Circle Workshop — Laila Sorabji
Circle’s aims to bring students the opportunity to create freely without the debilitating fear of failure that can hold so many of us back. These bi-weekly workshops focus on uninhibited play with a range of materials and approaches that are outside of the academic settings students find themselves in. Recourses are always the hard part of art making. Investing money and time is a risk when the skills don’t come immediately, and this can be really off putting to those with a longing to create and express themselves. Circle takes this concern out of the way by providing quality materials, support, inspiration, and time and space. Art ends up being undervalued in so many ways and the elitist ideas surrounding it have crushed the playfulness and childlikeness of just making. To reconnect with this play is certainly therapeutic and could even change people’s confidence in other areas of life. We get students who’s fingers are tapping away on the keyboard all day, eyes fixed firmly on screens, to use those hands for something tactile.
So far, we have held Zine making workshops and Lino printing workshops. We are inspired by the DIY ethos of Zine making which has been used throughout history by grassroots movements to distribute information in an accessible way. Circle draws on this tradition and emphasis on accessibility since we give students a range of prompts to get the ball rolling and ideas flowing. Last session, a poem about AI written by a professor was read out and we also had a photo of a Vape in an ashtray so students can ricochet off other pieces of art.
The immediacy of Lino printing and the permanency of carving into materials forces artists to fully commit to the process, embrace imperfections, and let go of the fear of making mistakes. In the workshops we found that artists had to change their usual way of thinking and consider planning for negative space when carving. We did not predict this would be such a brain teaser, but this is just another example of the unpredictable lessons learnt at Circle.
What has been so great to see is the extent of collaboration and the dismantling of hierarchies of teaching in the sessions. Students really help each other figure out the techniques, so everyone learns from each other’s interpretations of the instructions. At the end of our last Lino printing workshop, everyone unexpectedly put their work together to create a cityscape from their prints. Each piece was different in colour, size and style, but together, they created something bigger than any one person could have made alone in the allotted time. It was a great example of what Circle is is trying to manifest: space for improvisation, letting go of perfection, and seeing what happens when people create together. The pride from artists who haven’t created in years, and the relief from letting go of a fear of failure, is amazing to witness.
