Void’s Viviana Checchia outlines exciting vision of citizen engagement at award-winning gallery

Viviana Checchia took over at Void in May.

She recently enjoyed stints at the Delfina Foundation in London and as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Gothenburg.

Viviana, who is originally from near Foggia in Italy, is settling into her new home.

“It is a beautiful place with beautiful people, really exciting and very inspiring. I still need to discover much. I'm still learning what is the most politically correct way to name things! People are very relaxed. I love that, that there is some pleasure to life. To me, that's very Italian as well.”

Viviana brings a wealth of experience to Derry having co-founded ‘Vessel’, an international platform based in her native Puglia which has a record of socially engaged practice.

This is something she wants to replicate in Derry through what is known as a ‘socio-permacultural’ approach to art and society.

The concept draws on the agricultural term ‘permaculture’ which brings a holistic approach to the development of land.

"From 2024 we will try to implement as a governance-style and approach for the institution, a socio-permacultural approach. This is the application of permaculture to organisations and businesses and it is called ‘socio and social permaculture’.

"Generally there are around 11 principles we would follow for permaculture, like, for instance, 'observe'. You start with observation, to really understand what your resources are and then to save your resources, catch energy and understand how you can invest that in a way that doesn't create any waste and is somehow generative for all the different entities that are part of your eco-system.”

Viviana said the process will deepen Void’s connection with the city.

“We are taking time to understand what is really happening in town. What are the issues in Derry that we perhaps could bring into the gallery or form a connection with outside the galleries and then also understand what we have a wealth of in the city which is not just about money, it is about other resources, or skills, or knowledge?

"What is it we need extra that would allow exchange with other organisations that are in town or out of town?”

As an outsider Ms. Checchia can see how ill-served Derry and its artists have been in terms of funding.

“For the arts there is very little investment. The per capita spend on the arts here is around £5. It should be way more than that. I think in Scotland it is around £15 and in England it is around £25 so this is the sort of difference,” she said.

This in spite of a rich artistic scene and high level of cultural production.

“People are really vibrant. There is a lot of curiosity around the arts. There is definitely a strong music scene and dance and theatre.

"To a certain extent that mirrors what is on offer at Magee because there are courses there with sonic art and cinematic art, and in connection with theatre, and there is not at the moment a course focused on the visual arts.

"I think there are lots of good seeds here, skilled people and talented artists, but they just don't have, unfortunately, the infrastructure to develop like in other places.”

26 photographs of Shezad Dawood ‘Leviathan’ exhibition at the Void Gallery in Derry

Viviana points out that Void is dependent on funding from statutory bodies, charities and donations. She is keen to stress that a proposal by Chester Properties to develop apartments in the building in which Void is tenant has nothing to do with the gallery.

"This is a commercial development. It has nothing to do with Void so I thought it was important to make this clear because if not, artists might think we are developing something or people might think we are in a financial position where we are acquiring flats or developing flats or managing flats and that is not the position in which we are.”

On the contrary Void depends on donations.

“Void is only really getting half of what it needs budget-wise from the Arts Council and from DC&SDC so we fundraise all the extra. We rely on donations.

"If anybody wants to contribute they should contact us.”

The ongoing political hiatus at Stormont has not helped. Working in Italy, Palestine, Sweden and Britain, Viviana, was by-and-large used to multi-year budgeting that allowed more flexibility in forward programming.

"At the moment because the Arts Council is only giving money year-by-year, due also to the lack of government and also because the budgets cannot be approved for a longer period than that, it is difficult to commit to an artist for a programme because they won't really know how much money you have for next year for your programming.”

Notwithstanding these challenges, Viviana, and the Void team are forging ahead with their vision of strengthening civic connection.

“We are having activities that are bringing in kids and people who are passionate about music and poetry. We will figure out a way of bringing in even more interests and even more ideas in order for what is inside Void to mirror more and more the issues, the urgencies, the different types of knowledge that are developed in the city of Derry.

"In order to do that we need to create more bridges between us and organisations and collectives and individuals. We are already trying to do this, working more with the Women's Centre, for example.

"We are trying to connect with the North West Migrants Forum, the local college, the local university. I am trying to approach local bars and restaurants.”

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Viviana has an expansive vision of what the arts are.

“Art is in the everyday life. There are lots of different tasks, actions, activities that people are doing that I would define at art. It could be cooking, or looking after a house, or practising things.

"Things that have been distanced from the elitist understanding of what art it in my opinion they are art,” she says.

Hailing from Puglia and having previously worked in other places with strong senses of identity - Palestine and Glasgow, for example – she feels at home in Derry.

"I am always attracted by the edges. I'm not sure I would use the term peripheries because for a time the word periphery has been used as a negative but the edge of something is more like connected with shapes that can be in constant transformation. You are sometimes at the very edge of something but that can change.”

She rejects a simple centre-versus-periphery narrative.

“The binary system between the centre and the periphery or the hegemony and the non-hegemony, the subaltern place is just in our head, and is something that is not really helpful but creates a sense of inferiority.

"The reality is that most of these things are just labels and they don't really exist in real life. I don't see it any longer as some sort of inferior or superior relationship. I really believe that there are things we could try in Derry that we wouldn't be able to try elsewhere.

"This city has a strong potential. It is an in-between place and also politically the fact that Derry is some sort of absence at the moment can potentially stimulate different scenarios for the future and visions for what is about to come.”

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Art, for the new Void director, is a way of ‘making sense’ of the world.

“In Derry there is a lot of ‘making sense’. People are really tuned into the reality and they are trying to reconfigure constantly what it is that is around them. It is really inspiring. They have probably been witnessing so much change but then they observe what is around them and imagine what is about to come.”

Viviana has exciting proposals for the future of Void. One idea is to work with schools to understand more about how the River Foyle sounds and to engage an internationally acclaimed artist to create an installation based on their input.

"The activities we do with communities in Derry are as valid as that which enters the gallery and they will help to generate what happens inside the gallery.”

Viviana wants citizens to play an integral role in artistic production and believes ‘all ideas are valid’.

“For instance, if someone has an initial interest in say, how to make dumplings, or what is the special meal for an area, anything at all, it can be a workshop or a programme or an exhibition that is about food or is about sport.

"The idea is to share an invitation with people in Derry to come through and perhaps pitch ideas and understand how that could work in the creation of a programme or the creation of an exhibition or something.”

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And art can make a difference. She cites how artists played a role in government in Ancient Greece before being ostracised.

“They were not manageable so they created the idea of the social deviant. We became social deviants, outside society, outside the government. But I think it is about time for us to return. There is no possibility for a different world if we don't think differently.”

Creativity is more important now than ever.

"With all of this in mind Void would like to share a very positive invite to citizens and say we can still do it. Even if we are not going to transform the whole ecosystem we can still have an impact, an enjoyable life of cohabitation, even in a state of crisis. Because crisis means transformation it doesn't mean it is over.”

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