Hello! I am art-ri!🌵

In the spirit of conscious consumption, library-Ri has told me to write about our creation process so you know where your money is going.

(I'm not sure how my process relates to your money but she's the boss around here.)

So here we go.

Start: A Theme

All of our work begins with a theme. And the theme is usually an interaction between a few things.

For example:

Talk series is: Conversations, Community and Space.
Taste series is: Taste, Narratives and Interactivity.

We usually 'find' these themes through inspiration in our everyday life.

e.g. Talk series comes from the TEDx salons we were running.
Taste series comes from this tea book we were reading

Generating Work

Usually when we have a theme, we don't know what exactly we want to make yet, it's a blank canvas.

So we start brainstorming ideas. We'll look at what other people are doing and our brain will automatically piece together ideas. Some good, some bad. Some really ridiculous.

But they're all welcomed, and we do our best to manifest all of the in some way.
It's why we call our works a series. Because we'll create many pieces of work in our process of exploring a theme!

Now that we have ideas, we'll take the ones we find most fun and start working on them.

Fleshing out the idea

Once we have the idea, we to into research phase. We read, we ask questions, we make notes. It's like college all over again, and because input, learning and connecting are our too Gallup Strengths. We spend way too much time on this stage and have way too much fun.

PS: the musings we write usually are a result of us processing the things we read and seen.

As we make sense of our findings, the idea will clarify itself and we'll have a clear set of intentions and activities.

Design Phase

Using the intentions and details we've outlined for ourselves, we'll put on our design cap and start designing the experience!

Usually in this process we end up developing or reusing some tools to help us design in a more structured way.

TBH I (art-Ri) go offline here and design-Ri takes over. But when they get too stuck and start making un-fun stuff, I come out and bring some much-needed playful chaos.

Prototype/Beta-test

Then comes the fun part!

We test out the experiences.

It's what makes experience art so unique. Because while other artists get to practice and figure out their work by sketching in the privacy of their rooms nearly all our "sketches" have to see the light of day.

See...experience art doesn't kinda happen until it's, you know, experienced.

So we'll run prototype events and beta-experiences. These can end in utter train wrecks or be complete successes, or anything in between.

Either way, our Best-Guinea-Pigs-Ever 🐹 (that's you lot) come along for the ride and through these experiments, we figure out what works and what doesn't.

Does the experience convey the messages and meanings we want it to?
Are people having a meaningful experience?

We find answers here.

Distillation, Refinement and Synthesis

Once we've wrapped up the tests, it's time to review, reflect and take stock.

Of what you ask?

Of our findings, learnings, and most importantly, our feelings.

Has our curiosity been satisfied? Are we happy with what we've got? Is there some final iteration we want to make? Is there a particular format or idea we want to dive deeper into?

Usually through exploring these questions, we'll end up diving deeper and refine the ideas that we've worked on. And once we have an experience idea that we think is mature and consistently deliverable, we'll log it into our "plug and play library".

That's just a fancy name we give to experiences that are ready to be used for events, programs, commissions.

Other times though, we might start writing proposals to get the work launched or exhibited in a formal setting as a proper moneymaking thing thing.

And that's it!

How you're helping💪

Librarian-Ri: As you can see, we may or may not always get to the last step of generating a big commercially viable work. But works are always being created.

You might have noticed however, that during this entire process, no money (or not enough money) is made.

Which is where you come in!

Your subscription helps us stay alive, put food in our stomach and pay the bills during this time and process.

In return, you get to look behind the scenes, be entertained by the content generated from this creative process and get first dibs to test and experience whatever it is that gets made!

We hope this clears things up for you.

We thank you for being curious and being willing be a conscious and informed consumer! (And supporter of the arts🥰)