Not in Kansas is an artist led organisation which creates contexts for visual arts in the margins between contemporary practice and lived experience. Currently NiK is composed of artists Mhairi Sutherland and Karen Vaughan, and previously included artist Rachel Mimiec. Projects are generated from our research and our individual practices, which include an interest in areas, both physical and conceptual, that offer risk-taking and the potential for growth as artists, curators and facilitators.
Not in Kansas consciously operates in environments that are less known, both in terms of audience and location. The debate about periphery vs. centre is an ongoing and diverse one, and is the area that we occupy, both in terms of siting the work, and in terms of how ideas and projects are generated, communicated and understood.
We have organised one major project, Muster, in 1998, in and around an empty house on a Ministry of Defence housing estate in Helensburgh, Scotland, and we are planning another, Crossing, for 2002, on the ferry between Scotland and Northern Ireland. Our productivity (and visibility) is very much linked to our own circumstances; as we feel the need and opportunity arising for an event, a happening that will realise some of the discussions we have had about meaning, place and context, we begin to plan. As an organisation, we expand or contract according to what is required, moving between maintenance and negotiation, risk-taking and form-filling.
In our sourcing of places where artists can respond to particular sets of meanings and implications, there is an acknowledgement of a set of limitations that must be considered when researching and creating the work. In the construction of a project there is an acknowledgement that we are all complicit, that the guerrilla tactics of 70s art action have had their day, that the argument about artists versus society is outdated and one-dimensional. Instead we employ strategies such as negotiation and subversion, paying attention to the smaller details and watching an entirely new picture build up from what it was assumed was already known.
Our concern with very particular communities, such as a military institution or the crew and passengers of a ship, reflects our interest in the specific, rather than in generalised notions of homogeneous communities, accepting - or not - of the activities in their midst.
A Not in Kansas project acknowledges the artist as an integral member of a community, but one who has the opportunity to be reflexive, who can conduct research not as an academic discipline, but as an open-ended activity that can produce genuinely innovative results. The liberating power of ideas seems to function well when contextualised by limitations, even barriers.

Research images taken onboard the P&O European Ferry for the project 'Crossing'.

The Centre : NiK choose your own places and contexts, whereas I tend to work with the artists to choose the space, place or context, or there's one already negotiated. Why do you choose the sites that you choose? Why did you chose to work in that particular place in Helensburgh and now the Sea Ferries? NiK : Muster was very different because we were working both as artists and curators whereas in Crossing we're in purely curatorial role. We talked around the issues that were important to us personally, and potentially interesting to develop for other people. It was through these discussions and general interests that we eventually came up with a couple of actual physical locations. One of the earlier locations we discussed was Prestwick Airport but while we were discussing this option we heard there were plans for a major permanent artwork to be situated there, so that ruled that out. One of the criteria we discussed involved areas contemporary visual art rarely happens, if at all; also we wanted to take our personal backgrounds as a starting point - Karen came from a naval background and Helensburgh had the Naval connection, and Mhairi had done work there in an earlier project. Rachel was interested in the whole sense of confinement, and her earlier work dealt with issues of survival and the home environment. So those were some of the starting points. We all had suggestions of diverse other artists who were sympathetic to those kinds of ideas as well. Helensburgh also had other points of interest - it's the birth place of John Logie Baird, inventor of TV, which introduced the idea of lens-based work. Hill House is this monumentalised, museum home, so there's the idea of home and displacement. And the idea of working within definite restrictions made the project more investigative, more inventive in the way that it dealt with problems. If you're dealing with something that has a restricted framework, and art does often have to operate within restrictions although they're often unacknowledged, it can be quite interesting.

Crossing came about after researching the possibility of working within Scottish Lighthouses, which unfortunately didn't prove feasible. That, and our situation changed when Mhairi moved to Derry. We both have strong connections between Scotland and Ireland and we were wanting to do another NiK project and the most obvious one was the ferry crossing which connects the two. This is probably the most direct example of how your own situation and life can really influence your artistic decisions. Where you live, or where you're going and then drawing points from that and saying, well this is the project that's shaping up! It's trying to find the value of changes in circumstances.

Royston Road Project, Spire Park, almost complete. Loci Design with Toby Paterson. Royston Road Project, Bolt FM, RadioTuesday

The Centre : What I'm beginning to be much more interested in is scrutinising this new kind of artist-as-anthropologist; this process, this idea of going in as the expert, of gleaning, being a voyeur, taking that information and placing it somewhere else. There's not much scrutiny on the ethics of that and there's not much debate around it, but I do think that it's maybe time - now that artists are much more aware and the way that funding policy dictates greater audience access, and the way that artists are so much more interested in what we think about the theories of everyday life - these things together create this person, this process of artist as investigator. Do you see yourselves as being involved in any of those aspects of research? NiK : Mhairi's particularly keen on the idea of engaging with institutions of some sort, and on artists reinventing the idea of research as a subject of expertise, something much more to do with a learning process of everybody concerned. Certainly the institutions that we've engaged with so far, including one major one (the Ministry of Defense), have no expectations at all as to what we might create because it's so beyond their realm of experience. The Centre : How do you feel when you have these conversations with an institution and start describing why you're there and what you want to know? How much of this 'engaged conversation' may be the work? NiK : It's nice to bring it to their attention, we're often even quite surprised at the connection they can make with a subject they previously hadn't thought about. For us working in a curatorial role, as organisers of the overall framework, our interaction with the agencies is a valuable stepping stone, but it's very much about realising the project in a way that makes the areas accessible to the artists... The Centre : ...a means to an end?

NiK : Yes, although that's not to say that individual artists may not take that process a step further; they may make their end result take a step back in favour of the process. I think Nina Pope worked that way when she was creating the garden in Muster - she involved quite a lot of people and the end result worked well and everybody knew that the end result was going to be the garden, but all the buzz and activity was created through her interaction with the people and how she created the garden.

Left to Right: Gary Perkins introduces his work at the press launch. Captain Tony Poulter, HM Naval Base Faslane with Mike Robbins, DHE attend the press launch with their official photographer. Gary Perkins: Untitled installation

The Centre : One really interesting aspect of NiK is that you use history a lot. That's a really interesting strand but I wonder about the notion of anything controversial? Particularly with the MoD! It wouldn't be too difficult for you to find an area you might want to really challenge. You know... the tradition of the artist working outside the gallery space as political activist? NiK : Guerilla tactics, making a protest? We find the approach that we use is really much more interesting and much more suited to now because a project like that subverted the institution of military secrecy and military occupancy, and the fact that we were actually in there at all....the fact that they gave us keys to houses on a military estate. What was there to stop us blocking the door and barricading ourselves in? It would have worked against itself if we had done an overtly reactive piece because we'd already been given permission to do it: so what would we be reacting against? The Centre : Art-making starts with a series of ideas which evolve and if people are drawn into that process, then ultimately they can read the work, which isn't necessarily just about reading the aesthetic. It's about reading the idea and understanding the interpretation, and maybe disagreeing with it, but being able and confident enough to articulate that... But also what it does, is say that the artists' role within this situation is the same as everyone else's , and the artists' power is the same minute amount of power as anyone else's. Actually the work....(there is the assumption that there is going to be this great action and it's going to change everybody)....was perhaps about a realism and outlining a powerlessness and by doing that it did something a little bit more powerful.

NiK : Muster did produce something quite effective - the fact that we were able to be in that environment and people were able to see or experience an entirely different set of ideas, that happened to be called art...

Left toRight: Royston Road Project, Spire Park, almost complete. Loci Design with Toby Paterson. Royston Road Project, Bolt FM, RadioTuesday

The Centre : Who was the audience for the work? NiK : The audience would have included residents from the Churchill Housing Estate and the local children, who were very keen to be involved, but apart from that it was, more limited than we really wanted it to be... The Centre : This is an important issue because the reason why there is funding for many projects is to do with audience development and access . But of course the audience for these works may not be the mainstream art audience except perhaps for the preview/opening. It may be a very small audience people who are not necessarily interested in art in its generality, but the subject's very close to them. Graham Fagen's tree planting project in Royston was for a very particular audience who had actually participated in the debate around it. It's not about audience development, it's about addressing a different, maybe small audience in an articulate, engaged and appropriate way because ultimately what we're dealing with is all this 'policy', which is totally inert. Policy itself doesn't understand the work that it's funding. It's about work which isn't striving for spectacle, it doesn't understand itself as being a huge audience puller, it's about something quiet seeping into a place, which alerts people to something new. Perhaps that's the common interest in the projects that you're doing and the projects that I've been interested in developing. NiK : Yes, it allows artists, as well as the commissioner, to consider what the idea of audience means; to consider the context. The Centre : I was talking to someone the other day about the curatorial aspects - how you introduce an artist to a place, I don't think that there's any point in introducing someone who's shown no interest in their previous practice to a particular context, but if there's something there, it's important that there are negotiations about that. I hope I give artists a lot of opportunity to say "no, I can't make work here". That's the first part of the negotiation because if they come back and say that they can't work there - that's so fine. NiK : Work is more interesting when the idea of the public artist is diversified, and artists who address much more specific communities are allowed to address the idea of themselves being members of a community - and I don't just mean living in a particular place but allowing them to have strands of connection and empathy with other areas that may not be immediately apparent... The Centre : ...having time in a place... NiK : ...yes having time, but also having the support, allowing their confidence to grow, whatever ideas they have for their artwork to be created in a public space, that they don't have to have a public art agenda. That their own ideas are equally valid in connection with other people.. The Centre : The inappropriate expectation and the 'artist's brief', a horrible thing that's grown out of local authority funding. I guess that's the kind of work you want to avoid... NiK : We do want to avoid that idea of involving as many people as you can for as little money as you can. We're much more interested in the idea of letting artists and their ideas become involved with specific locations, institutions or situations. The Centre : Often within a project there's an expectation of outcome. Do you think that outcome is always necessary? NiK : In Crossing the outcome will not be the main objective, it's about the artists going on board and 'doing' their research, working through a process. We're looking forward with interest to see how their processes manifest themselves, in whatever form. But we will be asking them to consider what their 'outcomes' are going to be. The Centre : Do you see that process as being a bit performative? When you talk about certain artists and how they might glean information in situ, there's a performative aspect to that isn't there? The way artists negotiate - can that somehow be the work itself? NiK : We hope that there would be an engaging aspect with them all in different ways. The Centre : The series of fellowships I commissioned while I was working at Visual Art Projects came from the National Lottery 'New Work' strand, and it was very much about a public art organisation investing in process because previous to that it was the norm for public art organisations to concentrate on a product. The process was invisible and it wasn't until the object arrived at the site that it all seemed to be real! I was really interested in how one could raise money to invest in process and have no demand on that artist for production at all, although there was some money in the project should that be the case (there was eventually a publishing outcome). But again, as a commissioner, I found it a little bit hard to see where it stopped and started. In Royston Road Project there's a very definite outcome. It's a commission and ultimately artists are very pleased to have that money to make work. The strategies that different artists employ, given the similar context, are so diverse and so interesting to watch as they work towards that outcome (whatever that may be) and it's this combination that I enjoy. NiK : Yes, there's a line between being prescriptive and being open ended... The Centre : ...or giving no frame work at all... NiK : ...and artists need a framework, even if it's just something to resist. In Crossing we'll be asking the artists to consider their final work in terms of an item that can be produced as an edition, an artist's multiple. So within that it's as broad as it's long as to what they want to produce, but yes there is a material consideration for those processes. The Centre : It's incredibly important to leave artists the space... NiK : ...yes, because you're presenting artists with a new opportunity and they may want to respond with a totally new way of working.... The Centre : ...and they may not know what they want to do... it takes a while... It's quite a good curatorial strategy, to push ideas up and see what the responses are. That's an important role you'll play in Crossing as well, being somebody who's providing the support for that process and having a knowledge to start with. So where would you like to see NiK in the future? Where would you perceive your organisation placing itself in the future? NiK : In pursuit of the periphery! It would be nice to be well funded but it would also be a worry because there would be expectations that you'd constantly have to fulfil. NiK is quite an elusive idea, it's ephemeral. We may not do a project every year but we'll continue to come together as a working group when our energies build up and the time is right. This seems to be the right way to go for us and we don't want to lose that. We'd like to have the opportunity to make connections with other artists in terms of different ways of generating interest about ideas, whether it's writing or travel. Not necessarily making things, but more the connecting with other people, so that you're conducting research that's very open-ended.

The Centre : You were talking earlier about Crossing and that idea of lighthouses; I thought that was interesting. They're literally at the peripheries, at the edge of the landscape. It's also incredibly romantic, the idea of working in a lighthouse, working in a place where it's really solitary; maybe it does adhere to that notion of the artist in the attic, but at the same times maybe we need to preserve some of these contradictions - between pragmatism and being romantic. Saying yes to Revenue Funding but realising the pressures that it would bring with it; the possibility of it cancelling out the spontaneity but the romance of just having an idea and trying to make it work.

Muster, research images, Churchill Housing Estate, Helensburgh Mhairi Sutherland, East Coast West Series Nina Pope, DIY Gardening

The Royston Road Project is a small locally based organisation focussing on a specific area in the north east of Glasgow. Their first major project is to develop two new parks which, in effect, act as bookends to each end of the area that they are concerned with. I was invited in to the project to interpret their ideas towards devising a strategy that would include good architectural design and innovative arts commissioning. One of the companies' central priorities is to achieve this through a closely engaged consultative and discursive process.

Two artists, Graham Fagen and Toby Paterson, were invited to work with the landscape architects Loci design, in addition the project included six residencies to be hosted by a range of organisations based along the Royston Road. The intention is to develop a process that addressed the entire area as our 'site' rather than just the perimeter fence of each public space. Each of the artists' projects take public space as a starting point.

I think one of the expectations of the Royston Road Project was that the artists would make a project that many people would work on, sited in one or other of the parks. The central debate that I continue to have, almost two and a half years into the project, is around getting people involved - how and what for? The artists often have a clear idea of specific strategies to engage people, but there remains an expectation that folk have to place a piece of mosaic or paint a section of a mural to feel a sense of ownership. My argument is that this is not only ÔnotÕ art, but it does not ÔsaveÕ the park from vandalism in the long term. We have constantly been having the very important debate around what the artistsÕ role is. The artists are not being commissioned to solve the insoluble problems. They have a role to research and to understand what the issues are, and perhaps to heighten these issues through their process and result , but itÕs not social work. I think sometimes that arts organisation make these claims irresponsibly on behalf of artists, to win contracts and to win funding, but I am left constantly worried that artists are placed in impossible positions by arts organisations, pushed by funding policy, to be so constantly ÔinclusiveÕ without any evaluation or scrutiny on the real ground that the artists are covering actually and critically.

All photographs by Alan Dimmick