Visiting Artists: Harun Morrison, Nisha Duggal, Michael Day, Doug Fishbone, Anna Francis, Michael Safaric Branthwaite
Harun Morrison - webHarun's talk was really interesting and relatable for lots of different reasons; from his experience in a museum looking at archival storage and preservation, and where things belong, which took me back to my PMAG placement. Also, his slow culture approach to life, living on a barge, and his response to magic charms - talking about separation from the people and ritual essential to their purpose.
In a tutorial afterwards he talked about how he has purposefully not included an image of the butterfly that is integral to his practice currently, partly because its an endangered species - it shouldn't be seen - and partly because it's too much (like sugar on ice cream)
Made me consider why I'm trying to shoehorn so much imagery into my work. I fall into a "literal" approach in my mind as I'm organising my ideas when actually the mediums I'm working with and how I use them can convey what I want successfully.
I'd been considering creating work where a female figure (representing "mother" nature) is carved into with the apotropaic marks; trying to convey the idea that nature is bigger than patriarchal religion and the irony of carving protective marks into something that's so big that the action is insignificant.
Suggested looking at Lucio Fontana and his practice, carving into canvas.
Harun suggested that the action of painting is very different to the action of carving into stone - I feel led by medium whereas Harun suggested leaning into the act of creating the mark. I don't feel I need to replicate the mark as much as I want to convey how I read or understand them.
He mentioned that some work was quite dark and I explained that I liked this and referred to Oscar Murrillos"Darkness the potential of blossoming light." Harun pointed out that I've referenced to sculptural qualities a few times, in relation to canvas, mod roc, painting v carving, how I used textile canvas in my collagraph - maybe I should explore the sculptural qualities of paintings.
> I'm thinking I'll lean into the Collagraph as they're sculpted from materials and then leave the most beautiful marks. I do also feel that the prints that I have, read as I intended without direct reference to a witch or symbol.
Looked at "Sand Hills" which Harun saw at Three Counties as he was part of the selection panel. He read the painting as the boy being in a lonely space, possibly because he'd been bullied and described it as a powerful painting.
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| Nisha Duggal; sharing DISCO manifesto. |
- Power and control, interested in differences between art and real life;
- Reads a lot - only really writes for proposals.
- Minimal website and posts periodically on instagram.
- Dance video to thesis text - 2004*
- Air space gallery 2008 > Clapping video
- Repetition features a lot in work
- What work will you make in the final show video – almost structuralist –
- Sold a piece to Saatchi as made portrait of his wif
- Uses film as cheap and easily transferrable
- In order to secure a void – helium balloons in sacred spaces/churches.
- Film of people talking about hobbies – went on to do paintings of fisheman inst pics – Paintings of zoom calls – did artist support pledge
- William morris – anti industrialisation – put his narrative behind a video – ( her investigation – no client brief makes different to another video of this type.
- Drawings called pinch tap swipe zoom – images of the actions we have with phone
- Runs an education practice alongside art – lied about experience and ran a mentoring course -admitted lied - was fine
- Thinking institutionally – offered a residency in castle in wales – has a collection that had been looted from India - film not shown in UK but loved in India.
- London school residency made flags
- Film based on letters between parents
Touch landscape and linking objects : Summer – in situ pendle – work called held – workshops exploring ancestry – buried some pieces; Opened up conversation about pendle witches – good documentarty on iplayer
Tips!
- Started group around art school peers /course being a bit shit; DISCO
- This was really useful; use the resource that you have; your peers.
- Gather your artist statements together - they're really useful to go back on and reflect on - consider what your own manifesto is.
- Can be a couple of years from seed of idea to fruition of art*
- Constraints can lead to problem solving and have good outcomes
- Work can look different but ideas bind
- Art every day – make it a vocation
- Watermans exhibition – got paid a fee but not a commission – expected gallery to invite but they didn’t and neither did she was pretty empty. ACTIVELY PROMOTE YOUR EXHIBITIONS.
- Do you spend your life on insta promoting or do you make work? Need promo but you get different things from different spaces – check if they’re gonna do promo
- Keep hold of stuff and re-visit – referenced a video wall idea that never did.
- Areas that you consider to be separate will feed into each other - work, practice, life
Money work
If you can avoid it – try not to get a full time job – doing 9-5 and then making art is hard- shift work is slightly better. Only 2 of the people in her uni pic are still practising artists – she got part time jobs in the arts – 20 years in is the first time she’s been able to focus 100% on her art
Mental note to self - again ! - Reg self employed and pursue work with ceramics – seconds with lithograph
Ideas as listening - thinking about family, boxed away, hidden. torn off.
Michael Day
10 Nov. 22
Michael walked us through his practice from undergrad to now - really useful and insightful; his practice is a reflection of him - feels really genuine.
- Interested in landscape/ seascape, romantic ideas.
- Interested in how we pay attention to the world around us
- Shared work; a clip of two people who took in a view but paid no attention; dismissed it and walked on– references caspar David friedrich – wanderer over a sea of fog
- Discussed documenting railway and optical devices.(3d)
- Shared story re photographer asking for trees to be cut down to make a better picture – destroying to make fit
- Made work with led behind pespex. Projected onto Perspex until installation was deconstructed and was left with just the perspex sheet and led.
- Made postcards with leds inside (dropped scale down) led blinks in place of lighthouse
- Lighthouse designed to keep you away – coupled with postcard (wish you were here sentiment)
- Discovered all lighthouses have different call signals – colours and rate of flash – underestimated how may lighthouses there are and started to consider how to change led rate and …..Nice to hear problems encountered and how scope of the project could have been huge if pursued / decision to move on.
Did a residency in Norway -was an open call – applied for – funded self and applied for funding to do as research and development – 5k covered bed and board and exhibition production
Animation – recreational structures – sound. Had recognised that everywhere had a picnic table – the view had already been consumed and commodified – Looked at the design of the picnic table – it's disputed who designed but its not patented – Because its not copywritten – you can use the design. Something about kindness and altruism that felt important – the picnic table was designed to stop people eating food off tree stumps..
Compositional unity to sea scapes – sometimes something breaks that view – person/bird – added frame to track bird –
Phd in art -thematic was attention and distraction – social media and digital systems – even though started by looking at seascape
Shift to screens – looked at landscape as a data source rather than aesthetic experience – looks at earthquakes that registered but weren’t felt by humans (some in remote unpopulated regions and so low that wouldn’t have been felt anyway
- Hold the book in your hand – personal
- Automated updates to website of these which are never experienced
- Continued to look at landscape as data – digital maps- screen usage and overlay of maps
Screen time – you’re afraid of silence. Interesting perspective of where people thought that they would be in the future with amazing technology and where we actually are- addicted or rejecting.
Subverted alghorithim approach. To do power portraits – explosing owners of insta google etc in same way that they do when tagging people.
4.
Progress in 20th century as something that would improve society – ideas that things are improving – now not the case -more debt – more health issues – authoritarianism etc
What was MD’s position in all of that
Felt down after phd – moving too fast – felt like scraped through so felt like an imposter – linked to social inequality – 1st person in family to go to uni and working class – (interestingly there's an article that says that there are not enough working class in the arts- drop of 50% since the 70's; there are still walls, even for people like Gary Oldman.)
Raised on an estate in Reading – my world till 7-8 & not allowed off estate – dee road estate – was promoted as brilliant; quickly changed to damp, unfit to live in missing infastructure, no nursery.
Retraced steps – began drawing - indicating drawing near – pulling closer – drew newspaper clps and photos of estate
Some drawings very fragile- slow – small scale – doesn’t know If would show drawings- considers starting point
Building 3d model of estate – architectural utopia that turned out not to be- would it have been better for it to have not happened
questions MD is considering:How can I exist in the art world when this is my identity- where I’m from.
Building model with patterns from grids
I was really interested in MD's research and asked if he'd been able to source information from the estates development but his response was really interesting - He's not looking for exact records. He's tracing something. He's working from newspaper records and his experience - His drawings are instantly recognisable and really resonate. There's definitely a culture in an estate (particularly the story behind this one - which has themes connecting it to many many others) - I'm really interested to see how MD's practice continues.
Doug Fishbone.
- Professional practice approach
- Be proactive with opportunities
- Can you model your career on a person? Trust your own instincts
- Art – doing philosophy with things – making a claim about reality
- Distuptive gestures – playing with context and perception
- Without context – what the hell is it? Anything… how would something be read by a tribe with no frame of reference?
- So.. putting things where they don’t belong
- Invert or subvert something – unexpected arrangements
- What happens if you take this and you put it over there? (pile of fruit)
- He loves that its so different and yet in London, people will still walk past – would walk past anything -- in same way that fruit was sold in other country, bananas were given away to the audience. Looked fake on photos
- Manipulation through imagery – creates a space where we can critique the society that we live in (film is on the website) sounds that we recognise / animal noise that we've been taught (different in different countries
- Statues – cancel culture – changes in what is appropriate- simon de Montford in Leicester
- Inflatable as a medium – how do we even have monuments any more in such a fluid time of change- his approach inflatable – pull him down after end of day – easy to reinstall or pack away
- British burnt down the high street in Cork. 1920
- Ghost estates in Ireland – celtic tiger – hot air / junk money
- Fascinated with abandoned estates – no where near to anything- finance was there till it wasn’t
- Henry ford wanted to build a rubber plantation in brazil
- Dreadful industry – English businessman – took some rubber seeds – grew in kew gardens and the produced in Asia – rubber supply shifted and then was threatened by the war so Ford brought a plant and took corporate values and materials/builds etc to Brazil – closed without ever producing any rubber – plonked a community where it doesn’t belong – everything will be fine – its now reclaimed by nature
- Housing building – abandoned recreated in a gallery – space where its not supposed to be – left an email for the guardian to secure a feature
- Money is a fiction – almost completely digital
- Info man installation – normal architecture repurposed
- China really big on replicas - streets that reflect towns /paintings (handpainted but cranked out like sausages)
- Location changes art – fake in museum not questioned – authentic in chippy must be fake
- If you put fakes in a museum and don’t label it as real or fake – what does it say about institutes of authority?
- 40% of work he looked at president of met – was fake (to acquire for museum)
- 10% of people spotted the fake
- Same as wine- experts can’t tell the difference between white and red if white is warm and has red dye in it
- Find the partners to work with– keep good relationships
- Find the money – be creative – make it easy for people to work with you ( we like your project but have no money – let me go find the money – funded by artist council – got 15k)
- Frame the idea -
- Pitch the right way – who might be interested
- What is the work trying to do?
- Do good research
- How would the project benefit them?
- Is it relevant ?
- They got press so happy `(quadrupled the footfall for the gallery )
- Take an idea and write a proposal – can you write a couple of paragraphs?
- How do you know if its any good?
- How do you get access to a system –
- Project descriptions is the basis
- Working in the tradition of….(example of why idea is credible -on proposal)
- Show images that make it idiot proof
- Tailor the gallery to the work (Chose a gallery with history of paintings that have been copied )
- Put it in writing (pre empted – had the proposal when met the person)
- Tries to get work in media – if I can get my projects covered – I can get more gigs- practical move to get more gigs
- Press- think like a pr person
- Who writes art coverage – got name – contacted
- Keep people posted about what youre doing – people need to know you
- Yinka shobinare – look at again
- Progress is not necessarily linear
- Be sure to deliver - problems are obstacles that can go somewhere - adapt
- Knock on doors - don't wait
Director and studio artist @airspace
“Its not here now – how do I make one/it happen”. Operates in gaps. Eg “city tour guide” for a city with no tour guide.
Anna feels that her work operates in gaps. Looking at the world around us differently.
Regeneration -compulsory purchase – terraced streets/ communities erased.
Anna was documenting
I was registering people for band 1 applications – massive impact on homelessness prevention.
Anna at end of yr 3 writing applications and looking for open calls- was working as a carer /artist and lecturer . wanted to reduce part time work and focus on art career.
Can be demotivating when not accepted for lots of things – stopped waiting for opportunities and started creating her own.
2008- titled year – year of finding spaces in the city for art and detailed the year in a blog
Every month would achieve something
Exhibition/event
Consultation
Research trip
Collab project
Residency
Intervention
Ended up with loads more than 1 project a month
What will I learn/ who will I meet
What connections can be made
Does it make sense to my ambitions – will it take me where I want
At the end of the year people were approaching her to suggest opportunities.
Became really interested in empty spaces – brownfield. Some have become really important nature haven. Interested in how a city values space.
Japan residency -Thinking about role of artists – learnt ikebana flower arranging- has specific, scientific and mathematic approach – wanted to reframe value of our own sites.
Adopted 3 sites – old abc – abattoir and grey hound track. Salvaged rubbish and used weed to make brownfield ikebana
As an educator feels important to share process so made guide.
A lot of the work is the conversation alongside the making process – this led to
The spode rose garden - living at work – shares through exhibitions which explain
Uses an acion research process – look plan act reflect -look plan …
All work is about relationships people and how we collaborate to make positive change.
Public workshops in January and February – kiln/ceramic tiles – based on spode
Portland
Regen area- £! House – people wanted a space
Persuaded Rebecca to bring pop up social space - created a persona for Rebecca- what she wore / how she spoke etc
Community wanted a permanent home
Portland inn – derelict – if can prove need for space – will give
2016 arts council England – req funding to run activities in ground floor and wrote. A business plan to show how it could be used. End of 2016 massive hole in roof so all wet and back in tent on green space,
Began services meetings – 2017 monkey dust in neighbourhood so worked with services to help deal with
Worked with architect to design usable pub space with community
Shortlisted for major architecture award
Always bringing new skills to community. Focus on ceramics
Pigeon club – mums make pigeons while kids are in the youth club
100 yr plan – capability brown – think about the long term
Fern bricks launched at bcb –
Canal project
Vessels water rituals storytelling conversation ecologies walking plants urban nature companionship industry travel leisure
January site visit for students
- Proposals can come in for the end of jan
- Scope for approx. 10 students to work on the canal
nb: May have someone here for holocaust Memorial Day. Exhibition coming in Henrion.
Research area: Archaeology, genocide, social justice
Visits sites, speaks to researchers historians and visitors and immerses in site.
Explained kit; Drone/ dslr camera and shoulder rig and ipad mini in kit – can connect/transport and use in the way that he needs when working. Images video 3d scans. Takes as much kit as can carry – would have been struggling on last trip if hadn’t as some kit failed. Drone pilot hi-vis – makes visible and means people don’t think is dodgily flying a drone over their gardens - he has a legitimate reason for having one.
Interesting reception to drones in different countrys Croatia and Norway for eg. Croatia can’t fly a drone and Norway are really accommodating.
How we look at the holocaust – holocaust porn – ie – art that shows suffering and stats – He doesn’t do this, he's finding new ways and messages – what does it do to paint a pile of dead bodies when there are photos? – what does the process say – - – we need art that says how can we understand it and address it /art that makes it relevant now and make it so that we can spot the signs of this happening again.
“Auschwich-land “ Tourists have become ultimate rubber neckers passing and gazing at someone elses tradegy (cole 1999)
How -(when survivors gone) – do we still fund these sites – what approach do we take?
Outside auschwich – shops had popped up outside that were doing really well so now the site has stepped up – had to rethink what they are and now they serve cake for example.
Falstad – spent a week with archivists and historians (good sandwiches and a nature reserve so its busy – complexities). Accommodation – bmw /resturaunt access for beers and food prep / stayed by himself on site. Pictures 1941-1944 v now- MSB stayed overlooking where the death camp would have been. Lot of murders took place in the forest.
Commanders house – why would you give a perp a voice by investing in this building. If we understand the perps, we understand ourselves and what happened there.
Camp in mid Norway – Yugoslavian prisoners - nazis were fortifying Norway. Worked to exhaustion,
Commanders dinner set – found way back to Trontine second hand shop . Dinner set, that’s stamped with nazi swastika on the bottom, was purchased because it was a good quality set and it was needed but then the family who purchased it had conflict of conscience and donated to the museum.
Photogramity shows holes because it cant read reflections so makes them into holes – (you can get an app on your phone). Msb going to recreate in ceramic with fin with the holes and then place back into the commanders house. (saw the 3d model of this, that will be used to make the 5 part cast, a few days after the talk )
How people got from the camp to the forest -walked the journey – used shutter speed to reflect the 3 min 24 drive to get from the falstad camp to the forest where murders took place.
Recorded a walk
Chaotic – undermines the nazi machine -ideology fell away – not practical or pragmatic but they fit into the ideology.
Yugoslavian Prisoner escaped down a river -freezing and horrible –managed to get to Sweden - rewalked the route – running water connection and experience of the site – shower audio over the drone river footage -
Time line moves around through practice
Refugee camp turned into nazi camp – it was a centre for escape and sanctuary and the nazis just put a fence around it and built a train track to it.
MSB Worked with current refugees to get their perspective on project– press got involved – why are you bringing Syrians here? This is about jews? / No this is about refugees = people are owning history and they see the events very differently to how other people are experiencing things now.
Coffee - How comfortable or uncomfortable should I be in this space – is it different to other tourist experiences? Lights will reflect time thar different refugees were in camp – roma were there for less than a day before being moved out to a death camp – no artifacts left – totally erased. the light that represents the Roma will probably just blink rather than stay on for a few minutes in the way that other people are represented. MSB points this out as a difficult illustration of events to grasp - I feel this is emotive -the of absolute erasure of people.
Genetically we’re as linked to a camp guard as we are to a camp victim
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