John Andriessen / Sarah Bowden / Lauren Bridges / Tony Clancy / Elaine Fisher / Lucy Gresley / Vicky Hodgson / Ira Hoffecker / Will Lindley / Andrew Morrison / Mike Ward

“We Are Moving” is an exhibition of photographs, recordings, archive material and artistic responses to changes taking place on Cheltenham’s Lower High Street as it undergoes redevelopment, an observation of the evolution of space and place. The exhibition will take place at The Wilson Art Gallery & Museum from 16th January to 20th February 2016.

The nation’s High Streets are increasingly contentious spaces where the cut and thrust of capital is enacted daily in mighty and mundane ways, so what and who is the 21st century High Street for? The symposium that accompanies the exhibition on 12th February will discuss the transformation of Cheltenham’s urban landscape in this context, exploring the idealism and imaginings of past times and seeking to envision future public and private environments, both for and not-for commerce.

Symposium attendees receive a free copy of the hand-bound publication that accompanies the exhibition. Entry £5.00 from

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/we-are-moving-the-future-of-the-high-street-tickets-20136078553

The Lower High Street Archive Project was supported by Cheltenham Community Pride

Research Lab is a new collaboration between artists Elaine Fisher and Lucy Gresley which aims to playfully identify, share and celebrate research in contemporary visual arts practice.

We are curating an exhibition for Bath’s 2016 Fringe Arts Festival (FAB2016) to consider the potential ‘lack of fit’ between artistic research and its publication at exhibition. PREFAB-Lab (Practice, Research, Exhibition) is an exploratory trial and interim analysis exhibition exploring artistic research through the lens of a scientific Research Lab  – what does artistic research look like? How and where does it function? What are the results?

This is an open call for artists with research-led practices to continue their research in a critically engaged shared space that is on view to the general public.

To take part artists must demonstrate:

• A willingness to ‘work’ in PREFAB-Lab between 11am and 6pm for up to 9 days between 28 May and 5 June (minimum requirement 3 days) starting on either 28 May or 1st June
• A willingness to comply with Lab Rules – to wear protective clothing as provided and follow lab protocols
• A willingness to undertake standard observations of research activities and comply with regular monitoring and recording procedures within the lab
• A willingness to leave your ‘work’ (at whatever stage in its development) in situ for the duration of PREFAB-Lab (28 May – 12 June)
• A willingness to remain or return to PREFAB-Lab for a minimum of 1 day after the trial to lead guided tours for the public and/or participate in a symposium

Application:

1. up to one side A4 defining research in your own terms/your current research project, what work you intend to undertake at PREFAB-Lab and confirmation of your willingness to participate fully in the research trial including the dates/durations you are available to participate and your preferred intake date (28 May or 1st June)
2. up to 10 images (OR up to 3 audio-visual works) that best illustrate      your research-led practice
3. applications by email to PREFAB-LAB@fringeartsbath.co.uk     closing date 14 March 2016

Submission is free.  Selection will be based on achieving a broad spectrum of research concerns at different stages of the research process and a commitment to participate fully in PREFAB-Lab.  Research concerns need not be tied to the site of the Lab, however, participants must demonstrate that some Lab-work will be undertaken each day of their trial.

Key dates

14 March deadline for applications
7 April selected participants notified
27th May PREFAB-Lab Preview 6pm
28th May PREFAB-Lab Intake 1 11am
1 June PREFAB-Lab Intake 2 11am
28th May – 5 June PREFAB-Lab open 11am – 6pm daily.  Visitors observe current Lab-work and view data from previous days.  
6-12 June PREFAB-Lab closed.  Scheduled guided tours of Lab and symposium
12 June PREFAB-Lab dismantled 3pm.  Collection of work by 9pm.

The Curators

(Elaine Fisher) Elaine’s research revolves around the human project – the drive or impulse to be in the world. Through a practice of personal encounter and re-assemblage she investigates ways to de-stabilise the notion of the human project as the pursuit of knowledge and re-imagine what it means to be in an uncertain and forever changing world.

(Lucy Gresley) For Lucy, making art is a continuing cycle of
enquiry into what it means to exist and how people are connected to each other. Using vessels as metaphors for people and their emotions and referencing theories of psychological development and philosophy, she explores the borderlines and tensions between things – how drawings intersect physical space and the relationship between subject and object, representation and abstraction. www.lucygresley.com

more exhibition opportunities at FAB2016

Arkitektoniske Kramper is a new collaborative work by artists Brook and Black (UK) and Christina Bredahl Duelund and Natascha Thiara Rydvald (DK) at OVADA Warehouse (14a Osney Lane, Oxford OX1 1NJ) 7-22 November 2015

[The uncanny
….involves feelings of uncertainty, in particular regarding the reality of who one is and what is being experienced
….disturbs a straightforward sense of what is inside and what is outside…..a strangeness of framing and borders, an experience of liminality
….is a feeling that happens only to oneself, within oneself, but it is never one’s own: its meaning or significance may have to do most of all with what is not oneself, with others, within the world itself
….a sense of repetition or ‘coming back’….a compulsion to repeat
….is different (yet strangely the same) every time: its happening is always a kind of un-happening.  Its ‘un’ un-settles time and space, order and sense
….has to do with a sense of ourselves as double, split, at odds with ourselves
….always engages a performative dimension, a maddening supplement
….does not belong….if it belongs it is no longer a question of the uncanny.  Rather the uncanny calls for a different thinking of [classification]]

four pillars supporting the space
the structure within which other structures are
at play
obstructed doorway and improvised arch
enter a room that is not really there
separated from the frame
(the virtual frame?)
of a house that is
there, present, attached
(the third person?)
pulled together by the fabric of the space
and its shadows
pipe, work, water, work
dripping, seeping, gathering, separating
gathering again
a compulsion to repeat

an act of collaboration
or collaboration itself?
who or what is collaborating?
I am drawn in, collected
yet at once scattered
amongst, at the same time
searching for the individual
only to find itself scattered
throughout, it cannot be released
from the fabric within which it is held
Fighting to find place
in collaboration as in life
identity as door obstructed
individual erased,
doubled, supplemented
deferred, re-written

with thanks
to OVADA, Arkitektoniske Kramper and the pulling together/pulling apart symposium panel:
to Brook and Black for ‘the virtual frame’, ‘the third person’ and ‘leaving identity at the door’
to Tamarin Norwood for the ‘carriage return’ and ‘the ‘who?’ of collaboration’
to Natascha Thiara Rydvald for the ‘fighting to find place, in collaboration as in life’
to Christina Bredahl Duelund for the ‘individual erased’
to Freud (and Nicholas Royle) for ‘the uncanny’ (Royle 2003 The Uncanny Manchester University Press)

thinking/making: catching thought in process

26 October 2015: Loophole (on photocopy): Landscape-Portrait-Landscape

Elaine Fisher ness -ness nest nestle net (2015)

wooden table with cast concrete and scaffold base plate supports, dictionary, mortar and pestle, found pebbles (w:112 x d:90 x h:107.5 cm); wave forms: Kodak Pro Endura photographic prints under acrylic glass (25 x 15 cm each); 42” Landing net with 1 oz brass weight (dimensions variable); supporting stack of artist’s notebooks (14.7 x 10.6  x 1.5 cm each)

MA Fine Art Grad Show, Hardwick Gallery, University of Gloucestershire, GL50 4BS
Open 10-4pm, Monday to Friday, 11 -18 Sept.
Discussion event Wed 16 Sept 6-8pm
Finissage Fri 18 Sept 6-8pm

ness -ness nest nestle net (2015) is the latest in a series of assemblages arising from an ongoing enquiry into Britain’s Jurassic Coast – from the promontory of Portland in the east, along the 18 mile stretch of Chesil Beach, to Eype in the west.

Here, at the ocean’s edge, I seek to find challenges to the dominant perspectives of an already ordered-classed world that offers no place for the vague, diffuse, uncertain, fluid or elusive – those insignificant irregularities and relationships that exist only in the present tense.

Here I encounter a historicised view of the world upturned, where geologic time is read vertically not horizontally and the qualification of world heritage site balances not on preservation but erosion, celebrating the fresh perspectives erased with each tide.

a little taster – but remember to boil before drinking! PERFECT DAY opens 6pm tomorrow.

click to view video boil before drinking 

PERFECT DAY
Gallery 4a
North Malvern Road
Malvern
WR14 4NA

Launch event: Wed 24 June 6-8pm
Exhibition continues: Thurs 25 June 10-4pm, Fri 26 June 10-1pm, Sat 27 June 10-1pm

Exhibition exploring the influence of the activity of walking on the creatives processes of artists, poets and writers. Exhibiting artists:

Noela Bewry, Stephanie A W Bradley, Thomas A Clark, Valerie Coffin Price, Elaine Fisher, Lucy Guenot, Agnieszka Kozlowska, Anthea Millier, Linn O’Carroll, Kel Portman, Jacqui Stearn and Walking the Land

Walking the Land (with the University of Gloucestershire, the Robert Frost Fellowship and the Friends of the Dymock Poets) 6-7 June 2015