Written Response | Socially Engaged Art [ Social Practice ]

Class 8 | Written Response

Artist | Jill Magid

Artwork | Evidence Locker

Date | 31 Days, 2004

Location | Liverpool, UK

A few weeks back during the week of Systems and Maps, Ethnography and Infrastructure, I was investigating Trevor Peglan and you suggested me to take a look into Jill Magid’s work, The Evidence Locker. Since then, I’ve received her intimate love letters/emails from her everyday about what she did that day. These are the 31 Subject Access Request Forms, the legal document that she has to submit in order to get access to the footages. This week’s strategy, Socially Engaged Art provides me a perfect opportunity to share and write about my findings.

Also, I want to say that this reading is really helpful in trying to understand SEA, yet still a bit confusing to me, but again Socially Engaged Art is difficult to define. I used to get commissioned to make "art" and build installations or design architectural building projects for the community in Thailand, but I often find the purpose a bit meaningless because at the end it all comes down to money.

Back then, I examined Magid’s strategy in terms of System Thinking strategy but now after I’ve read “Education for Socially Engaged Art, A Material and Techniques Handbook” by Pablo Helguera, the readings shed different light on how I view her work.

As I research more and more on “The Evidence Locker”, I am more awed on how the artist’s made this possible, on how she staged herself through the city of Liverpool while able to work and get a collaborative participation from the Liverpool Police whom played a vital role in the making of the Evidence Locker especially the police on duty whom I believe shared as much the responsibility for creating and developing the infrastructure and most importantly the content of the footages, without their participation, this project would not complete.

These are some screenshots of the emails I received from Magid. I feel like I’m reading someone's diary and that I should not be reading them because diary is something that one write to oneself and they are one's secrets. I feel as though I know Magid’s a little better on a personal level.

Evidence Locker Website.

In order to view this project, I have to submit my email address to get access to her video footages. I requested to view her footages a month ago, I received one footage daily. Some of them could not find her in the street.