Artist Jason Minsky

What a privilege to hear Jason Minsky talking the other day about some of his projects including Pick Your Own. Jason was artist in residence at The Greenroom a few years ago (before the sad closure of that Manchester institution, a place of experiment and innovation in art and theatre)

During the Greenroom residency, Jason carried out a survey of green spaces in the city centre. Manchesters suburbs are blessed with numerous parks and gardens, but the centre of the city has precious little public greenspace. As an artist who works with ideas and responds to places, his artistic comment was to create a greenspace in the theatre - by literally laying turf and opening the doors to passers by, inviting them to come in and have a picnic on the grass. Here the artist activated the space and filled it with people who came to socialise and eat their lunch.

Another project Jason spoke about was his residency with the Berwick Gymnasium art space in Northumberland, which inspired him to think about borders and national boundaries - he hired a linesman and floated him at sea on a floating "corner of a football field" The piece was strangely eerie, the water ever so calm and the linesman incongruous and vulnerable, floating there between England and Scotland in the quiet.

Hearing how these works come together was really enlightening and the ambition and vision of Jasons Minskys work was inspirational.

The talk provoked lots of questions about art practice from the audience of 16 people who were from St Lukes Art Project and the Tuesday night drop in