For the love of it
In Britain there is a rich ocean of what may be described as amateur groups, who bring together many different people, engaging in a seemingly endless range of pursuits and interests. For this commission I was invited to spend 6 months with a tiny selection of the many groups from across the Sandwell area, in heart of the West Midlands conurbation, to make video portraits and audio recordings. The result is For the love of it, a 3-screen installation where a pool of sequenced images and sounds converge to celebrate the creativity and passion of the many people I met and spent time with.
images of the installation by Geoff Broadway and Graham Peet
The individuals from each of the 11 groups I worked with reflect this love of it in their unique own way, but also share several qualities with each other. As the above definition implies the amateur groups takes no real material reward in financial terms, but the practical, social and emotional rewards are many. The very act of taking part in a particular activity with like minds and kindred spirits allows the individual to be both celebrated and appreciated through their own particular talent – and often the opportunity to lose themselves by contributing to a greater whole. A common thread that runs through all of these groups is the sense of ‘togetherness’, perhaps meeting one of our most important needs, as well as the sense of participating in an active and creative community.
In a media dominated culture that tends to encourage spectatorship and passivity rather than participation and engagement, For the love of it is a testament to the need we all have to feel like we belong and to engage in activity that we can be passionate about and we can lose ourselves in – something that has little or nothing to do with the emphasis on material reward and personal gain of contemporary society, that may indeed function as some kind of antidote.
You can read Caitlin Griffith’s short introduction to the project here.
