Issue 113 / April-May 2021

Original DPG, London Road
Oakfield Road/Homebaked CLT
N GALLERY
visit one of their exhibitions, you’ll find conversation.
Whatever question or opinion you have, whether you’re
visiting as a regular art-goer or popping into the new
space across the road out of curiosity, the team always
take the time to make you feel welcome. This shouldn’t
feel as revolutionary as it does, Jenkins believes. “I’ve
always had a feeling in art galleries,” she says. “You step
in and, more often than not, it’s just silence. Why can’t
someone just say hi and chat?
It should be so obvious!”
In part, this is a result
of DPG’s itinerant nature.
Though borne out of necessity,
one of the advantages of the
approach is that they find
audiences in a very different
way – quite literally wherever
the gallery finds itself. During
my own visits to DPG’s various
sites over the years, I’ve seen
and heard about many of
these different interactions.
Perhaps somebody making
their way down L4’s Oakfield
Road decided to see what’s going on in a previously
abandoned house. Or somebody working across the road
pops in on their lunch break, who wouldn’t have time
to get to a city-centre gallery. Out of such off-the-cuff
interactions in the places where people actually live, and
where art is something of a surprising presence, have
arisen conversations and relationships which Lawless
describes as “literally life-changing”. It means that DPG
can lay down a marker for what it means to have an
artistic experience which might be very different to those
the casual visitor might have had in the past.
“We put
ourselves there
as a platform”
Lawless is aware of the barriers people put up for
themselves. “With the type of schools we went to... you
will literally be bullied for being interested in art or poetry
or music or dance. What I’m always interested in is that
we’re stripping it back. So, yeah, you see these incredible
images. But then you also see that it’s just a human being
who made this. And this human being might inspire you
to do [something] as well.”
This is certainly true of
Dockers, in which many of
the subjects are still living
and connected to the city –
including Dan Carden’s own
father, who was involved in the
strikes. The DPG team were
conscious that the personal
nature of this subject may
have pitfalls, as well as power.
“We were worried because it’s
someone’s nan, or someone’s
mum that you’re putting
photos up of, especially when
you start putting it on social
media,” Lawless says. In fact,
these personal connections ended up starting more
conversations and engaging more people in the show.
Dalton explains how “people are seeing their own fathers
and their uncles and their grandads. And they’ve seen
pictures up that they’ve probably never seen before and
been really quite emotional about it. It’s a nice legacy.”
This summer, DPG will be collaborating with the Fans
Supporting Foodbanks mobile pantry to bring another of
Lawless’ projects, North End Sketch Club, into DPG and
to sites around Liverpool. “For two days a week, I’ll be
with Sketch Club at the pantry. We’ll have guests, people
FEATURE
who can do anything that we can sketch,” Lawless
explains. The seeds of the idea were sown by the Fans
Supporting Foodbanks team, with whom Lawless has
volunteered, when imagining the possibilities of what
the mobile pantry could be. “It’s about breaking down
barriers and stigmas about going to something like a
pantry or food bank,” Lawless continues. “There’s other
things going on at the same time. It’s positive – and it’s
frigging fun as well!”
Having participated in Sketch Club as both artist
and model, I can attest to that. North End Sketch Club
is less about whether you think of yourself as a ‘good’
artist than about the buzz that comes from getting stuck
into creative activity – the positive atmosphere that
generates. And why can’t that atmosphere be created
wherever people go? This, after all, is at the heart of
DPG’s ethos: “anything can be anywhere”. They break
out of ideas about where art ‘should’ happen and who
‘can’ participate. Instead, they’ve gone from strength-tostrength
by being open to all possibilities and participants.
Whether it’s creating films, taking over abandoned spaces
or opening opportunities to art making to whoever wants
to get involved, the example set by DPG of what the art
world can achieve is a breath of fresh air. !
Words: Julia Johnson / @MessyLines_
Photography: Mark Loudon
Dockers can be viewed on YouTube via the link below.
linktr.ee/Deadpigeon
@DeadPigeonG
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