positions.
Without leadership, the group was always destined to reduce and change to a more comfortable form, but ironically, whenever anyone attempted to make any strong decisions they were always seen as ‘taking over’. This inability to compromise galvanized the factions within Tether, to the extent that the group is now greatly reduced, but with a much stronger collective vision, whilst those who have left have themselves largely continued to work together, undoubtedly inspired by bad experiences and lessons learnt from their time in Tether. In this way I feel we have failed as a group, unable as we were to establish a sound order between all our original members, forming as we did a kind of ‘democracy by shooting’, whereby those who were already good friends ended up staying together, and those who were not, struggling to break the surface. Today’s Tether is principally a friendship group, but we also have shared values and aims.
Through projects as varied as the Wasp Room gallery, video podcast project Tethervision (due for official launch this April) and the group’s collaborative activity, Tether seeks to create and promote art that first and foremost interests us as individuals. In that way we welcome differences of opinion within Tether decision-making. Although, there are palpable trends within our practice as a group, in particular, to produce work that is playful, immersive and theatrical. I think that as a group, we have recognized that a process-driven approach is important when working collaboratively; allowing each of us to perform unaffectedly through our personal talents, rather than pursuing some preconceived conceptual conceit, which, naturally, is usually the personal vision of those with the biggest mouths (often me). Fully formed proposals are never pursued. The interest for us as a group is the half-formed idea: the exciting but somehow incomplete. It is as Tether that we are able to compose a body of work around these lost ideas, which more often than not, are borne from slips of the tongue or half-baked sentences during everyday conversations.
Whatever happens over the next few years, it is certain that Tether will change. We ourselves, during our first Tether meetings, accepted that the group would end once it is deemed to have served its purpose. Although, working in a group has undoubtedly brought each of us the opportunity to work beyond our individual means: using each other’s qualities as a resource for our own development. Recent inroads, such as our successful Arts Council bid, have refocused our passion, and allowed us to broaden our ambition and approach to projects. Whilst the group continues to thrive, there is no reason to believe why Tether cannot continue to extend its original purpose, and prolong its unintentionally fickle meander.
Fictions Private View
At the time of publication, Tether’s current and forthcoming exhibitions and events include: ‘A Far Sunset’, a show of work by Birmingham-based artist Tom Down at the Wasp Room (Until the 11th of April), ‘Fictions’, curated by Tether artist Hugh Dichmont at Bonington Gallery (Until the 8th of April) and online cultural archive/resource Tethervision (www.tethervision.co.uk).
For more details on the 2007 Tether Festival, All Smoke and No Fire, Tethervision, the Wasp Room and all other Tether projects, please visit www.tether.org.uk
