• What do the participants believe they are involved in?

These questions are quite good for us to think about because we tend to take everything we did for granted. But there is no single answer to this question, which really should be directed to the participants themselves. The first thing is that every community was not approached or told about the project as one homogeneous group. We were aware that each group had specific needs, as did each individual within the respective groups. It was pointless our producing a project brief for the participants. Literacy could have been an issue and visuals could have been prescriptive. In general, we consistently resisted people’s desires for us to be leaders/explicators, and instead stressed our role as supportive helpers working with participants. We did produce a brief for Workers’ Educational Association organisers at their request, so that they could brief staff to see if anyone would like to invite their group to become involved. But this brief was not given to the participants. We talked both with key-workers and community group members at different times throughout the project. There were many opportunities for East Street Arts (ESA) Staff & Studio Holders to speak with participants during the process. There are as many responses to this question as there were people involved. We cannot speak for the participants. Some people wanted to see their work in an art exhibition and others wanted to hang out in the Project Space. It is valid that people should question our ethical approach and we can understand people’s suspicions that we may have been using the groups, (who, for example, might not have been made fully aware of the critical concerns and the issues we were engaging with), but this raises a serious issue about hierarchies of knowledge and education. We trusted and respected that people have common sense and that they would be able to make decisions without there being a need for them to be educated… for example, about curatorial practices/theories and histories. Learning did occur as people considered and discussed their choices, but not in a linear manner. Learning was shared, fluid and multiple. Life and people presented us with constraints that we then worked with, together. The process was explained to people in different ways at different times according to their individual needs. The participants were all made aware of the process and that it required them to be in certain places at particular times. The majority of people responded, but some did not. It didn’t matter. Life issues got in the way and that was absolutely understandable. No demands were made of anyone, at any time. Everyone, irrespective of the community group they were associated with, accepted our open and voluntary invitation to get involved with the project for different reasons. As to what the participants ‘believed’ they were involved with… there seems to be a sense of disbelief associated with this question, directed both towards the participants (as though they would not be capable of fully understanding what their involvement in the project entailed) and also towards ourselves, in terms of an anxiety relating to levels of disclosure and our motivations in working with these particular groups of people. It really would be more appropriate to ask the participants about their individual beliefs.

• Was there a reason you had decided to mix the groups?

Mixing the groups was an aspect of our critical approach towards challenging the structure of widening participation initiatives (which tend to segregate different community groups). Our original idea of involving two participants per week from each of the groups did not function as intended because it was not suitable for the groups themselves. But our original structure was not fixed. It was skeletal, because we needed some kind of loose outline on which we could hang the concept (as it was proposed to gallery spaces and funding bodies). We understood that both ourselves, and the structure itself, would need to adapt to the constraints we were provided with on an ongoing basis (by the community groups involved). We felt it was important and positive that people from differing community groups and cultures should meet, interact and work together. Yes, it was more difficult to us to manage the project, for example to coordinate mutual meeting times and so on, but then we were not seeking to make our own lives easier at the expense of the concept. Not all of the community groups were able to mix with the others for practical and personal reasons. But many beneficial outcomes occurred from people having had the opportunity to meet with each other. We detail our reasons as to why these particular community groups were invited to become involved and why we wanted individuals from the groups to interact and work together in our proposal <http://www.showingexpectations.co.uk/proposalba/index.shtml>

• How have you explained the concept of curating to the participants?

This question is related to the first question in that it infers that we should be mindful of assuming a duty to educate the participants, with ourselves in the role of the leading explicators. In this sense it implies a hierarchical approach towards education. Curating is not brain surgery, nor is there a singular concept of curating to explain. There are many levels to curating that can include practical, aesthetic, critical and theoretical approaches. We would say that we all learnt both from and with each other, that people need to value life experiences and that common sense, together with trust, risk and responsibility are incredibly potent and effective forces when applied with mutual integrity. Showing: Expectations generated alternative forms of pedagogy, or different approaches towards sharing teaching and learning. The participants were wonderfully innovative and came up with curatorial decisions that were as unique as they each are. The curatorial constraints altered and adapted on a weekly basis, as did the Project Space itself. People were curating someone else’s contribution, and so levels of trust were needed. Because people had been asked if they would contribute something that is meaningful to their lives to the Showing: Expectations project, one person was curating other person’s precious belonging, with the awareness that someone else would be curating their own precious contribution. There was no hierarchy of levels of meaning, nor was there was any reason to doubt the integrity of anyone’s contribution. Everybody simply trusted that others would take a serious and considered approach to curating, which they did. And so we all worked together without the need to speak about concepts of curating. In other words, options were discussed and choices were made at the direction of the participants. Tim Brennan said that when he had entered the Project Space (which was a hive of activity at the time) he had been unable to discern who was working in which role. He had wanted to introduce himself to the organisers but was unable to do so, as he could not make distinctions between participants, artists, curators, organisers and key-workers.

• Was there a reason for these particular groups to be involved? Who else (if anyone) did you ask, and why didn't you ask an amateur art group?

We invited a range of community groups, all of who are listed on institutional databases as being under-represented in the higher education sector and who are, therefore, targeted within the remit of widening participation initiatives. The Showing: Expectations project was seeking to push the boundaries of this economically driven funding initiative by putting political policy into aesthetic practice. Our responses to this question are documented in the opening paragraphs of our project proposal, available online <http://www.showingexpectations.co.uk/proposalba/index.shtml> Perhaps some of the participants may have viewed themselves as so-called amateur artists, but amateur art groups in general are not listed on institutional data bases as being marginalised groups who are under-represented in the higher education sector.

• Do any of the groups do anything creative already as part of their group or individually?

If we define doing something creative as including; music, writing, poetry, photography and so on, then all of the participants have optional access to creative spaces and tools within their community centres. The Asian elders group work together to present their performances. Other groups function differently. All of the community group key-workers and charities worked hard to provide opportunities for their clients to access creative practices and believed in the potential of creative processes. We did not mind whether people did or did not see themselves as being creative. We simply provided an open invitation to people to be creative. We were careful to stress that everyone has something meaningful in their lives and that people would not be required to make art in the traditional sense (which could have been very intimidating, restrictive and limiting) although people could do this if it was what they wanted to do. We simply outlined that every contribution would be welcomed and valued. This question would really need to be directed towards the key-workers and the participants. We think they were all already creative thinkers because they took a risk and said they would like to become involved in the project.

• Why did you decide on a pristine white space for a project that is experimental?

So have they never had any experimental work at Tate Modern? No, seriously, it was of vital importance that the project was situated in the mainstream and that the participants had access to wider audiences who would in turn be able to access the usually marginalised community groups. We also felt that it was crucial that the project should be hosted by an arts institution or organisation, as these have a financial obligation to comply with Widening Participation and Outreach initiatives. It was our critical approach to situate the project in a professional context and in the mainstream. Fine art is at the top of many cultural hierarchies and there is no reason why the participants should not be able to experiment in such a space, and every reason why they should be provided with an opportunity to do so.

• What do you want the participants to get out of the project?

There were never any required or expected objectives. Our focus was on facilitating a project that would enable unknown outcomes to emerge. We did not want anything in particular for the participants, other than to involve them in a positive experience. If we could achieve this then we knew it would be inevitable that many people would, in many ways, (most of which we readily accept will remain unknown), get infinite things out of being involved. We took a risk and trusted that this would happen and we believe it has happened, is happening still and will continue to happen. We had no expectations, no wants, we only had hopes and beliefs. We all gave and we all received in different ways.

• Can the participants reject pieces as part of the curating process?

Again we would refer here back to our proposal. People were free to curate however they chose to do so, but the issue of choosing-to-reject never arose. Perhaps this was because all of the contributions were valued as contributions for inclusion.