C A R A
D A V I E S
Simple Acts (2016 - 2017)
Simple Acts was a discursive platform that curates everyday activities of simple actions to encourage sharing, networking, and debate amongst the creatively curious.
Simple Acts offers time and space for the development of a community of artists and creatively-minded people. The simple actions participants are invited to take part in offer vital meeting points for discussion, professional development and ideas sharing in response to the exhibition programme at Milton Keynes Arts Centre (MKAC). The exhibition programme has been developed to reflect the heritage arts practices accessible at MKAC’s studios, in a contemporary manner, with a focus on skill sharing.
For Simple Acts 2016-17 we curated Barby Asante, Ria Hartley, Hayley Newman, and Sibylle Peters as our Host Artists. For each Simple Acts event artists and creatively-curious individuals are invited to share food, personal stories, fragments of their practice, through a curated conversation led by a Host Artist. It has been an important part of this project that each element of the event has an aesthetic dimension, immersing the audience in the topic through a highly involved attention to detail.
These events have attracted audiences from London, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham and the East Midlands to Milton Keynes, as well as building a solid foundation of Milton Keynes-based artists who attend each event. This is the only project focused on the education of performative practice in Milton Keynes, and as such has become a vital developmental resource for a group of Milton Keynes-based practitioners.