The Wall Talks

On occasion of the concluding activities for the Learning to Impact-workpackage, ACT’s Arie Lengkeek and Jacco van Uden embarked on a special collaboration project with visual artist Kristine Densley. During the days of the ACT Symposium hosted by ArtsAdmin in London, there was a programme of radio-interviews, talks- and a mural that evolved in the course of the three days of the symposium.  

Kristine was asked to create a work of art that would embody the conversations on impact, and would invite people joining in the conference to respond and contribute to those conversations. ‘I was thinking about impact: it’s not just of the work, just one piece.. it’s considering how your voice is contributing to a conversation that is already happening, and adding a different layer or a different perspective or direction’, Kristine says.  

She started with text: quotes from artists from the interview series, things that people said at the ACT Symposium. ‘I was trying to show that conversation, and the evolution that is part of it, visually. Not in a neat and orderly manner, but very organic. And I knew it would lead to a point that it would not be beautiful, a point of panic: ‘what the fuck have I done!?’, surrounded by people that would be there while I’m working!’

But the work soon transformed from text, to ‘texture’. It became a multitude of voices and quotes. ‘At that point, it worked a little bit like an oracle! What is meant for you, will find its ways and find you, address your heart- I trusted it would just pop out of this multitude. And it did, for people responded to it. It was very interesting to embody that part of the process: we became very attached to the words. When adding new layers, we dared only to overlay with text that was really good!’ 

 And then came the final stage. Answering to the brief of the project, that the location requires something to be left behind that would be pleasing and visually attractive. ‘In the beginning I just leant as far forward into this chaos, this ‘what the fuck have i done!?’. But it didn’t come on the first day! It came on the next day – when we were making everything ‘beautiful’. Surprisingly, that turned out to be the part that was absolutely painful, really uncomfortable, not something we enjoyed doing.’ The wildly proliferating textures were partly overpainted with a black mask, resulting in a clear visual image of plants, roots, branches and leaves.  

 ‘We caught ourselves making these really strange shapes, in an attempt to save the words. But no- that’s not the shape of a leaf! We had to be brutal, and I didn’t expect how this would affect me. Of all the ideas that we came across creating this work, this is something I really would like to explore further: that deep attachment to the words. I really experienced, and embodied that.’ 

 A mural on Impact, Kristine Densley and Natalie Oakley, 28/29 june 2023, Toynbee Studios, London