We're All Human

I’ve always been curious about art. I can’t draw, I can’t paint, but I’m really interested. I work for

Crisis. I started going along to the ICON sessions – I suppose it would be nosiness, curiosity,

wanting to see, ‘oh what’s this about, what are they going to be doing?'

When I went into the classroom Rory [Lead Artist] didn’t sit on his high horse and say, ‘but I’m the

professional’. He’d give them advice, and help them learn in a really nice, gentle way, and they’d

come up with the answer. It was really good watching that. It was their project. They were owning

the project. This is what we want. It was really nice watching that, how they were in charge and

they were deciding what was going to happen, and how it was going to happen.

I spoke to someone about ICON, and it was what it did to his face – what I saw in his eyes, the

words he used. I think we can’t sometimes see the wood from the trees in how we work with

members and what we can do. We deal with them on a certain level with certain issues, and

we can get lost in all that. This member, he usually has a ‘my way or the highway’ sort of thing.

But watching him listening to other people, and letting other people have the input...it actually

changed him. I noticed him come into the building, completely dressed differently. How he stood.

How he talked. He said something really moving, he said, ‘this is me, before I became homeless,

this is me’. And just by him saying ‘this is me’ gave me a bigger picture of him and who he was. It

sort of gave me a realisation of how important our work is here. Because they remember who they

were, they want to move back to how it was. They want to move forward in their life.

There’s another member who’s having difficulty with family at the minute. She said, ‘my mum

bought two of the ICON tea towels and she won’t use them’. That’s the first thing she said, about

the ICON project. So it was much bigger than actually being in the photograph, much bigger than

doing the work. It was...her mum. There’s hardship and conflict at home. There was a moment of

respite there, I suppose, with her mum. Having them tea towels. Like an unspoken message from

mother to daughter - ‘I’m proud, I bought not just one’, because it weren’t cheap, ‘I bought two.

And I’m going to keep them. I’m not going to use them’.

An outsider might not understand what we do here. Might think, how’s photography going to help? But seeing the change, what it does for them, how it motivates them. How it helps with self-

belief, self-worth, self-esteem, and it gives them that...rise in how they walk and how they carry themselves. I’m more aware of the importance it can have in people, and how it can help people.

They might say ‘well I’ve never done anything like that’ and whereas before I could say things like

‘well yeah you’re right, if you’ve never even been interested, let’s move on’. But talking to them

about how it could influence them and the other aspects, it’s not just being involved in the arts, it’s

what they can get out of it. It’s watching people grow and develop through it.

I’m not usually self-conscious, but when we were shooting the Bloody Sunday photo I was. They were shooting me straight and we got cameras and lights, and I’m thinking, this is a bit

overwhelming. But the members took charge. I had to be conscious that I’m a staff member and

I work here, so I have to behave in a certain way. I have boundaries. But we’re all doing the same

thing, and when I was getting it wrong, the members were telling me I was getting it wrong. And

instead of me being, ‘what do you mean I’m getting it wrong? I’m in charge here, I work here’, it

was like, ‘what do I need to do? Can you help me?’. We’re all human beings. I might work here,

they might be a member here, but we’re all human beings. We’ve all got needs and together we

can help each other achieve whatever it is. A member telling me, it can be a complete role reversal.

Instead of me enabling them and advising them, it was them enabling me and advising me.

They’re taking me forward and helping me identify my strength to overcome a barrier. So I walked

away actually smiling from that.

We’ve only got two pictures on the wall in our house. When I was given one of the ICON pictures I

said to my wife, ‘what about if we give it to Mum?’. My wife said ‘no, I want that’. I said, ‘pardon?’,

she said, ‘you understand how good this picture is? This is a really, really good picture’. I didn’t

think she understood art, but she recognised it as being really good. We’ve got thousands of

photographs on Instagram and Facebook, and she never once said ‘oh that’s a really good picture’

– but she saw that and recognised straight away that it is. So I think that’s proof in the pudding

that like, it’s a really good piece of art by some really good artists. The attitude was never ‘that will

do’, it was ‘no this isn’t right, this is what we need to do’. And it was people listening to each other,

communicating with each other, not taking offense if someone said ‘you do that wrong’. And then

working on it until they say ‘yes, we got it right.’ It weren’t ‘yeah, this is as good as we’re going to

get’, it was like, ‘no, this is good’.

On the exhibition opening day my wife said ‘how many people?’ and I said ‘oh about 15, 20 I

imagine’. And I got there, and it was...wow. I could hear all these conversations going on, and they

were all speaking about the quality, how good it was and how blown away they were. People with

all sorts of accents. They had just seen something that was really, really good. And Crisis artists had

done that.

One of the members in the Q&A, his mum said, ‘I’ve got my son back’. I got emotional. She’s an

artist. I bet she’s gone through a lot of ‘what did I do wrong? Where did I go wrong?’ and then

for her son to be a major part in an exhibition. Being an artist and recognising he’s getting better

in his life and everything else. We deal with a lot of sadness. So just seeing some happiness like

that, that was real emotional. That weren’t just somebody saying it because they was here. It felt

sort of voyeuristic, because that was really personal and intimate. The constraints of society didn’t

mean anything. I don’t personally show a lot of love and attachment to people I love in public, or

anything like that. To say something meaningful like that, and not to be caring or bothering about

other people, it’s really powerful on a human level. It’s really happy that they found that common

ground.

I try to go to every art class and have a look. If I don’t go, a couple of member say ‘you didn’t

come to art’. I think I’ll just keep being nosily curious and hopefully I’ll get caught on a hook that’ll

inspire me to something else as well, and walk alongside members and ask why they’re doing

something. I like to ask them questions about what they’re getting from it. What was it for them?

What did it mean to them? What’s next for them?