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Rachel Turner [email protected] Sophie Porter
Rachel Turner [email protected] Sophie Porter [email protected] Adam Burton [email protected] adamtburton.tumblr.com Rebecca Sloss [email protected] beckyslossart.com Julia Cunningham [email protected] jcunninghamart.tumblr.com Tom Davies [email protected] thomasrdavis.tumblr.com Jed Hilton [email protected] vimeo.com/jedhilton Megan Harber [email protected] meganharberart.com Jean Goodrick [email protected] Gabriella Keating-Fedders [email protected] Aaron Taylor [email protected] aarontaylorart.blogspot.co.uk Helen Hale [email protected] flickr.com/helenhale Amelia Sperry [email protected] ameliacorinne.com Oliver Hanney [email protected] Anthony George [email protected] Alice Galvin [email protected] Giles Bason [email protected] flickr.com/people/gilesbason Hannah Theobold [email protected] hannahtheobaldart.co.uk Billie Merrin [email protected] billiemerrin.tumblr.com Giulia Ranchetti [email protected] giuliaranchetti.com Francesca Cant [email protected] francescacantart.com Hannah Lawrence [email protected] vimeo.com/user25614446 Naomi Buck [email protected] cargocollective.com/naomibuck Charlotte Barlow [email protected] charlottebarlow.co.uk Ed Cooper [email protected] edjcooper.tumblr.com Claire Brace [email protected] clairebrace25.blogspot.co.uk Elizabeth Aubrey [email protected] www.elizabethaubury.co.uk Emma Jones [email protected] emma111991.tumblr.com Chris Pope chrischrischris.cooper@hotmail. co.uk Bethany Costerd [email protected] bethanycosterdart.tumblr.com Harriet Robertson [email protected] Lian Gray [email protected] Matthew Kent blowinguptheworkshop.gmail.com matthew-kent.tumblr.com Lavanja Thavabalasingham [email protected] lsingam.tumblr.com Matthew Rose [email protected] Helen Young [email protected] Roisin Callaghan [email protected] Lianne Hatcher [email protected] ctrl-alt-cmpt.tumblr.com Tara Risby [email protected] Michaela D’Agati [email protected] [email protected] Anna Davies [email protected] Natalie Surridge [email protected] nataliesurridge.com Helen Piffero [email protected] epiffero.tumblr.com Joseph Doubtfire joseph.doubtfi[email protected] josephdoubtfire.com Gabrielle Everett [email protected] gabrielle-everett.co.uk Patricia Hodger [email protected] Jake Francis [email protected] jakefrancisart.com Naomi Harwin [email protected] naomiharwin.com Lesley Rastall [email protected] Ivan Chambers [email protected] ivanchambers.com Caitlin Mullally [email protected] caitlinmullally.com Rachael Nichols [email protected] rachmarie.co.uk Davide Lakshmanasamy [email protected] davidelart.com June Boys [email protected] Jessica Debnam [email protected] Sasha Smith [email protected] sashamsmith1992.wix.com/ precious-moments Lloyd Smith [email protected] cargocollective.com/lloydsmithart Ruby Bolton [email protected] rubyabolton92.tumblr.com Imogen Clarke [email protected] imyclarke.tumblr.com Martin Perring [email protected] Marcia X [email protected] Elizabeth Champion [email protected]. ac.uk Katharine Churchman kate-batchelor.co.uk [email protected] Su-Yin Stemp [email protected] suyinstemp.tumblr.com Elyn Middleton [email protected] elynmiddleton.tumblr.com Louise Jeavons [email protected] Roseanne Cooper [email protected] rrosiecooper.weebly.com Georgina Conyers [email protected] georginaconyers.tumblr.com MKLK [email protected] mklk.co.uk Alana Webb cargocollective.com/alanawebb [email protected] Diane Pryn [email protected] Kendal West [email protected] Jasmine Graze [email protected] Jessica Batchelor [email protected] Jodie Fish jodie.fi[email protected] Robert Grayson [email protected] robertgrayson.co.uk Thea Field theahelenafi[email protected] theafield.co.uk Hannah Rose [email protected] Nefertiti Boles [email protected] Heidi Wyatt [email protected] Samantha Bedford [email protected] sjbart.weebly.com Sarah Sanderson [email protected] Greg Williams [email protected] Contributors Jo Addison, Giles Bason, Charlotte Barlow, Michaela D’Agati, Marcus Dickey-Horley, Joseph Doubtfire, Jenny Dunseath, Jake Francis, Lianne Hatcher, Victoria Mitchell, Carl Rowe, Cornelia Parker, John Wallbank, Alana Webb, Mark Wilsher Acknowledgements BA (Hons) Fine Art Norwich University of the Arts Francis House 3-7 Redwell Street Norwich, Norfolk, NR2 4SN www.nuca.ac.uk [email protected] 01603 610561 Collaboration between BA Fine Art and BA Design for Publishing students. Thanks to Carl Rowe, Victoria Winteringham Catherine Baker and Norfolk Contemporary Art Society © 2014 fA:14 Design Sidney Mortimer and Benedict Pooley Editorial Michaela D’Agati, Joseph Doubtfire, Lianne Hatcher and Alana Webb Print Gallpen Colour Print All work cannot be reproduced or used without consent from the artists or designer. Contributors 01 02 04 Introduction – Carl Rowe 05 Foreword – Editorial Team 06 Student Work 10 Don’t Stop – Mark Wilsher 12 Truth to Materials – Cornelia Parker 14 Student Work 20 On Accessibility – Jo Addison, Victoria Mitchell, Marcus Dickey-Horley 22 Student Work 30 Draft – Jenny Dunseath 32 Conversation – John Wallbank 34 Student Work 40 Student Index Contents 03 “There should be new rules next week” Sister Corita Kent, 10 Art Department Rules The student editorial board has, this year, given me the task of answering a set of questions, which emerge out of the problematic task of teaching art. How do we make ‘accessible’ and ‘playful’ a subject that so often seems cryptic, impenetrable, alienating, confusing, mocking, unnecessary, impractical and lacking any answers? Of course, to a certain degree, this is a process of engaging with perceptions and skills that we so readily supress or discard as we age. It is something that artist Alan Kaprow was especially aware of and skilfully embraced in his work as both artist and teacher, through activity that drew attention away from ‘routine’; prompting the participant (both viewer and student) to be playful, persistent, restless and curios. The potency of play as a creative driving force is not frivolous and one need only consider the revolutionary workplace of contemporary global companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook plus numerous advertising and hi-tech R&D companies. Invention comes from newness and a disregard for the routine. In an educational context we can go back to Friedrich Fröbel’s early 19th Century development of the ‘kindergarten’ with demonstrably enhanced levels of learning through play; an educational technique so illuminating that it influenced Walter Gropius and the framework upon which the Bauhaus was established. Getting back to the question ‘how do we make the subject of fine art accessible?’ whilst partly being answered ‘through play’ this does still leave the problem of its outcomes, the results of this play appearing 04 Introduction esoteric, exclusive or bourgeois. And therein lies the paradox; that to teach art is not to teach students to make what appears to be art, which will only result in mimicking, but instead to encourage students to engage in whatever process of materialisation befits their ideas and intentions. This has to be an honest and appropriately informed process. So what is ‘taught’ comprises more of the language of art; technical skills, art history, theory, phenomenology, problematising and problem solving, communication, energy and honesty. Through playing with this complex language, which is always in flux, students/ artists will inevitably arrive at outcomes that will be new and will challenge not just the viewer, but society in general. By not following routine, art(ists) will continue to present alternatives to redundant or outmoded norms. Fine Art is not an easy subject to study or to teach. It requires pliability and hard work. In 1967, the artist, educator and (at that time) practising nun Sister Corita Kent wrote her ‘10 art department rules’ for the Immaculate Heart Community – “Rule 2, General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher. Pull everything out of your fellow students. Rule 3, General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students”. Kent’s is a simple and admirable stance and in many ways nothing is different now. I am grateful to the editorial board for posing some tricky questions as prompts for the introduction to this publication. But it is a difficult business being an artist and the students graduating this year will be entering a very challenging landscape of economic uncertainty. They have chosen fine art as their subject and have worked tirelessly for at least 3 years in pursuit of their own unique way of interpreting the role of the artist. The work that is on display in the degree show is a fitting conclusion to their time studying at Norwich University of the Arts, but it is not a conclusion to their creative future. Wherever they find themselves in the coming years, they will all be capable of thinking laterally and deploying the playful, creative mind of the artist. They will not stop being artists and they will make the world a better place. At the end of Sister Corita Kent’s ‘10 art department rules’ she states, “there should be new rules next week”. Carl Rowe Course Leader, BA Fine Art Documenting, archiving, researching and communicating visual and textual traces. In the privileged role as the editorial team, we have been able to reflect on the influential aspects of studying fine art at Norwich University of the Arts; what this degree has given us and what we should take with us prospectively for the future. The subjects of our questioning and the thematic elements of our enquiries have been purposefully shaped to underpin some of the most inherent aspects of this course and the subject of fine art itself. More specifically, the result of these questionings (the contributor’s content) addresses facets of a fine art education whilst concerning itself with the problematic aspects of practicing art; what it is, what it does and how we involve ourselves with it. We aimed through our inquisition to throw a light upon some of the most precarious discussions within contemporary art; to make the very subject of questioning and not knowing the attribute that so deliberately defines us. This publication is the product of collaboration between fine art and graphic communication; in the coming together of the two courses, something really exciting happens. The commissioning of editorial material carried out by the students of fine art and the design of the publication by the graphic design students has resultantly stretched the thinking and challenged the ideals of both courses teachings. The outcome is unique, one that neither course could have created without the other. The level of discussion we have been able to achieve in producing this publication is fantastic and is in itself, reflective of the dialogical methods and the way in which we are taught. We hope this publication serves as reflective, discursive and communicative, whilst functioning as a capturing of the celebratory conclusion of our degree. Editorial Team The contributions are discursive of some of the most pivotal teachings and discussions that take place in, of, and about art practice. All contributors have played a huge role in the education that has been delivered here at NUA; whether having given a lecture, been involved in dialogue, or their continued presence as course staff, they have been selected due to their important involvement in teaching us all something new, making us think, and forcing us to question what we know. We would like to thank them all for contributing to this fantastic publication. Foreword 05 01 04 02 06 05 03 07 01 Rachel Turner 02 Sophie Porter 03 Anthony George 04 Rebecca Sloss 05 Julia Cunningham 06 Amelia Sperry 07 Adam Burton 06 Student Work 07 12 09 08 11 14 13 10 08 Billie Merrin 09 Giles Bason 10 Francesca Cant 08 11 Naomi Buck 12 Charlotte Barlow 13 Ed Cooper 14 Claire Brace Student Work 09 “To even ‘stop being’ an artist requires the acknowledgement that you are already an artist with certain options for action.” Students come to university expecting to be taught, but not necessarily understanding what that teaching involves. How could they? By definition, they are inexperienced and lacking knowledge when they begin. The first shock is discovering that art school is not what they thought it was going to be – they are not going to be taught how to draw or how to perfect a traditional craft. Art’s potential, and the complexity of reading deemed necessary to understand art is raised almost instantly on entering the university building. This is probably the biggest shock to the system; all of a sudden a stack of paper becomes a process-based work of minimal art and can no longer be thought of as a stack of paper. The expectations of art school should be to shake up everything you have previously thought. All stabilities are now unstable grounds. Be prepared to start teaching yourself. How can you expect to achieve anything if you yourself don’t begin taking hold of your own learning? “Artists are just the people who haven’t stopped yet”; if you take into account the education each studio tutor has experienced throughout their life, each student in turn benefits from the education of their educators. An education which is inclusive of practice based knowledge. Who better to learn from than those who have been through and understand these processes? The question as to the value of practitioners teaching students implies an alternative – being taught by tutors who are professional educators but not working as artists. What would this be like? A curriculum might be delivered smoothly. Learning would be expertly supported. Lectures and seminars engagingly run. Professionalised education 10 implies a consistency and reliability of the student experience. It would bring, I think, a sobriety or even dullness to the whole process. Learning would be methodical and orderly and potentially the result might be a lack of argument and/or fractious discourse. The downside of professionalised education lie with its inability for risk. With its steady development and reliable outcomes in what way are you really progressing? Underestimation, unpredictability, not knowing, mistakes. These are often wonderful elements, it allows for things to surprise you. I was once told a story about a lecture given by the performance artist David Medalla. He arrived steaming drunk. The lights in the auditorium were turned out and he produced two bicycle lights, one white, one red, with which he proceeded to give an improvised performance. The audience, I imagine, were a little perplexed. As the session went on, he started to sober up until, by the end, he was fairly lucid. I wonder, in comparison to a traditional lecture, from which would you learn more? What would stay with you, which experience heightened? Or maybe you would be learning something different or in a different way. I once signed up for an improvised music and sculpture workshop given by Hugh Metcalfe, where we were asked to make music out of pieces of metal, toys, a gas mask, all sorts of odds and ends. The session started with Hugh uncorking a bottle of homemade dandelion wine of incredible strength, which we were forced to drink before making any music. I remember it as a great workshop that taught me about attitude, not art theory. It is your attitude that will dictate what you do with your practice, how you engage practically is fed by the state of mind that drives it. Art theory only seeks to inform, to further reinforce, and support the attitude you present. I am thinking of how a student becomes a practitioner. In a sense they do this the moment that they start to produce artwork in the studio. The only real difference is that once they leave, they don’t get all the stimulus and support that the course provides. Artists are just the people who haven’t stopped yet. ‘To even ‘stop being’ an artist requires the acknowledgement that you are already an artist with certain options for action.’ In his recent Reith Lectures Grayson Perry makes this point too, that there exists a ‘boundary’ between being a student and becoming an artist. You have to ‘summon up the courage’ to say it, that at this ‘poignant moment… you’ve started out on that hazardous path.’ I’m not certain of the exact reasoning you feel like now is the time you can call yourself this, or what it is about that moment, but once this shy certainty has been trounced, things feel like they come a little easier to you, it’s less of a battle with yourself. It is then the battle of not stopping, once you’ve left the safe house of the education system, it’s a matter of putting yourself into practice without the ‘student’ reference and that’s the defining difference. It’s not to say you stop learning, this is never so, but it’s the end of institutional influence. Without the art school you rely on yourself for stimulus and support. ‘An art career is a marathon, it’s not a sprint.’ Does a Fine Art degree get its students to this point, at which they feel as though they are able to de-institutionalise themselves and continue to practice? I am assuming not all students leave university with confidence enough to do so. A huge factor must be a perceived lack of authority, which I think stems from a fear of not being taken seriously. There is something to be said, I think, about a theoretical knowledge and its correlation to confidence. If one can situate one’s work within a substantial theoretical and contextual knowledge, one might feel confident enough to refer to oneself as an artist and not student. Practioner/teachers are really then almost serving additionally as inspirational success stories; they exist in their students’ eyes, as art students who have not stopped and have made a success of doing this thing we all love – art. In this sense, practitioner/teachers give an extremely well rounded education to their students, passing on knowledge, both practical and theoretical, inspiring with their success and encouraging with their own enjoyment of practicing. Within the book On Not Knowing, How Artists Think, there is a chapter headed ‘Unteachable and Unlearnable’ (if that is perhaps not a comment enough in itself?!) that makes an observation upon the artiststudent and the teacher-artist/practitioner. It claims that the ‘student-artist is, by definition, not yet an artist (or not yet enough of an artist)’, and it is this ‘not yet enough of’ that I feel is particularly affecting. How do we become enough? And how does an academic qualification make you enough? Art school provides a student with ‘personal responsibility for the management of their practice, in preparation for a professional career as an artist.’ A certain threat is apparent over the reading of ‘management’ in that art school ‘lead the student to believe that the qualification they are studying for, once achieved, might actually make them an artist precisely because they can ‘manage themselves.’ So, to be enough of an artist, beyond selfmanagement of your practice, beyond the fact that there is a certain ‘unteachable and unlearnable’ element of Fine Art; what then do we, for the want of being an artist, need to do in order to bridge the gap between student-artist and practitioner? Art school education is said to ‘mimic’ the role of being a practicing artist. So what are we to do in order to not mimic, but actually assume the role of an artist? We’re learning through a simultaneously visual and theoretical language. A fine art degree, if taught solely by art writers, critics and historians wouldn’t function as a practicebased course. Tutors with experience of making art themselves are able to unravel the mysticism of art in practice, and provide a doorway to a practical and self-critical/ progressive way of working. We are being trained if nothing else to solve problems, as it is with the problems, is it not, the points at which difficulty sets in that the possibility of stopping becomes so much more likely? We are taught not to stop. Artists understand as well as anybody that there is always a question to be asked. Working as an artist, which I take to mean producing artwork and exhibiting it within the systems of the art world in its very broadest sense, means that artists have experience and up to date knowledge of two things: the realities, problems and pleasures of making artwork. And the realities, problems and pleasures of exhibiting work. reproduce. This is what the academy does, it formalises and regulates the rules of art, proscribes production, guards tradition, tends to be conservative. There is a formality to art though isn’t there? A formality without which, art might just be amateur? A formality which lies somewhere between a philosophy and an image, possibly? Balancing between thinking and making. Balancing between knowing and not knowing. Balancing between question and answer. A balancing also of these as a whole. It is all a precarious balancing act; too much emphasis on a theoretical knowledge means creativity is compromised, yet personally I find, a lacking of a theoretical grounding means that all too often the work is not taken seriously and not credited with much critical importance. We are both thinkers and makers; to devote yourself entirely to one element of this inhibits your abilities to engage with the other. Being a practicing artist is one who balances thinking and making, the realities, the pleasures, the problems, the making and the exhibiting. There’s an honesty that comes with all of this, and this honesty is what keeps mere reproduction at bay. Michaela D’Agati Joseph Doubtfire Mark Wilsher Academics who are not engaged actively with the processes of the art world run the risk of being, well, academic. That is to say, producing work that looks like art, but which in fact only mimics the look and affect of contemporary art. They don’t produce, they Don’t Stop 11 “Always be on the look out for examples of the materials, truth to materials.” In 2011, world renowned artist Cornelia Parker gave a lecture here at Norwich University of the Arts. The lecture Parker gave was full of honesty, humour and in that sense very much of her practice. It will, I am sure, remain in the minds of many of us as a hugely exciting lecture where Parker fully immersed all who attended in her work and playful methods of making. Parker’s work is witty, deep, it’s evidently and subversively intelligent and yet, it appears never to have lost that hugely important playfulness. I wrote to Cornelia Parker asking whether she might reply with some well chosen words of advice, for myself and my fellow students; words which, should be firmly in our thoughts as we attempt to continue practicing art independently. Parker referred to a career in art as one in which, ‘play is okay’. I asked Parker whether she might remind us of the importance of play, as part of the making process; play and playfulness being something far too easily forgotten, something which, we would all benefit from being reminded about. ‘For this work, Cornelia Parker visited the 2012 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and took a clandestine photo of one of the most successful prints in the show. It was (as is traditional at the RA) plastered in red dots to mark the sales. A rush of covetousness came over her. Not able to make a representational image that might accrue such sales, Parker resorted to abstraction. Digitally erasing the image that she had stolen, Parker exhibited the photograph of the print as her own work in the 2013 RA Summer show, retaining the red spots as part of the piece in the hope of accruing some of her own sales by a Pavlovian response from the audience.’ Introduction by Joseph Doubtfire 12 Truth to Materials 13 16 19 20 15 17 11 21 16 18 15 Elizabeth Aubrey 16 Emma Jones 17 Chris Pope 18 Bethany Costerd 19 Elyn Middleton 20 Georgina Coyners 21 14 Tom Davies Student Work 15 26 22 23 14 27 28 24 29 25 22 Megan Harber 23 Gabriella Keating-Fedders 24 Aaron Taylor 25 Helen Hale 26 Oliver Hanney 27 Alice Galvin 28 Hannah Theobold 29 Giulia Ranchetti 16 Student Work 17 31 34 30 35 32 11 33 36 30 Hannah Lawrence 31 Harriet Robertson 32 June Boys 33 Ivan Chambers 34 Helen Piffero 35 Gabrielle Everett 36 Imogen Clarke 18 Student Work 19 “The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.” John Berger, Ways of Seeing “The meaning of the work might be felt physically or sensed intuitively but it evades the more abstract formulation of words.” Victoria Mitchell, On Accessibility Accessibility is an important factor in all stages of the process a work of art goes through - it’s an issue that artists, writers, curators alike are forced to address. On Accessibility demonstrates these challenged notions and ideas. It draws on the ideas and experience of Jo Addison a practicing artist, who lectures at Norwich University of the Arts as well as working with Tate learning , Victoria Mitchell, an art writer and curator who lectures specifically, though not exclusively within the area of contextual studies at Norwich University of the Arts and Marcus Dickey-Horley, the Curator of Special Access and Projects at Tate Modern and Tate Britain, whose role focuses on making the gallery environment, exhibitions and by extension, the art itself, accessible to all. Part 1: Artist: Jo Addison Accessibility in the sense of a work of art in the process of being made. How much should one contemplate the accessibility of a work of art? Should one allow it to affect the making or conclusion of the work? How far should the artist put into practice the issue of accessibility? I think accessibility alludes to the needs of the other, the person who is encountering the work, ‘the audience’. In art education, we talk a lot about ‘the viewer’ or ‘the audience’ and often, to me it conjures up a kind of self-serving spectre, full of demands for explanation, clarity, justification and of course accessibility (not to mention drama and spectacle). Personally, I’m a little nervous about the presence of ‘the audience’ in 20 the studio, which is generally where I make my work. I find it difficult and risky to make myself accountable to anything or anyone at a point where things are nascent and unknown. (In that sense I’m full of admiration for my students; artists who are forming their practices during an era in which there is a trend towards much more scrutiny of the process than there was in my own art education). I am however, definitely in some kind of dialogue with another, through the materials. Silent questions and speculative answers (not always polite!) help to shape my decisions and in turn the work. I suppose that through this process and through the decisions I make about how to exhibit it, I’m negotiating the accessibility of the work: what to give and what to withhold. Should I / one be contemplating accessibility more consciously? Well, the spectre is a hungry beast and my concern is that ultimately we can’t meet all of its needs. When we attempt to do so, we risk rendering ourselves entirely in service to it. Part 2: Art Writer: Victoria Mitchell Accessibility in the sense of understanding a work of art through the written word. How far does the interpretation of a work of art affect how one addresses the task of writing about it? How accessible should the writer make the work of art through their writing? How accessible does a work of art need to be for one to be able to write about it and from it draw comparisons and relationships to other works? In his book and television series Ways of Seeing, John Berger notes that although ‘seeing comes before words’, ‘the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled’. The thesis he explores, based on the notion that the meaning of works of art is never absolute and is always open to negotiation, has been read and studied by a continuous succession art students since it was first published in 1972. The book cleverly combines words and images, demonstrating ways in which interpretations which might have been taken for granted can be transformed by reconsidering the relationship between viewing and knowledge. Changing patterns of technology, politics, social history and psychology, (for example), are shown to affect the way in which art is ‘read’ and in turn the artwork facilitates a more informed understanding of the world in which we live. We see that the work of art makes transformation possible, as if art is a porthole through which a more enlightened world might be glimpsed and a more enlightened sense of self might be shaped. Sometimes, however, the subtle and multiple meanings of an artwork seem to register beyond the web of language. In such instances the meaning of the work might be felt physically or sensed intuitively but it evades the more abstract formulation of words. It is as if the artist is engaged in a secret language (perhaps known only to other artists) for which there is no translation. The viewer searches blindly for words, shaping tentative ideas through evocative strains of poetry and metaphor as if feeling the way in the dark. Often, in these situations, it is the artist rather than the author who is the writer to whom we turn, thus even the title of the work can provide a verbal clue with which to begin to unravel a strand of comprehension. Later we might read our Berger but for the moment the art itself has become the text. Part 3: Curator: Marcus Dickey-Horley: Accessibility in the sense of the exhibiting of the work. To what extent should one think of the level of accessibility for the audience when in the process of curating? How accessible must one make a work of art for an audience; I’m thinking about wall texts, titles, descriptions, pamphlets etc. How accessible does a work have to be for the curator to understand or formulate relationships between works? Not all galleries are accessible, though recent equality duty legislation is enabling more and more older buildings to achieve funding in order to create good Access. Apart from enabling mobility-impaired visitors to get in and around the gallery, Access actually benefits everybody including older people and people pushing pushchairs with children. I think that there are two issues to consider here – the creation of new artworks, and the display of artworks from earlier historical periods before Access was such a priority. In the case of new artworks and particularly sculpture, installation and new media, it is a reasonable expectation that the ¬ will want their work to be able to be experienced by all visitors, not just the able-bodied. When curating artworks from previous historic periods, even fairly recently, we are bound to encounter situations in which the artist did not create the work with modern access requirements in mind so we often see steps, narrow passages, absence of subtitling or challenging lighting arrangements. My suggestion would be for authenticity to be a primary concern. For example, when artists create environments with which we are expected to engage (for example Robert Morris Neoclassical, or Richard Hamilton Fun House), I think it would be quite difficult for the modern Curator to fiddle too much with the artwork in order to make it accessible. Instead, I would suggest the creation of Interpretational Access. What is it like to walk 100 steps up a metal spiral staircase inside a steel lighthouse structure in order to stand on a tiny balcony? Louise Bourgeois created I Do, Undo and Redo in 2000 as a set of three sculptural structures with which the viewer is expected to physically engage. Our challenge was to enable the huge numbers of people who would be unable to go up these towers and see her tableaux en route to get some kind of comparable experience. The role of the Curator is more and more about using all kinds of resources to simulate the physical experience of engaging with an artwork, by creating videos, photographs, handling objects, sourcing the materials of sculpture, and above all using live audio description and the skills of invigilators and guides to bring inaccessible sculpture to life. audiences who might not previously have considered even stepping over the threshold. For example, why not think about how people without very much prior experience of visiting galleries might be allowed to engage with sculptures. Supervised touching following agreed methods and in collaboration with sculpture conservators cause no damage at all, and there are so many people for whom the act of touching sculpture suddenly creates understanding. But above all don’t create Access for disabled people, create it with disabled people. Every town and city has tremendous resources of disabled people, associations and organisations who would probably love to come along to your gallery or studio, experience your work, and give you all the consultancy you need in order to make it accessible to all. Edited by Joseph Doubtfire The best art is all about making people think. For some of us that comes very easily, so the pleasure or the challenge of curating an exhibition is to open up the artwork to new On Accessibility 21 38 41 37 42 39 43 44 40 37 Jessica Debnam 38 Caitlin Mullally 39 Jake Francis 40 Louise Jeavons 41 MKLK 42 Jed Hilton 43 Jean Goodrick 44 Lian Gray 22 Student Work 23 45 50 49 46 51 47 11 52 48 45 Matthew Kent 46 Lavanja Thavabalasingham 47 Matthew Rose 48 Lloyd Smith 49 Lesley Rastall 50 Lianne Hatcher 51 Michaela D’Agati 52 Anna Davies 24 Student Work 25 57 53 54 58 55 59 56 53 Ruby Bolton 54 Natalie Surridge 55 Joseph Doubtfire 56 Patricia Hodger 57 Katharine Churchman 58 Elizabeth Champion 59 Nefertiti Boles 26 Student Work 27 60 64 61 65 62 66 63 60 Su-Yin Stemp 61 Sarah Sanderson 62 Alana Webb 63 Sasha Smith 64 Martin Perring 65 Rachael Nichols 66 Naomi Harwin 28 Student Work 29 30 Draft 31 Joseph Doubtfire: We’re trying to start a discussion and dialogue about process and how it manifests within the practices of different artists. So I’d like to begin by asking, when you are involved with a physical process of making…what kind of involvement do you feel like you are aware of, with an engrained or more cognitive thought-based process; what kind of decision making is there or material choices? John Wallbank: Right, I try not to have an idea when I start, or at least I try not to have too much of an idea of where I’m going, but I have a more, sort of, motivation to do something and I like to act on that… for me the making of it is a way of finding out about that, or, I make stuff to find something out; and process is, and materials are, a means to an end really. Although I’m kind of contradicting myself now, as I don’t really have an end in mind; it’s to start off a process which then I…re-assess and then come back to. Joseph: So, are there any decisions on material choices, do you think about what things look like or is there a specific reason for choosing a particular material? John: I just use whatever’s necessary to get something across. Joseph: And what might decide that as a factor? John: Well, I might just be interested, in a way, what I can do with the material, like how I might join it together or, what else it’s going to work with. But, I’ve got to be careful because it’s not about the material and when I heard you wanted to talk about process art, of course, the first thing that I think of and probably everyone thinks of is the…70’s; that historical period of coming out of minimalism and everyone’s focusing on process, and thinking of Richard Serra throwing lead at the corner of the wall…and it struck me…it made me think that those guys were more into the material; they tend to use just one material, like Carl Andre used his bricks, which he used as bricks doing what bricks do; so its like there’s only one thing that that material does. But I’m…more interested in getting a bit more resistance in there from the material, and that often happens when its combined 32 with other things, other materials…most of my work is made out of composites, of stuff. And it’s the way that those composites work together as part of a system, the way they play off each other, that’s where, some kind of meaning comes into the work. Not in the sense that it means ‘something’ but it starts to become part of, well, like a kind of dialogue with myself or with the thing that I am making, or hopefully, or not even with myself but it just happens. Giles Bason: It’s that tension between the materials and yourself, is it at that stage? John: I’m trying to get out of the way of it sometimes, and I’m sure you have all had this experience, when something is going well and you kind of forget yourself. It’s as if you come into the studio the next day and are like “who made that?” and it doesn’t happen for me very often, but when it does its like, “where did that come from?” so that’s what I mean by getting out of the way of it. Of course that only comes after a lot of work, a lot of effort. But even then its not just about the materials, they’re not doing that on their own, its more that you’re controlling from a distance. Giles: Are you working with materials that you are familiar with already, that you’ve established an understanding of their characteristics and nature? John: Yeah, sometimes, but I’m always on the lookout for new ones, I’m always trying to expand that repertoire. Joseph: So you say, that you don’t consider there to be an end to the work, when are you able to stop working on a particular piece? John: Well sometimes they do have an end. You mean, because I was talking about an ongoing process? Joseph: Yeah, well obviously with process acting as theme it is quite difficult to decide on a stopping point. John: Yeah, I was thinking about this in relation to the Richard Serra works as well, its serial work as much as process work and it’s to do with then, how you then present process. It’s something that’s happened but at the end of the day, that work is still bits of lead lying on a gallery floor and it’s stopped. I find that, the work comes to a point where it can stop but doesn’t necessarily have to stop; I get it to a point where it could keep going. And there are points where it definitely can’t stop; I just keep going until I reach a point where it can. Joseph: A point where it has the potential to be carried on? John: It might be carried on, but I like the idea that there is that slight open-endedness to it, because I think that’s where the viewer gets involved. I think the thing about talking about process and making, is that it involves a sort of creative input from the viewer as well, because the possibilities are opened up and you can see which other ways it could have gone. But I think the artist’s job is to choose one path through those possibilities, to choose one of the right paths; because a lot of those paths could be wrong, its not like anyone could just do it. Michaela D’Agati: We’ve touched on the notions of display…how do you get the understanding of process to still translate, even though it’s paused within that process, in front of a viewer? John: Yeah, that’s a tricky one! I always think of my work as sculptures actually, in a fairly traditional sense, they’re just objects. Actually no, maybe I don’t agree with that. I certainly have made objects within rooms, but then there is always an element of installation to them, usually to do with the way they sort of lean against the wall and their site…but I think, even in this sort of object sitting there, there are still traces there that allow you to read into the way it’s been made. Joseph: Do you think it’s fair to say, or to describe the artist as being the process? There is that kind of intuition, when involved with a process based making? John: It’s more to do with the artist actually, more to do with that decision making process and making that manifest in whatever physical thing I am making. I think of what I do more as making than process actually, because making involves, again its this two way process, it’s like a building up process rather than a repeating horizontal process, dodgy metaphor but... So I am laying one thing on top of another and I’m building from the ground up, rather than starting from the top down…I’m more interested in what happens if I start from the bottom, and what that might tell me to do afterwards. And it’s not really a repetitive process, its more an empirical thing, you have some vague starting point or motivation and then you try that out, and see what happens and it might not be what you expect and you have to then deal with that; and then that informs the next stage. Jenny Dunseath: It’s quite interesting in contrast with the Richard Deacon show coming up at Tate in a month or so, where he describes himself as a fabricator; and a fabricator is a maker, but the fabricator being also the reverse of that, someone that makes something up, and that’s quite lovely, so that play on words, the being a fabricator of making and just that activity of doing. Jake Francis: There’s also Annette Messenger, who defines herself not as an artist but a facilitator. I’m intrigued as to what you said earlier about “using whatever is necessary”, which feels quite distant, almost like a builder using whatever material he needs to get the job done…Some of your works have appeared to have similarities in their materiality; do you have a preferable brand of tapes, for instance? John: No, not really. Jake: So are you quite distant from that kind of decision? John: Yeah, I’m trying to put myself in a position where there is a bit of resistance and unexpectedness and having to deal with what I’ve got. And I’ve found that when I’ve made work traveling, you have, you go into whatever that countries version of Hombase is, and everything’s a little bit different, and I really like that because, well you find some new material. Jenny: It’s absolutely amazing how we have all taken this term “process” and we have all developed our individual interpretations of it… Michaela: You use the word “resistance”, is that something you might see in the same way as a limitation; from my interpretation of process, it comes with a certain awareness that you’ve got with materials, or whatever you’re working with, and the limitations of them as well, that you work with, rather than avoid. I wondered… John: The boundaries within which you work? I suppose I’m trying to find out where those boundaries are. Michaela: Because if your materials are whatever you are drawn to at the time, whichever country you might be in, between one country and another, I guess that’s a limitation in itself, is that something that’s apparent when you’re making? John: Yeah it is. The resistance is kind of the point where the intention meets the physical coming into being, and that thing of “oh, I didn’t expect it to do that”. And its either a problem or its an opportunity. Trying to find a way of dealing with that, sometimes its like mental resistance as well, because I talk about motivation instead of ideas, because an idea is a fixed thing that is always the same and is always there, but a motivation can depend on how you feel that day. What could have sounded like a brilliant thing to do yesterday, you come back into the studio and you think, “What was I thinking”. And the next day you’re back into again and its kind of, you’ve just got to catch it at the time when you’re ready to go with it. I think that’s part of the, actually, the craft of it, is dealing with your mind in that way, and realising that’s part of the process, maybe that’s what you’re saying about the artist being part of the process. We’re talking about a manifestation of a mental process as well aren’t we? Whenever you make anything, or in daily life, you choose where to put your bricks, whether you’re Carl Andre or working on a building site. Joseph: I read that you are as interested in the translation of the work as you are the work itself, I would like to know what kind of translation you are talking about? John: I think I’m talking about maybe, the translation of intention into making. So it’s at the start, not at the end. But now I am thinking about it, maybe its translation of one space to another, that could be it too; its difficult to take stuff out of the studio, and put it in a bland white space, because it looses a lot of the information that was put into it, that’s dependant on its surroundings. Joseph: How do you think a viewer should experience your work? Jenny: How much responsibility do you have with the work John? John: I’m quite lazy about it; I like to give the viewer quite a lot of work to do, I think. It comes down to this openness and abstractness, because all though I’m drawing, a lot of my work is observational, in a way, I’m drawing on what I see around me, and it’s the act of translation of that into what I actually do…It’s all there, and they need to work on unfolding it…But all that should be readable within the work; we’re talking about these traces of making, even if they’re just thinking okay, so he painted that and then cut it in half and he stuck some gloop on it. Joseph: And just understand how it came to be? John: There needs to be a sense of that. I’m always trying not to hide anything. Charlotte Barlow: I feel as though we have a fairly similar making process, although I’m at a point now where I am unable to decide on how much of the process to display. Would you ever consider leaving any of your tools behind? John: I don’t think I’d ever be that literal. I’ve done things where I have left spare parts, as if to say, “you could put this here”. You can’t have all the information there, I guess that’s part of the artists job, is to edit. Jenny: It’s a constant rehearsal. It’s about being in the studio and testing things. I guess especially at the moment, at the forefront of your minds is the degree show and how to get that translation of a studio activity that has such energy and activation into a gallery, where there is a danger of deadening the work. So when you talk about that process and that activity of doing that testing of something. You have to work at it; it’s being in the studio every day testing something out. John: …and making mistakes. Conversation 33 68 72 67 71 14 69 11 73 70 74 67 Helen Young 68 Davide Lakshmanasamy 69 Roisin Callaghan 70 Tara Risby 71 Diane Pryn 72 Kendal West 73 Jasmine Graze 74 Jessica Batchelor 36 Student Work 35 79 80 75 76 77 81 82 78 75 Jodie Fish 76 Robert Grayson 77 Thea Field 78 Hannah Rose 79 Marcia X 80 Heidi Wyatt 81 Samantha Bedford 82 Roseanne Cooper 38 Student Work 39 P. 6 – 7 Rachel Turner [email protected] My practice explores the abjection and ignorance we have towards the human body and the public’s reliance on medicine to understand the body. Through creating installations that present fake footage of surgery on unconventional materials; I allude to the materiality of the human body and aim to disgust my audience with the gooey, slimy reality of human flesh, blood and organs. In this realisation I intend to make my audience reflect upon the materiality and mortality of their own body. Sophie Porter [email protected] Since the demise of my father my practice has focussed on the impact on memory that death leaves. A reticent study, exploration and reproduction of a time period shadowed by death through the creation of sequences and reflexive imageries of specific objects or places that possess a personal reminder to the specific death. Using simplistic and familiar art processes and ways of recording, I hope to prompt empathy and familiarity in my work whilst using mark making and print making techniques to behold deeper connotations of removal, trace and loss. The notion of the White Cube as both gallery space and medical arena is also explored resulting in an attempt to create an overall self-effacing and ambiguous aesthetic whilst retaining a strong intimate reflection and an aim to provide opportunity for public consolation and relation. Anthony George [email protected] My work is a reflection of the visual delights and harsh realities of time spent in the Antarctic. This body of work, comprising of silk screen prints, demonstrates my journey from observer to artist. I have endeavoured to take the complexities of the modern world and strip them back to an almost child-like simplicity. These prints are my honest representation of a new kind of beauty. My practice has evolved from abstract representation to experimentation with colour and form. Rebecca Sloss [email protected] beckyslossart.com My practice responds to nature, museums and scientific theories. I focus upon creating narratives in an altered reality that is documented through the authority of the museum, allowing the viewer to question what is art and what is artifact. The line between art and scientific presentation is therefore blurred within the work. A variety of media is used to intrigue the observer, to make them question whether what they are viewing is fact or fiction. The objects are sealed and the viewing experience restricted. The audience never sees the full piece; instead they are kept guessing and absorbed within the space. A hint of phantasmagoria runs throughout the work, both in the physical sense of the space and in the thoughts provoked by the pieces. Julia Cunningham [email protected] jcunninghamart.tumblr.com My practice is informed by spontaneous metropolitan expeditions and on-going psycho-geographic experiences. I create works in response to the modern cityscape and it’s occupants, the hapless pleasures of roleplaying and enthusiastic performative actions 38 result in a methodology that is humorous and light to the touch. Time, modernity and sensory depletion serve to obliterate our fundamental experience of twenty-first century life in general. The city is a microcosm for wider notions of place and non-place, space and language. I enjoy wiggling myself into the foundations of social architecture and by using performance, film and photography whilst in transit; I hope to shed light on the significance of observation and action both in response to the city and in contemporary art practice. Amelia Sperry [email protected] ameliacorinne.com My work is first and foremost almost exclusively made up of mixed media. I prefer to work in a range of mediums, from video to illustration, as I feel it more accurately portrays my subject matter. My practice focuses on movement and the passing of time, along with manipulation of our perception time. I prefer to not attach my vision or meaning of my work onto my pieces because I would akways rather have my audience project their own interpretation. In the words of the great American sculptor Claes Oldenburg, “I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all. I am for an artist who vanishes.” Adam Burton [email protected] adamtburton.tumblr.com My practice explores “adventures into the psyche.” I employ two distinctive approaches, that of the lone tourist, “48 Hour Long Haul Flight.” The resulting work being a translation of my experience in documentation form. Often I take audiences along for the ride, offering memorable acts of experience as with pieces like “Dirty Filthy Paper, Dirty Filthy Film.” And “700 Feet Down.” I have refined my perception of these psychological rambles. Allowing myself to tune into a definitive hook or theme and running with it. Although I research extensively at the onset of a project I am compelled to allow for a subconscious driven change of direction. I am interested in the creative thought process. My own experience goes beyond an internal dialogue confined by language in traditional terms. “ when a dog smells a sausage, it neither identifies it with language or image, the sausage is recognised by a deeper sense of perception.” P. 8 – 9 Billie Merrin [email protected] billiemerrin.tumblr.com The love/hate relationship I have with my body is the core of my practice, it stems from the media and society idea of beauty, perfection and the sex appeal of women’s bodies. My work is formed through sculpture and photography, with the combination of the two I am able to create realistic and surreal views of how I feel in my own skin. I use arrange of materials that can be manipulated to emphasizes the shape and size of my body. Giles Bason [email protected] flickr.com/people/gilesbason Giles Bason is keen to impart stillness and balance that he encounters through journeying between nature (natural environment) and culture (tending of natural growth). His work embraces a manifestation of hegemonic tension between the two realms, both internal and external. Physis is fused with technê to create a bridge that aims to dissolve opposition between the natural and the imperfection of human imitation of nature. Giles sympathetically process natural material through ‘making’, exposing equal traces of nature and maker, which culminates through emerging forms. Giles is interested in a balanced dialogue between nature and culture, where one speaks of the other with regards to influence, dominance and transformation. ‘The cultural is what we can change, but the stuff to be altered has its own autonomous existence, which then lends it something of the recalcitrance of nature’ (Eagleton, 2000: 4). Francesca Cant [email protected] francescacantart.com Questions surrounding the rules of the gallery environment, especially the instruction of ‘Do not touch,’ is at the centre of my art practice. Predominantly working in sculpture, I encourage the audience to engage with each other as well as the artwork, creating a social space within the gallery walls. Through using the body, the audience becomes more aware of themselves and the space they are occupying. The sculptures and the experience they create, allow me to examine whether the transition from static contemplation, to physical interaction, enhances the experience for a viewer. Naomi Buck [email protected] cargocollective.com/naomibuck My practice draws upon the absurd nature of the clock and aims to question society’s response to time. The regulation of time has imposed a uniformed structure on to reality; western society observes time as a tangible entity that can be measured as if it were a visible object. Conflict exists between the man-made clock and the natural rhythms of the everyday and my work aims to visualise this disjunction between the homogenous order and the often-unpredictable nature of time. Through dismantling the conventional clock face, the numerals begin to loose their original narrative exposing an altered perception of time. Taking inspiration from cellular bodily forms such as strands of DNA, the work explores how clock time has become ingrained within western society suggesting the clock as an internal mechanism, which controls our biological functions. Charlotte Barlow [email protected] charlottebarlow.co.uk Abjection is at the forefront of my practice, my sculptures talk about waste in a literal and metaphorical sense, commenting on the implications of contamination. Often overwhelming in scale and resenting containment, there is a visceral physicality to the works, both seductive and repulsive. Pieces have a temporal existence through deconstruction and reconstruction and the nature of materials used. I conspire with objects, transforming material properties of familiar items into ambiguous and unnerving forms, often with bodily undertones. Bin bags become a haunting mass and dishcloths squirm in looping coils – standing on the border of the alive and inanimate, the distinction between object and subject is threatened. Whether it be the tugs remaining from material that has been ripped with my hands or bite marks that grinding teeth have left, the ‘heat’ of the working process is conserved in the forms I produce and the architectural space they exist within. Ed Cooper [email protected] edjcooper.tumblr.com In the twenty-first century we live indoor lives, sealed away from the elements of nature. We take for granted our urban comforts and forget about the timeless countryside. Growing up surrounded by the Suffolk countryside, I became fascinated by the natural landscape and the atmosphere of the great outdoors at a young age. I now believe that it is sights of the outdoor world that inspire the greatest ideas and evoke the happiest feelings. I feel dependent on exploring the countryside and my works are derived from memories or photographs of walks. I am always striving to relive these experiences and I do this by painting them, thus re-creating these places. this holds. Using fragile materials to create sculptures allows a thoughtful depiction of an otherwise chaotic relationship, leaving the viewer to contemplate the emotional attachments the artist has with family. Claire Brace [email protected] clairebrace25.blogspot.co.uk My practice is born from my passion for animals and animal rights, revolving around the subject of their interaction with humans and the intertwining of our environments. The encroachment and destruction of habitats and the captivity and mistreatment of animals at humanity’s hand raises all sorts of ethical questions. My aim is to explore some of these questions through my artistic practice, primarily using drawing and photography, to examine the various ways in which animals live and how our environments are increasingly merging as time goes on. My most recent work surrounds the domesticated animal, the pets that we live and come in to contact with every day and our relationships and responsibilities to them. Bethany Costerd [email protected] bethanycosterdart.tumblr.com My practice plays between attraction and repulsion, representation and abstraction; exploring gender, sexuality and the body. In some of my works I have used explicit pornographic imagery in order to investigate these subjects. This imagery is abstracted using my own tactile involvement with materials; primarily clay, paper and fabric. Through this handling of materials, my own sensual language is created. Surfaces are caught between abject repulsion and the desire to caress; it is these boundaries that concern my practice. It is also my intention to play with the viewer’s consumption, as they search the works compulsive accumulation of imagery and form. P. 14 – 15 Elizabeth Aubrey [email protected] www.elizabethaubury.co.uk In encountering the diversity and heterogeneity of commonplace things, my practice becomes malleable, reversible and self-cannibalising; which is reflected in my adaptable approach to making artworks. Such as objects improvised from found and fugitive materials that suggest bodily attributes, which can feed into temporary installations that attempt to momentarily mold their social or spatial contexts. Indeed, many of my works invite audiences to perform roles, be that of browsing shopper or a link in a chain of Chinese whispers. If I record these performative and sculptural moments, does their preservation tame the works fragmentary nature? But documentation may become material and the chain diverts and continues. The fragmentary character of my practice perplexes me. Can a perceived urgency to avoid repetition also be a relentless unresolved searching? Something ineffable? Alongside open spaces of disconnect, provisional statements emerge: ‘Performance that makes me feel skinless’, ‘Objects becoming surrogate bodies’, or ‘I value things I cannot see’. Emma Jones [email protected] emma111991.tumblr.com Exploring memories and childhood experiences through form and colour, delving into realms of transient memory using previous relationships as a starting point to create installations that explore how these bonds and recollections are formed and how they are retained. These relationships often centre around the father figure and the delicate frail connection that Chris Pope [email protected] Most of the time I don’t really know what I am doing. I like to keep my work simple and focus on the making, creating or assembling of my work. I work with found or waste materials. I tend to drift between materials and ideas, one day I’ll be melting plastic bottles and the next day I’ll be nailing planks of wood together. Essentially my work is about the process of collecting materials, objects and items and then creating something from them. Elyn Middleton [email protected] elynmiddleton.tumblr.com Architecture has a unique ability to absorb lived experience and reflect it as a collective social memory. The inanimate building acts as a monument to the thoughts and actions of those that have occupied it. The arrangements of planes and axes dictate the physical experience of being in space, but the details of design and construction involve the senses, arousing the consciousness of the individual. A dialectical relationship stands between interior and exterior; between active space and monumental form; between function and façade; between private and public. Georgina Conyers [email protected] georginaconyers.tumblr.com My practice consists of manipulating existing forms, systems of order, arrangement and meaning. By looking at the relationship between art, commerce and how the art object obtains value. I seek to challenge the origin of form, mimicking museum strategies of categorisation and order. Through the act of collecting objects, images and text, I propose to create mythical narratives or relationships between them. Titles are significantly considered to construct the meaning of the piece and form humorously playful juxtapositions, mixing messages that are formed by objects and reflecting upon the object as language. The viewer is continually asked to believe in the new meaning given to the object, placing a sense of absurdity on the work. The process of adding or subtracting from objects that engages in an exchange with everyday commonplace objects. By reframing the intention of objects I impose poetically critical language on mass-produced commodities, and confront the existing dialogue between objects and text. Tom Davies [email protected] thomasrdavis.tumblr.com My work contemplates the effects atheism has had upon the spiritual aspect of painting; I feel it is integral that we take into account whether the artist has ever believed in a God when reading art. Although atheism is commonly misconceived as a non-spiritual practise, I argue against this. I am heavily influenced by silent painting, most commonly associated with the abstract expressionists it is concerned with art being secular, but not necessarily atheist. My own personal experience of losing faith; from Protestant Christian to atheist, I feel is dealt within my work as I try to recreate feelings of the spiritual that I once felt when divulging in the incomprehensible existence of a God. I simply believe like artists before me that the spiritual experience felt in any place of worship can be explained without religious dogma. P. 16 – 17 Megan Harber [email protected] meganharberart.com Throughout my practice I investigate methods of making work that is both appealing to the eye and to the touch; tactility and aesthetic pleasure go hand in hand. By using the physical connections between objects and environments, a true understanding of my pieces can be gained. An emphasis is placed on creating an increased awareness of the body and its relationship to the world around with a particular emphasis on the bond to other animals imbued in our subconscious. Through a wide range of materials I challenge their imbedded connotations and invite the viewer to have a heightened emotional and physical reaction often resulting in conflicting sensations: a desire to stroke and being utterly repulsed. Gabriella Keating-Fedders [email protected] Looking into the notion of place, I am investigating ways to record and express subjectivity and sense to visualise a subjective moment in time. Through the subjective context which individuals associate with place, I am exploring the human urge to explore and discover the impact that we have on our surroundings. With inherent links to maps and map-making techniques my current work experiments with ways in which these can be recorded or physically displayed within an artistic context. Primarily focusing on the use of layers and layering terrains, I intend to hone on the importance and impact that place has on us as individuals and the subjectivity that we share using forms of map making, drawing and photography to highlight this. Aaron Taylor [email protected] aarontaylorart.blogspot.co.uk Wanting to create a sense of liberation from personal negative experiences and mental pressures, I confront subject matter that has had a direct negative impact on my mentality. Through performance based works, I use my body as the primary medium and express my interior feelings through physical actions. An honest approach is always taken with the work I produce, strengthening the art/life relationship I strive for through my practice. With each piece of work, I aim to take control over a negative experience, eliminating the negative hold it had on me. Pushing my mental and physical limits is a prominent feature of my Student Index 39 practice and I constantly draw inspiration from the following quote from performance artist, Marina Abramovi : “What you are afraid of is exactly what you are supposed to do.” Helen Hale [email protected] flickr.com/helenhale My work explores the current merge of fine art and commercialism that foreshadows a united art specialism. To help decipher the two specialisms and regain a definition, I create works with the use of the ready-made commodity and reproduction. My personal obsession with trainers, interprets them as symbol of commercial imagery that daily invades our personal lives. Projecting my art work as a more personal side to the ‘Art or Advertisement’ debate sparked by artists’ Elmgreen and Dragset, that concerns the audience’s false perception of art as advertisement. Oliver Hanney [email protected] My work recreates images representing dreamlike states of mind. There is a mechanism at work, which takes the ‘idea’ of a dream and applies it to images. The imagery produced thus does not only reveal an aesthetical appeal, but demands an unfolding of the subconscious. The imagery shows three separate levels of this unfolding. The cracks on the surface represent the chaotic nature, but also the spontaneity, of the unknown. The dark holes in the centre of the imagery represent the dictation of the subconscious. This dictation is fragmentary, however relentlessly presence. The mirror upon which the cracks are formed represents the unfolding of the self, one is to look at themselves on the surface or beyond it. With this in mind, we are forced to decide where to look. Alice Galvin [email protected] My work revolves around entwining the themes of utopian architecture and surveillance. The image of the city conjures many immediate associations, capturing both the optimistic dreams and the never ending nightmares. The use of mirrors and lights represent both type of associations, with the mirror also acting as a device to echo the vast everyday encounters with surveillance found in the urban environment. Through the manipulation of the mirrors and arrangement of lights, a drawing is revealed. Although the drawing itself is entirely fantastical, it comments on cities worldwide; forever lit, and to a certain extent, forever in darkness. Hannah Theobold [email protected] hannahtheobaldart.co.uk My work wholly explores material engagement within the process of making. I am interested in the act of making as a sole concept rather than searching to obtain a final form thus my fascinations lie with unpredictable, unknown, spontaneous happenings and discoveries through play. Material processes beyond our control have fascinated myself; I strive to identify the possible by pushing the boundaries of material qualities, employing much dependence on chance to lead to outcomes. My practice explores the notion of painting but also encompasses both sculpture and installation as a means of documenting process as well as visually engaging and enlightening the audience in the transformation of materials. The commitment to investigation is of great importance. 40 Giulia Ranchetti [email protected] giuliaranchetti.com Perpetually working with film, specifically Super 8 and Standard 8, my work challenged the traditional means of reception of moving image whilst deconstructing the medium’s basic physical characteristics. Projections become sculptural installations where the outmoded machinery occupies the same space as the viewer, at times becoming the protagonist of the show. Film is scratched, punctured and scraped to then be fed through the mouth of the projector who consumes it in a constant loop. The machine cries out for attention with its loud rattle, encouraging the viewer to inspect it as part of the artwork, not solely as a functional appliance. More often than not, installations are only displayed once as the film is mutated to the point of no return; the remnants of the work, the snippets of film that have burned, its torn sprocket holes and the dust it has accumulated along its journey are inherent to my practice. P. 18 – 19 Hannah Lawrence [email protected] vimeo.com/user25614446 My practice explores the audiences encounter with ‘site’. Working in a range of different media such as sculpture, installation, film and sound, my work attempts to present mundane everyday sites and recontextualise them into the gallery setting. Working currently with video, producing short often intense films I invite the audience to become more consciously aware of the ‘site’ they encounter within the gallery. By presenting ‘site’ in an abstract way I encourage the mind to wander away from the gallery to ‘the site’ they relate to when encountering the work. The writing of Samuel Taylor Coleridge resonates with my practice; “The reader should be carried forward, not merely or chiefly by the mechanical impulse of curiosity, not by a restless desire to arrive at the final solution but by the pleasurable activity of the journey itself” (Dewey, J 1934:3, 4). Harriet Robertson [email protected] My work is focused around Origami and Japanese culture. I find the art of Origami to be extremely fascinating and beautiful. It is almost mind-boggling some of things that you can create with just a piece of paper and a few folds. Some artists who use Origami make the process of creating the form the actual piece of work; I however think the opposite. For me, the finished product is the most important part of it. For example when you look at the Crane, you are left to wonder how it could have been created from just one piece of paper and a few folds, but from my perspective as the artist I know the ‘secret’ of how it has been made. It is this mystery that I aim to capture within my work. June Boys [email protected] Often the vulnerable and marginalised have no voice, no one to represent them or to act as advocate. My work reflects these concerns, not necessarily overtly, but in a way that will invite questions, debate and reflection. The themes frequently relate to unfairness and injustice and therefore make socio-political comment. In choosing to spend time with those from minority and diverse communities my work is gradually becoming more collaborative and participatory. My practice is primarily based around printmaking processes. I like the potential of producing multiples and text is often an addition to my work. Ivan Chambers [email protected] ivanchambers.com The work is an escape from the mundane, a search for otherness that draws upon location and dislocation. Dualities create uncertainties, and it is this sense of ‘not knowing’ that colors the work. Details gleaned from architecture: corners, roof spaces, windows, the crevices between walls, accumulate and compress in order to create sculptures that allude to the hut, the head, the home. But what is ‘home’? In a world that is increasingly ‘placeless’, it becomes something of a paradox. ‘Home’ is a multiplicity of experiences that rupture notions of tranquility and safety. In essence, the work centers on becoming ‘lost’ in our sense of home. It is displaced and elsewhere. It is the site for mining our memories and performing our imaginative autopsies. “Home” haunts, it is the place of dreams and shadows. Helen Piffero [email protected] epiffero.tumblr.com Language, this statement, is a struggle. It is a way of understanding that I have limited ability in. This creates problems in communication between I and the audience. The visual (painting) is my tool for describing the indescribable feeling. I cannot explain my practice in language, I cannot use my birth name and I cannot write this artists statement. Lei Piffero Gabrielle Everett [email protected] gabrielle-everett.co.uk My practice is focused on the ways in which our self image becomes distorted though our experiences and other unseen factors. I am fascinated with the idea that our inner selves and our biology know what we go through and mutate in response. I am looking into physical mutations and rare genetic diseases as a way of linking into the global issue of how we affect each other through chemical and radioactive progression. Through my visual work I have become aware of an element of control in my images, mostly working in 2D media that flattens and confines, as an attempt to try and keep hold of something that is unavoidable; change and growth. The chilling and confrontational effect of the images of physical mutations is something that I hope to inject into my work through the use of greyscale illustrations and micro photography. Imogen Clarke [email protected] imyclarke.tumblr.com Using science as a pertinent framing for questions concerning the ‘self’, perception and the act of looking, my practice explores the thresholds of vision. In the science world we are continuously taken deeper into the human form, plunging into the unknown. We are presented as data, results, or as examples of illness; we become objects of science. Within my multi-disciplinary practice, I put to question the reductionist nature of science, and aim to re-embody and re-humanise that which science so often objectifies and dehumanises. I evaluate and observe the ‘self’ through medical devices and work to present my audience with questions concerning the penetrating gaze of science, whilst examining the relationship between the viewer and the viewed. P. 22 – 23 Jessica Debnam [email protected] My practice explores the curiosity and intrigue that lies in the act of ‘looking’. Circular elements which are fluid through my work take on the role of peepholes and devices that allow the audience to engage in looking, peeping and gawping. Creating work that explores the ‘passive voyeur’, my work attempts to refocus and draw our attention to mediatized images of suffering and brutality that are ubiquitous. My work tackles the disconnection created through ‘seeing’, and attempts to revive the desensitized state in which the distant voyeur is located and spark self-interrogation and reflection. Caitlin Mullally [email protected] caitlinmullally.com My practice is the representation of the conflict between external and internal, like the blood vessels that pump oxygen around our body, and the wires that send electrons around a building to power it; there is always an ulterior source of power. My work portrays the tension of the unity of body and mind. Taking inspiration from abreaction theories by Melanie Klein and Sigmund Freud, I make sculptures to draw my rich inner reality out, like how a child does when playing with toys. These sculptures are an extension of myself. They are tendrils and tendons from my body figuratively, but they are brain cells and thoughts literally from my head. I am trying to think through making. Jake Francis [email protected] jakefrancisart.com My work is a muddled path of sardonic commentary and childlike fascination. Through the use of charity shops, my studio practice relies on chance and fetishist observation. By exploring these formally loved trinkets I attempt to re-build their corpses. Approaching the materials with a destructive yet curious mind, l toy with the existing, projecting ideals and humour onto the already established. The main goal of my sculptures is to display something that truly flips the mundane on its head, invading the soiled environment of domestic suffocation. “No collector could ever love a work of art as much as a fetishist loves a shoe” Georges Bataille Louise Jeavons [email protected] I aim to test our relationship with traditional stationery materials through quiet, subtle changes to the way they look, function and feel. These slight alterations give a certain energy to the materials, and allow them to take on a life of their own, moving them away from their usual interaction with us. MKLK [email protected] mklk.co.uk My work has evolved from a dense narrative to encompass an array of elements, which dwell within the realms of performance and documentation. It is specifically aimed at reflecting the male gaze within society, and is constructed as a visual echo, a fragmented tapestry – of patriarchal voyeurism, woven by the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud and curated in the vision of the Christian archetype of feminine identity. My practice syphons from the chaotic power of desire and sexual difference, visually responding to Freud’s analysis of the Oedipus complex. This complex highlights the fragmentation of the female form through a psychological distancing and visual severing, known as Castration Anxiety, within male consumers, and is subsequently forged at the sight of visual trauma. Quintessentially my work is formulated to capture and reduce this subconscious and supposed normative state of psychological distancing, in turn reflecting the role of women as a visual spectacle for a masculine culture. Jed Hilton [email protected] vimeo.com/jedhilton My docu/art videos are exploratory case studies that reveal critiques of historical and political events that have affected and changed our perceptions of society. My work is an analysis of propagandistic actions that pervade every aspect of society and culture, whether we are conscious of it or not, and how these actions act as hegemonic processes of control and manipulation. Using a combination of sound and imagery I construct disparate narratives that conjoin together to portray an overarching story of how society and culture is controlled through various avenues of political, economic or ideological goals. What I aim to do is to highlight how the good intentions of utopian ideology outweigh the dystopian realities that they leave behind. Jean Goodrick [email protected] Much of my work is motivated by a passionate interest in social and political issues, in particular the extreme inequalities of wealth and power and the labelling and scapegoating of social groups who have no voice. My work often uses unusual juxtapositions of familiar objects, signs and symbols to provoke thinking and an emotional response in the viewer. I experiment with a variety of methods and materials to express my ideas and beliefs. These have included most recently the use of plaster, oil paint on canvas, batik, found objects, text, papier-mâché , poetry and printing. I have been particularly influenced by the Dada movement, particularly Berlin Dada and John Heartfield, and by the contemporary artist Peter Kennard. Lian Gray [email protected] Emotions and thoughts turning to words are the backbone of my work. A vitality that helps expunge the chaos within. Words come in a vibrant onslaught of buzzing pasts and future fears. They help to mould the meaning or way in which my work is translated into found objects, light and sound. By moving words and their emotional incentives into 3 dimensions I can incorporate the conceptual, physical and abstract elements that sit within his writings. This allows me to convey more to the viewer by juxtaposing elements, using metaphors and creating layers of ‘reveals’. A recluse in a [simfuh-nee] of thought… P. 24 – 25 Matthew Kent blowinguptheworkshop.gmail.com matthew-kent.tumblr.com ‘As communication moves towards an increased digital resolution, a narrative has popped up that depicts the increased technological drive as Baudrillardian and alienating; facing a simulatory new order in which having such comprehensive access to this web of information at ones fingertips instead brings about a perverse sense of instability and disconnection. ‘Reality’ erodes. But technology runs parallel with non-technology at every juncture, reinforcing and being reinforced in it’s objective. For every digital element a physical relationship will exist to dissipate notions of real and unreal. An iPhone can only exist because of the rare earths like europium and neodymium pulled from Mongolian mines. It can only be shipped to your house because of the cardboard box it’s been safely packaged in. Watching it’s progress via a tracking number online, as it shifts from country to country, is so oddly fascinating because of the buried knowledge that someone is out there sweating to load it onto a vehicle as I sit at my desk.’ Lavanja Thavabalasingham [email protected] lsingam.tumblr.com Lavanja Thavabalasingam’s art deals with the persistent dichotomy between man and nature. Encompassing the silent and subtle workings of the living world, she draws on the processes of metamorphosis, mimicry, and resemblance within nature through the mediums of printmaking and photography. Often combining the old with the new, Lavanja’s work is fresh look at established themes, taking inspiration from mythology, cosmology and old practices, such as taxidermy. “There are impossible scribblings in nature written neither by men nor devils… Who knows whether this tumult of triangles inscribed in stone, first brought about by nature and then by art, does not contain one of the secret cyphers of the universe? [...] I can scarcely refrain from suspecting some ancient, diffused magnetism; a call from the center of things; a dim, almost lost memory, or perhaps a presentiment, pointless in so puny a being, of a universal syntax.” Roger Caillois, ‘The Writing of Stones’ Matthew Rose [email protected] My work explores parody and self-deprecation; I see my art as a means of being scuzzy and nerdy of grossing people out, but I have a deadly intention, charm! My motto is “Make the World Plastic”, I gravitate towards the brash in modern culture but the aesthetic that informs me is vast and varied. My aesthetic shifts and morphs but you can always tell it’s me. My brain always seems to be working against me, but hopefully one day I will beat it into submission. I feel the need to inflict my sickness on others. I am a narcissistic cannibal. My purposefully awkward aesthetics/ intent sweeten the pill of my work having the reverse effect. Deep personal content and striking imagery hold a higher place in my culture than the guarded and the quiet. This visually audacious, darkly humorous mind-sickness results in a cathartic experience for me and the viewer. Lloyd Smith [email protected] cargocollective.com/lloydsmithart “The truth is not distant or obscure. It is right in front of your face; the trouble is it’s hard to see.” Michael Craig-Martin (2013). With a focus on questioning our understanding of reality, my practice attempts to challenge judgement of our surroundings by exploiting the ambiguity of our perception. I use formal tricks within spaces intended to momentarily deceive by suggesting defying scientific or spatial possibilities. Control becomes a significant aspect within my work, using restriction as a tool for halting a pivotal shift between illusion and realisation of the truth. I aim to put the viewer in this transitional space - a kind of Student Index 41 non-place in-between; a place I am curious of, yet fear. The choice of whether to believe this space exists inevitably and infinitely comes back to one’s own mind. Lesley Rastall [email protected] My work is influenced by my spirituality and love of nature. I have become interested in using earth as a medium; one of my earlier pieces was of a baby growing in the earth, nurtured by the roots of a tree. Whilst at NUA I have cast an earth mother figure in bronze and aluminium. I like the idea of an ancient figure being cast in the relatively new metal aluminium. I am continuing to explore themes and rhythms of the earth using different mediums; earth pigments, clay, metal wire, silk threads and earth itself. Lianne Hatcher [email protected] ctrl-alt-cmpt.tumblr.com I am myself, I am meat and I am wetware. I am my own construction of myself and I am digital. I explore the exchange between the fabrication of ourselves within the digital and our remains within the analogue. I intend to expose the flaws within this transference and the things that we lose and we gain. By constructing ourselves within a digital realm, we become cyborgs. Witty, pretty, refined and word perfect, which creates and arena for competition. Wanting to be liked and shared and followed we attempt to achieve power through popularity, to be seen as celebrities or deities. However technology is a language that creates its own power. A power that women are lacking. By creating awareness of our current use of the power of technology, we are truly able to engage and make change. Michaela D’Agati [email protected] [email protected] Positioned between drawing and sculpture, my practice is an inquiry into the shift between two and three dimensions. Referencing this ‘between’ as a liminal state where boundaries blur, not as separations of one another, but of continuums. My works seek an insistent presence, a quiet authority, not imposing but tentatively and tangibly present. Processual methods and means of making results in my works featuring as a sequential series, never in isolation, as a strand of ongoing episodes. Forming in clusters they share an embodied narrative and architectonic conditioning. Elements of formalism and states of honesty are apparent - subtle fallibilities, the nature of the materials, recognisable shapes and forms - these features govern and dictate a physical sensibility over the work. Entailing a sense of enquiry, notions of composure and of potentials, my works are drawn in essence and its physicality is one to be encountered. Anna Davies [email protected] My work explores how humans affect animals within our natural environment, and how different cultures have varying perspectives on animal symbolism. P. 26 – 27 Ruby Bolton [email protected] rubyabolton92.tumblr.com Chance and acts of chance are apparent in many aspects of our everyday lives despite 42 us being aware or unaware of them. Acts of impulse and spontaneity, conscious or unconscious decisions, random and unexpected events can all be related to the concept of chance. Ruby Bolton explores this notion within her practice, developing works created through the process of chance. Working predominantly in collage, her work explores the process of making; the hand cut almost craft like images. Focusing on the significance of the cut within this which also seems to dominate her work. Highlighting a tension between the controlled and the uncontrolled, it is the on going battle with chance that intrigues her. Relying solely upon chance becomes almost impossible; yet having the control to allow it to dominate gives way for an uncontrolled outcome. Natalie Surridge [email protected] nataliesurridge.com Our existence’s is established by the memories we make, by our past and our legacy. A photograph is an illusion, a temporal memorial to a passed moment. Growing up surrounded by memorabilia and tales of my grandparents escape from Nazi Germany; photographs became an escape into the world of the already happened. I attempt to eternalise memories by playing with the fragile nature of a printed photo mimicking the ephemeral state of a memory by transforming it using more ‘permanent’ material. Ruination allows us to reclaim fragments of our past, but never quite gives us access to the full narrative. Photos act as a prompt, for my own memories a way of self-examination through the remains of an object, to come to terms with my own mortality and identity. Joseph Doubtfire joseph.doubtfi[email protected] josephdoubtfire.com Describable as taking a conceptual approach to an explicitly practical methodology, my practice concerns itself with the act and processes of making art and is inclusive of research, learning, understanding, thought and application (often resulting in making).Conflicts between art and philosophy, information and knowledge, thinking and making are evident within my practice and consequential mediation; what’s made visible are the subsequent ‘grey areas’ (spaces which point at an object being one thing or another, or neither). Discourse materialises between these notions individually and collectively. I intentionally problematise their simultaneously conjectured and accepted presences. The relationship between theory and practice (historically and potentially) intrigues me. Highlighted are notions and ideals of learning and knowledge, which intertwine with and are demonstrative of my education and the learning processes that surround my practice. Patricia Hodger [email protected] My art stems from examining the fold relating to the human form and considers the interaction between pleats, folds and the body to establish how dress can act as a visual language. It analyses why women wear what they wear, going beyond the need of giving warmth and protection, but also from the individual’s personal choice to conceal internal private attributes to displaying to others. Dress, with its pleats and folds, acts as a mediator between personal and social structure, but also communicates relationships between self and other. My practice is sculptural and primarily concerned with manipulating fabrics and experimenting with a variety of other materials, from paper, plaster, resin and bronze to explore the variations and possibilities of pleating, folding and draping integrating body forms with an obscure and ambiguous intention. Just as pleats and folds can be repeated continuously, with infinite possibilities, so history unfolds refolds and presents itself in a new and differing way. I have researched dress as a visual language, manipulating the traditional perception of dress, using semiology to transform original dress codes to convey messages, traversing boundaries and margins, creating possibilities to express my practice with a concept of ambiguity. Katharine Churchman kate-batchelor.co.uk [email protected] My work is focused on the East Anglian Coast, recreating notions of the sublime through researching significant events through archival imagery. I use found photographs, film footage and written accounts. Re-imagining and reinterpreting these events experimenting through drawing and printing: in the context of the contemporary sublime. After experimentation the final works are resolved through painting. Elizabeth Champion [email protected] Drawing upon the relationship between natural/found and made/synthetic, my work is an inquisition into generating meaning from the study of objects. Points of curiosity are captured through meticulous observational drawing and sculptural processes revealing texture and adaptability in material and matter, to evolve into a form beyond the objects original assigned purpose, in turn creating space for a new classification system based on aesthetic over purposeful intuition. My process seeks to expose sensitivity for matter that nobody has any investment in or attention for, the obsessive nature of collecting and recording displayed by treating individual items as specimens that can be evaluated through their appeal in the visual qualities they posses. Nefertiti Boles [email protected] Photography, especially the use of film and processing holds an important value in my practice as a medium. It is not a form is documentation, but a form of experimentation. My practice may manifest the topics of pattern and process in a subconscious manner. Occasionally I work with print, structures and projections. I take an interest in the tangible qualities of film and photography, disrupting the process in hand, taking a typical instruction and subverting the form to attend to my curiosity. Dabbling within the realms of chance, the metaphysical and serendipity, my practice forms a voice. “Never again will a single story be told as though it’s the only one” John Berger P. 28 – 29 Su-Yin Stemp [email protected] suyinstemp.tumblr.com The focus of my practice has been inspired by my research into the concepts surrounding memory; exploring issues surrounding missing and false memories. Through photography I have been reflecting upon the memories of those I share relationships with, often focusing on family. When regarding people, I have always been drawn to their face and through my exploration of fragmental memory I have been endeavouring to express the connection between remembering a person and their identity through their facial features. By removing the face I want to explore the apparent loss of memory of an individual, the incomplete way we remember someone and the impact this has on the viewer Sarah Sanderson [email protected] ‘In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface; I am over there, there where I am not, a sort of shadow that gives my own visibility to myself, that enables me to see myself there where I am absent.’ Foucault, Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias. Duality, particularly repetition as a process that can both familiarise and distort, is important to my work; creating a sense of simultaneous absence and presence, uncertainty and a blurred boundary between fantasy and reality. Creation of the extraordinary from that, which was once ordinary, is central; through relatively simple processes and materials I aim to create spaces or images that evoke a sense of fascination and curiosity. Alana Webb cargocollective.com/alanawebb [email protected] In a time where the divide between what is private and what is public is becoming increasingly less distinct we are forced to guard the intimate aspects of our lives, whilst paradoxically become unaware of the privacy breaches that we encounter in day to day life. My practice transforms the viewer into that of the voyeur. They, like I, become an intruder into the intimacies of strangers and an accomplice to my work. In the process of night walking I gather images from the exterior cover of night of the interior homes of others, and by re-contextualising the images; the homely is transformed into that of the unhomely. By projecting the viewer into the absorbent nature of my work, into an equally tangible yet falsified environment I aim to reignite the same contradictory feelings of intrigue and discomfort felt when collecting these private apertures. Sasha Smith [email protected] sashamsmith1992.wix.com/precious-moments I’m using my practice to explore the notion of light creating illusions, through the use of photography and other mediums to create objects which project the looming fear of death. I endeavour to explore the concept of absence and presence in conjunction with the idea of the gap between the realms of the known and the unknown. Testing the imagination of you as the viewer to decipher the meaning and the content of my pieces; thus using my imagination to ignite yours. Martin Perring [email protected] My approach to art is based on a large theoretical base. The works of philosophers and sociologists are of utmost importance to me, particularly the Frankfurt school and the works of Jean Baudrillard. I then try to create a rich poetic visual dialogue which I hope can inspire or confront others with a different opinion. I am particularly interested in the social space, both material and virtual, I find that an artist has incredible power in changing these spaces, through the breaking and changing of boundaries, or even the creation of new situations. Rachael Nichols [email protected] rachmarie.co.uk My current practice looks into the complexities of concealing and revealing. Through exploring drawing, and the various application methods, I present an opportunity for the viewer to connect with a ‘void,’ establishing their own emotive connections. With subtle links to personal and emotive aspects, I look into ways that I can suppress past emotions, allowing the development of new sensations to acquire. Primarily focusing on drawing, I combine this technique with the use of photography, and sculpture highlighting a beautiful contrast between them. Naomi Harwin [email protected] naomiharwin.com Ground: The solid support of orientation, locomotion and systems of perception; the background of our visual world. Throughout my practice I employ the aesthetical qualities of our terrestrial environment. Constructing my own artefacts and forms, references are made to the land through my use of materials, tools and gestures, while a lack of a defined scale prompts questions of their nature. Through sculpting my own terrains I seek to examine systems of knowledge and understanding. Responding to these artefacts through the application of schemas; drawings, mappings and methods of display, studies are made of the artefacts examining processes of perception, while creating a dialogue between the sculptural and drawn works. Through such processes my practice becomes a phenomenological investigation into the forms I have created. P. 34 - 35 Helen Young [email protected] Memory is the key focus throughout my studio practice. This derived from a personal interest researching Alzheimer’s disease that progressively merged in to my current fine art practice. I use second hand 35mm slides that hold a private history that I manipulate to alter the physical memory. It is from distorting the image that begins to question both the authenticity of the image, and the ownership of the memory. Memories, collectively, are absorbed with a personal perspective, an instant judgment. Can a memory ever be truly honest? Davide Lakshmanasamy [email protected] davidelart.com My practice is fueled by my curiosity within the nature of material. I work with raw materials, subjecting them to different processes in an attempt to form dialogue between the interactions seen with one another. I embrace the natural traits and flaws of the materials that I work with, using this to my advantage. My work evolves from simply thinking through making. Each work is taken as experiments, enabling me to explore new techniques and processes. I find success in the unexpected outcomes from probing material at hand. This then leads on to ideas and further development of works. Roisin Callaghan [email protected] My practice looks at the stages of the creative in producing work, and the completion of a work through experience, interpretation and individual perception. Focusing particularly on musical composition and notation as a form of instruction, I explore how a work develops through the experience of the person perceiving the work, so that the final interpretation is set apart from the original intent. Though the score remains the same, what changes overtime is how we as spectators, experience things on an individual level. No one thing can ever be heard or seen in the exact same way twice. Working with recorded music in the form of analogue tape, I deal with the issues surrounding repeatability. What I alter through the manipulation of the tape is not what it is ultimately, but rather the perception of it, which itself then changes on each viewer’s experience. Tara Risby [email protected] The focus of my work is on popular culture; using humour to explore trends, technologies and ideas which resonate within the everyday. Approaching a variety of techniques including print, paint, collage and illustration. Diane Pryn [email protected] Currently my practice reflects my fascination with the mysterious and occasionally uncanny, illusional effects that are created by distortion and fragmentation of visual perception. By utilizing mirrors and reflective surfaces within my sculptures and installations I endeavour to persuade the viewer to be become more conscious of the changing conditions of time and space around them. The subsequent phenomenological engagement and reaction of the viewer can on occasion be the catalyst for that perplexing and captivating split second between ‘not knowing’ and ‘knowing’. The disorientating effect sometimes created by a reflective surface can interfere with eye and brain coordination, creating a moment of heightened awareness. This ‘moment’ when the gaze of the viewer activates the thing perceived, can effectively alter the dynamics of a piece from passive to interactive. Kendal West [email protected] “Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the artist may use any form, from an expression of words to physical reality. If words are used, and they proceed from ideas about art, then they are art and not literature; numbers are not mathematics. All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art.” – Lewitt (1969). Within my practice I explore the boundaries of architecture and text, understanding the space between these devices and filling it with relevance, where I attempt to relate these mundane voids to manifestations in the world around us. Jasmine Graze [email protected] My main concept is to give awareness to moss and magnify its qualities. A complete moss experience! Through encompassing a combination of different aesthetic models of appreciation, of nature and art. I aim for this to be an overwhelming, aesthetically pleasing, multi-sensory experience for the audience. There are two different basic emotional responses to natural beauty; Comfort and shock; I’m interested in the comfort side. We learn, frist about beauty through our engagement with the natural world. Edith Cobbs (1977) explains, “Nature for the child is sheer sensory experience”. I plan to create a Student Index 43 space that could conjure up a child-like sense of wonder of the natural organism (Moss). Different elements of light sound and being able to interact will enhance a Daydreamlike atmosphere. Jessica Batchelor [email protected] Fine art and concept is my form of expression when things are either too embarrassing or too difficult to explain verbally especially when wanting to protect those closest to me, it’s been a good way of ‘getting it out’ whilst keeping to myself. I touch on themes all based on my relationships with these things and with myself such as body image, sexuality, childhood and the changes that I’ve noticed in myself that have been difficult to just except and understand. With this last project I’m talking about my relationship with my comfort blanket and have been finding out how I discovered or created her persona and the effect it’s had on her comforting properties. I wish to bring an element of transitional phenomena to my audience with a feeling of their input creating its output and the way it may change the way they view the object, will it mean something else to them now. P. 36 – 37 Jodie Fish jodie.fi[email protected] I create my work in order to challenge and question the notion of aesthetics in today’s society. I have explored thoroughly gender ideologies, sexual politics and the representation of women and how the male gaze has manipulated these in the art world and society. My research on the use of cosmetics to either benefit or manipulate the physical appearance and identity for both men and women in a heterosexual constructed society is a huge influence on my practical work. I parody this in my practice using cosmetics to manipulate my photographs and 3d pieces exploring the deformation and alteration of identity and appearance and how this the representation of both men and women in society. Robert Grayson [email protected] robertgrayson.co.uk “The line that runs through my practice is the process of play; I try to communicate a sense of fun in my artwork. In my practice I work from concepts, but as the work progresses it acts as a basis to build upon. Through experimentation of material, process and using repurposed aspects of past work, I reinforce new pieces and the outcome can often morph into something entirely different from the original idea. I revel in the exploration of subjects arcane and mysterious: from the everyday to the radical, idols and fetish objects to the behaviour and rituals of institutions and tribes. In my artwork I’m not searching for truth or trying to make sense of what I see, but I am responding to the awe inspiring nature of the subjects through a variety of media, primarily sculpture and moving image.” Thea Field theahelenafi[email protected] theafield.co.uk At the moment my work is not about being visually pleasing, I am creating work to express emotions, raise awareness and bring attention to the process of art rather than a finished product. Painting is my main medium although 44 Student Index my art includes significant documentation through film and photography. I am currently researching missing children cases and using these case studies as a subject matter. I am painting the faces then painting over them and filming the performative process. I am using editing software to reverse the footage, representing the importance of finding the child, raising awareness to the media bringing these cases into public domain then forgetting about the cases when something bigger comes along. All aspects of my works are clearly thought about and complex from the colour spectrum to the paint I’m using to cover with. I want people to see the white canvases and be confused, see them as another complex piece of abstract art, I want them to think it’s boring or see it as easy and question why there are plain white canvases? Hannah Rose [email protected] I have always been interested in displaying emotion through my work, especially the distressed side. It’s normally private and something you don’t usually see, and I like to bring them out and put them on display. I like the idea that the viewer may ask questions as to why they are like that, maybe feel uncomfortable and possibly empathise. Ranging in scale, I have been using charcoal, and more recently started using video work. Filming peoples genuine reactions of disgust or sadness. I have also started playing around with how much of the face I show, for example half the face, just the eyes, or the mouth. Experimenting with how much I can get away with showing while still displaying this emotion, and intriguing the curiosity of the viewer. ‘A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art’ Paul Cezanne Marcia X [email protected] Utilizing historical and cultural markers to re-contextualize current events in relation to the othered self in the Diaspora, my work reanalyzes western society’s foundations and structures of cultural consciousness. I have lived a life where the political is always intersecting with the personal, and my artistic practice reflects this truth. The DIY tradition of zines allows an exploration of different forms of media, graphic design and articulation of context directly. As a constant motif and signifier of identity politics and the journey one takes, the letter X appears as a symbol for irregularity and displacement. Installation and performance create a theater an audience can emotionally and physically engage with. A multidisciplinary practice is essential since life is not a single based issue. The fluidity will maintain not only aesthetically but conceptually, spanning from feminism, racism, the socio political dynamics of contemporary society, and the art community. Heidi Wyatt [email protected] My name is Heidi Wyatt. When asked to describe my practice, one theme comes to mind before all others; Self Portraiture. I do not understand, as a student, how anything I produce could not relate strongly to myself. And I do not understand, as a young adult, how anything I produce could not consist of everything I think and feel. My sub-theme is Escapism. As a student, everything I produce is a cry for attention; to have everybody understand how I view the world. As a young adult, everything I produce is a cry for help; to forcibly express unto everyone exactly how I think the world sees me. My chosen methods are interventions, installations, performances, film and sound, text and mixed media. Very often my presentation will be in the manner of a purpose built enclosed space. Though I produce art, I do not term myself an Artist, but a professional Escapist. Samantha Bedford [email protected] sjbart.weebly.com Samantha Bedford is a textile artist who mainly works with installation. With a minimalistic approach she considers making art a craft which is executed using one material. Her work surrounds her mental health and how it be conveyed to an audience using methods and techniques which she find therapeutic and repetitive. With minimal colour her work often radiates sadness, loss and drama. At times disconcerting beauty emerges. By focusing on process and material she creates work in which a fascination and clarity of content and an uncompromising attitude towards minimal art can be found. Her work is notable for its disorder and chaotic approach. This is of great importance to the artist when conveying her subject through art. Roseanne Cooper [email protected] rrosiecooper.weebly.com My practice focuses on the interplay between stillness and motion. I transpose the pattern of my own blinking to the context of moving image and sound, often presenting projection-based and video installations that incorporate both visuals and audio. My interest in the eye stems from the early origins of cinematic framework and the ways in which moving image has, over time, re-contextualised both the editing process and the visual experience. A blink is a motion that assists our visual perspective upon the world - when we blink, the eye momentarily becomes sightless, and we substitute the visuals, allowing sound to present a continuous presence between the spaces that the eye excludes. The soundtrack within my work slices both a dislocation and a connecting element that guides the audience through the audible blink, that, in tandem with supporting imagery, can be a disorienting and an unsettling experience which forms a repetitive, intangible presence with it’s space. P. – Greg Williams [email protected] Does art really help? Do you really care? 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