Adele Beattie Art

The Face behind ‘Planet Earth Complaints Department’.

 James Bettaney interviewing Adele Beattie

September 2009

JB- Adele Beattie is an artist and she is producing work at the moment that engages the viewer because technically, it is all the viewers’ creation. Fundamentally her piece titled ‘Planet Earth Complaints Department’ is based on receiving letters, the basis of which are complaints. People write to her with their various complaints and there is no set limit or boundaries other than that it must be handwritten. With these individual pieces of ‘art’  she has very recently turned them all into a catalogue which is working with the idea that it would go back out to the viewer and then opened up to the public for everyone to look at and examine these anonymous letters.

I’m just going to ask you some questions, pretty straight forward, OK, so can we talk briefly about our art work? What is it and what is it about?

AB- Bringing the art world to the public. Rather than waiting for art people to come to the galleries. I want people to feel free to come and do art. Anybody should be able to create art and to appreciate it. People these days probably think, ‘oh, no I can’t go and view that because I won’t understand what is in there’. But I want to create art with the public so that they are more enticed by it, so they can come into a gallery and think’ Wow, I’ve done that, that’s me there!’

JB- And what kind of elements put that work together? What goes into that in terms of how you do this? How do you get people to get involved with what you are doing? Is there a certain theme or pattern that you follow? Have you found that there is a re-occurring theme with the viewers?

AB- Ha-ha, yes, I have found that it is incredibly difficult to get the viewer to join and collaborate with you! Because people aren’t willing to do something that they feel they don’t have time to do or that they can’t be bothered to do. And that is the harsh truth. I just have to find something that people are willing to do on a day-to-day basis, or something absolutely fantastic!

JB- Can you tell me how things come to be, from mind to finished product?

AB- Honestly, it just crops up into my head. I take more inspiration from life and the things I do and like rather than other artists. For example, for ‘Planet Earth Complaints Department’ I got the idea from working in a call centre. I was sat there, bored out of my skull and I thought ‘wouldn’t it be good to do something with all these complaints’. I think that art is personal and that is another reason that I do this with the public. I want them to feel comfortable, and get to know a little about me before they write to me. In our studio, we are comfortable; we talk to the other artists around us because we know something about them and their art. It is natural; you are more comfortable talking to someone if you know something about them.

 JB- So you would like to get to know your viewers personally?

AB- I don’t need to know them, they are sending me all I need to know about them, little snippets of themselves. I feel that they would feel more comfortable if they knew something about me. They need to feel that they can trust me.

JB- I believe that you have a video planned? Would you like to go into detail about that?

AB- Well, if I start back to what my project is about, you pretty much covered it but the basis behind it is the fact that these things are personal, I’m entrusting the viewer to collaborate with me and send me their complaints. They are sent to me personally, they are handwritten, they are real peoples personal views about things and are being sent to me just the same as you would complain to a company etc. They are going nowhere. These People don’t know who they are coming to. They do not know what is going to happen with them. It is about the idea that your complaints are being ‘lost in the system’. It is this thought process that leads me to turn the complaints into paper boats and they are floated down the canal. It is a way of showing that they are just going round and round in a system, like the monotony of life. Each one is completely different but are all stuck in the same rut, just here to make their point and move on. That is what the video is about.

JB- So really, you are dealing with themes of working with a person as an individual?

AB- Yes, definitely. Even though I am expressing the fact that we are essentially all the same, in the same world for the same reason, I am also highlighting the differences we have, that is shown more in the book I will be creating. In terms of the paper boats, yes, there is individuality there as well. For example, all the letters come to me on different sizes of paper therefore making each boat different in simple ways that you wouldn’t generally notice.

JB- That is really interesting, not something I had picked up on whilst looking at your work before. OK, so last question. Where can you see your art going in terms of your practice?

AB- Well, Planet Earth Complaints Department will be ongoing and I think that it will take its own way. Because I am depending on using the public and other people to collaborate with me so it can be quite a slow process so it has to be ongoing. I have a lot of different plans to do with advertising and how I would display the pieces that are yet to emerge but I am hoping that more and more people would get involved and perhaps one day create some sort of global piece of travelling art.