INTERFACE

Interface are once again working with Oriel Davies to offer an exciting opportunity for a writer to review newly commissioned work by Simon Whitehead.

Simon works with physical movement to investigate and expand meaning and understanding within a location or environment. Originally trained as a geographer and a dancer he has, over the past decade or more, developed a body of work from ‘pedestrian practices’ which involve a process of ritual reconstruction through the body to include live performance, dance, sound and film. 

At Oriel Davies he will be show Afield and Louphole. Afield is an exhibition which charts 15 years of Simon's practice, and Louphole is a series of perfomances and events borne from a visit to Northern Quebec where the wolves roam free.

This bursary of £70 is to enable a writer to travel to the gallery and review the show.

The show runs from 6 February - 7 April, there is a special Louphole peformance on Thursday 6 March at 7pm. (attending the performance is desirable but not essential, please let us know if you think you might be able to make it in your application.

If you would like to apply for this bursary please email interface@a-n.co.uk with a few words about your interest in reviewing this show by Monday 15 February.

Further Information

Afield & Louphole
Simon Whitehead
6 February – 7 April 2010

Oriel Davies, Newtown, Wales
www.orieldavies.org

As part of a series of concurrent exhibitions and events exploring mankind’s relationship with place, landscape and environment, Oriel Davies is proud to host newly commissioned and existing work by renowned Wales-based artist Simon Whitehead.  This will comprise Louphole, combining a series of commissioned site-based performances and a public event which will incorporate the first public ‘Howl’ in Wales (and possibly in the UK), and Afield - an exhibition which charts Simon’s practice over the past 15 years.

Simon works with physical movement to investigate and expand meaning and understanding within a location or environment. Originally trained as a geographer and a dancer he has, over the past decade or more, developed a body of work from ‘pedestrian practices’ which involve a process of ritual reconstruction through the body to include live performance, dance, sound and film. The work presented in Afield features video pieces and artefacts to present an evolution of the artist’s practice and his physical encounters with the landscapes he inhabits and moves through. These processes, often contingent and improvised, also reveal Whitehead’s collaborative approaches, both with the public and other artists, remarkably with sound artist Barnaby Oliver, with whom he has worked consistently over this period.

The newly commissioned work Louphole has been borne from a visit Simon made during the winter of 2005 where he spent 3 weeks in Northern Quebec on a hunting reserve as part of a residency.  An enduring memory of the place was the wolf packs, audible at night and absent by day, save for their tracks and kills. As a protected animal in this part of Canada, the wolf is now in a steady ascendance again.

“The wolf howls called up a physical sensation I had not experienced before, an excitement probably rendered by the folk tales of this legendary outlaw as well as some primal response to the proximity of another predator. We never saw the wolves, they are rarely seen by humans, which made their evanescence even more compelling”. Simon Whitehead
 
On return to Wales Simon began to consider the long disappeared packs that wandered the hills here until the 16th century. Steadily wiped out by hunting and a social perception of the wolf as evil and dangerous, there are a number of stories that celebrate the death of the last wolf in different parts of Wales.
 
Through Louphole* Simon reconstitutes this lost predator through a series of fugitive performances and mysterious visible and audible sightings across Newtown. Simon has also commissioned his long-term collaborator Barnaby Oliver to compose a new musical composition for the acclaimed Newtown Silver Band. The project will culminate in a public gathering and procession through the town accompanied by the Newtown Silver Band and the first public ‘Howl’ on Bryn Bank above the town on Thursday 4 March 2010. A short film documenting the event will subsequently be presented in the exhibition Afield.

*(Loup hole meaning a spy hole in mainland Europe made in shelters in forest and open spaces through which travellers could watch for wolves)

First published: a-n.co.uk January 2010