Thursday, July 21, 2016

Anna Couani response to questions

1. Why were you interested in joining Project 366, and how did you see it relating to your art practice before you got involved? 

Saw it as a big challenge, have never written a poem a day. But I thought it would be good to have a go at accumulating some.

2. How does working with other people affect your art practice/ process? Does it also affect / change your style of working? In what way? 

I find it really inspirational to read other poets' work, both the people I know and some I've only now discovered. Some of the work helps to trigger ideas for me and it's interesting, as Sarah has mentioned before, that there is unintentional synchronicity.

3. Has Project 366 been a good way for you to be with others in an art practice community? Does it feel like a community to you? Why?/Why not? How?/How not?

366 does feel like a community to me. Firstly because I know some of the people, also because everyone has a kind of inclusive approach that I like. It makes me feel comfortable. I really like the fact that it can include visual work as well as text because I often start with visual things and connect to my own visual work and that of others.

4. Do you see 366 as a dialogue? If so, in what way? Can you see ways in which it could be more of a dialogue or a better dialogue?

Yes I do see it as a dialogue and like the kind of dialogue that it is. It's like being in a big room where conversations are happening and where you can participate actively, passively or do a monologue. I like that looseness and think it encourages dialogue. It's great to know that other people are reading and sometimes reacting to your work.

5. Has working on daily artmaking through Project 366 affected your work or the way you work? If so, how?

When I'm able to write a poem a day, it feels good and has activated my poetry brain. My mother has been ill for a long time and passed away in June. All the things associated with that have interrupted my poetry train of thought. But I think it will return.

6. Do you think others in the project have influenced you / affected your ways of working or your subject matter?

I like to see how other people are going, the directions they take. I enjoy taking ideas from other people's work and riffing on them. That's something I've done before in writing but this project kind of endorses that and gives permission more fully. 

7. How have you found the cultural diversity in the project so far? Has this had any effect on you? Do you think things could be different / better in this regard?

I would like to see more cultural diversity, more people from other cultures, other language groups, more translations. What there has been of that has been wonderful.

8. Do you think there's what you could call a learning process going on through the project? If so, could you describe that?

I think the process is one that frees you up, you can put down first draft work unashamedly and spontaneously. I find that there are threads appearing in my own work that I guess I didn't know where going to be there. 

9. How do you see your role in the group?

As one of the admin people, I do some tech stuff. That's okay. Otherwise, I see myself as one of a community of practitioners.

10. How has participation in Project 366 affected your sense of yourself as an art practitioner?

I used to see myself more as a prose writer than a poet. Now I feel more like a poet. Although I think that most of my stuff could be rewritten as prose. I don't quite know what the distinction is these days.

11. How would you like to see Project 366 develop for the second half of the year?

I'd like to see it continue as it has been.

12. What do you imagine after Project 366? (Both in terms of group art practice with a comparable vehicle and in terms of your own personal practice.)

I'd rather like to continue. I'm now about 30 poems behind other people because of various life issues. But it's great that it's there and continues and great that I can jump back in. Could it become permanent?

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