Adam Burton

As part of my residency at Meantime Project Space in Cheltenham I made this sign for the façade of the building. This question came about after a conversation that I had with a friend regarding what we do in the world and whether or not we should try to change it. I probably completely misunderstood what he was saying because he is a very friendly and giving person but I took his argument to be, to generalise, that there is little point in trying to change anything because it is mere vanity; we do it because we want other people to think that we are good therefore our actions are flawed by our lack of genuine desire for change.

I am trying to remember this. It was three years ago, this probably never happened. It upset me at the time because I did not feel as though my efforts were built around my need for other people to admire me. I understand that I do things to try to make people admire me but my thirst for socialism (at the time) and social justice now (same thing), was, I felt, based on true altruistic emotion and on my own personal desire to live in an equal society.

I had also recently read an article about artists running community workshops and organising barbecues at Camden Arts Centre so that they could call it an exhibition and put it on their CV. So when I decided that I wanted to run a workshop for my Meantime residency this suggestion seemed appropriate, if only as a slight footnote to my intentions, which had little to do with my CV.

The sign on the building was intended to be the starting point of conversations between myself and visitors to the workshop. I wanted to talk to them about politics and environmentalism and socialism and some other things.