I was artist in residency at Arts & Business for a period of 8 days. During that time I run a number of participatory activities with and for the staff. I used all the information I gathered about the organisation, its staff, their working practices and their ideas about art, to create a number of works in paper. The works were displayed in several locations in the organisation's premises for a period of three weeks.

A Person - View image

This self-portrait used the staff at Arts & Business as a mirror. I conducted 20 one-to-one meetings with some of the people I haven't had much contact with. We took 10 minutes to get to know each other by finding out things we had in common. We wrote these on cards, and I used all the words and phrases organised alphabetically to compose a self-portrait. After completing the residency I was commissioned to create a similar portrait as a leaving present for the Head of Finance, using phrases put together by his colleagues.

A Drawing - View images

A Drawing was a piece I created for one of their busiest meeting places, used by staff for internal meetings and advisory sessions with visitors. I wanted to create a sensual surface with the basic elements of art making: paper and graphite, and allow people to touch it without feeling too precious about it. I wanted to give them an opportunity to place themselves in the position of the artist, actually handling and intervening the surface with confidence. I thought this was a good way to give them a close experience of the physicality and sensuality of art making. The work played with the typography of the Arts & Business' logo, in which a large capital A stands for Art. Using Baskerville (their house font), I hand draw the first letter of the alphabet as my self-portrait both as Ana and as an artist. I conceived the drawing as an unfinished work to be completed by the normal tear and wear of life in the office.

The imaginary and unkown world of A & B - View image

Staff was invited to fill in an anonimous questionnaire, that mixed practical questions with others of a more imaginative nature. Some of the questions probed into people's backgrounds, asking if they had any art making experience, or what was the profession of their fathers. I also asked them where would they relocate the office if they could, and to tell me one thing they knew about Arts & Business that they thought no one else would. The responses were used to create a pesonalised world map, illustrated with photographs of the office details, and from Google Images.