Café Conversations (2009) — SERIES OF NINE DIGITAL PRINTS [210 X 175 X 5 MM/OPEN 420 X 594 MM]
‘International dialogue’ Artist project: Chania, Crete. Exhibited AT INTERCHAT, THE DRUM, BIRMINGHAM, WEST MIDLANDS (2010)
Café Conversations was a community heritage project based collection of personal stories, collected from nine people who found themselves living or working in the quaint harbour town of Chania, on the Greek Island of Crete. The picturesque Venetian harbour—with its many cafés—is a place where it’s common to linger hours over coffee, while observing the culturally diverse individuals that can inhabit one small but bijou place.
While sitting in these cafés I approached strangers, looking for stories. I was interested not in any stories on a particular theme, but rather what are the stories that people want to share with you? Stories evolved from the sharing of personal histories, looking at historical buildings, precious artefacts and/or visual descriptions that sent me all over the town to discover images that would relate to participants’ stories. Occasionally I would find an unusual object (like a flipper) and ask someone: Do you have a story for this?
These nine individual stories (themselves collected over coffee) originally took the form of audio recordings. They were reproduced as written transcripts, developed into a collection of handmade, digitally printed fold-out ‘maps’. They act as alternative maps to Chania, with photographs of local markets, cafés, historical buildings, Synagogues and Orthodox Greek Churches, and provide a flavour of the people who live there and frequent this Café Culture; where people while away the time sharing stories and playing games over strong coffee.
Café Conversations was part of an intercultural dialogue programme supported by Laundry (West Midlands), Borderland Foundation (Sejny, Poland) and the New Culture Foundation (Bela Rechka, Bulgaria).
Below are the nine stories. Please click to enlarge and read the text
The work was shared at an international symposium – interchat – in Birmingham in April 2010 and featured in the publication of Laundry’s new book ‘We no longer talk’. For more details please see: http://www.laundryline.co.uk/
Intercultural Dialogue was developed by Laundry with the following partners
The Art of Taking Part 