Freee Carracci Yearbook 2017, Freee Art Collective

The Freee art collective is made up of three artists, Dave Beech, Andy Hewitt and Mel Jordan, who work together on slogans, billboards and publications that challenge the commercial and bureaucratic colonization of the public sphere of opinion formation. Freee’s recent works have been systems, constructions and kiosks that facilitate conversations and enable the exchange of individual views. We are preoccupied with the idea of ‘the collective’ and ways and methods in which we can all act more collectively within the public domain. The Freee art collective utilise the ‘slogan-as-artwork’ as a method of publishing ideas via different formats and in various sites. In their practice-based research they attempt to advance the debate around: the concept of ‘public’ beyond the conventional spatial understanding of inside and outside; address the concept of protest and opinion formation through written argumentation (i.e. the content of the slogan itself as well as artwork as texts); and apply the logic of public sphere theory (Habermas: 1989, Fraser: 1993 and Warner: 2002) as a methodological framework for decision-making in the project. In December 2016, Freee used the space at NN Contemporary Art to present their public kiosks for a project entitled Freee-Carracci-Institute. The project combined the publishing of Freee’s opinions and beliefs with a timetable of events and meetings with different groups and individuals. The contributors were not expected to respond to Freee’s statements and constructions but to work with them to become part of the Freee-Carracci-Institute like members that were invited to contest disagree and therefore reproduce the institute itself. Freee’s aim was to propose the concept of a social kiosk. The ‘Social Kiosks’ were designed specifically for the publishing of opinions rather than sales, advertising or publicity. We want to question if the immediacy of dialogue through a kiosk on the street could override commercial exchange and if the kiosk could be a tool to produce social encounters. Kiosks are more public, more intimate and more accessible than shops. By taking away the profit-making utility of the kiosk, we are working towards capturing the kiosk’s social dimension. The kiosk shows how socialism exists inside capitalism and we are keen on unlocking the political agency of the kiosk. We understand the kiosk to be once stuck in financial exchanges but we propose a new purpose for it - one of public exchanges. By taking away all retail aspects of the kiosk and replacing it’s branding and advertising with opinions and beliefs, Freee draw out its potential for social change. The kiosk was activated in Northampton town centre by Freee with the Forum for Democratic Practices as well as displayed inside the gallery with numerous slogans, manifestos, props and billboard posters.