11/11/13 – 11/03/14

Happy May Bank Holiday Monday!

As it’s a holiday (and I’m knackered/feeling lazy), all I’ll say that the show is finished, the residency is almost at an end, too, and here are the photos of everyone’s work from our wonderfully curated exhibition (thanks to Lisa Mattheis and Luisa Spina).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/sets/72…

We have moved. And we have begun to ready the space for the exhibition.

Here is the facebook page with info about the event…

LAST ONE TO LEAVE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS

But incase you can’t access that link, here is the text by curator Lisa Felicitas Matteis, verbatim:

“This time is for real, Loopart is coming to an end with its final exhibition after over a year of residencies, live events and amazing projects.

“Come and celebrate with us with a glass of wine on 2nd May, 6-9 pm at The Faircharm, Creekside, Deptford, SE8 3DX.

“For the last time the Loopart artist-in-residence programme located in Deptford will open its doors to the public before the current premises is demolished. The exhibition ‘Last one to leave turn out the lights’ brings together 11 artists from diverse backgrounds working with different media. Their one connecting link is the studio, the shared working environment, that served as a platform for their creative exchange during the last 6 months. The title refers to both the imminent demolition of the space as well as the note hanging beside the door of the studio.

“As different as their works may be, surprising thematic similarities in their investigations have arisen. The human condition in modern day life recurs throughout; identification processes and constitution of self, individualisation and uniformity, moments of distortion and disorientation, ideas of belonging and community, and the voyeuristic self. Other works engage in a critical interrogation of socio-economical and geo-political changes, such as housing problems, gentrification, or exploitation of planet earth and its effects. While most of the works refer to something external of them self as an object of art, others are process-oriented and are comprised of a formal investigation of texture, form and materiality as well as playing with our sense of perception. Through this diverse set of artistic practices and thematic approaches, the works on display emphasise once more the artists‘ role as seismograph of current events.

“A site-specific performance by Helena Eflerova concerning the gentrification of the neighbourhood beside Creekside in Deptford will be held at the opening 2 May, 7.30 pm.

“Participating artists:
Emily Crookshank, Eldi Dundee, Helena Eflerova, Matthew Goodsmith, Sara Heywood, Evy Jokhova, Louise Oates, Leardo Sciacoviello, Luisa Spina, Brigid Vidler, Yi Xin Yan”

LAST ONE TO LEAVE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS

Private View: Friday 2 May 6pm – 9pm
Open Saturday & Sunday 3 – 4 May 12pm – 6pm

8 – 10 Faircharm, Creekside, Deptford, SE8 3DX

One more month to go, and then show time!

May 2, 3 & 4th.

In the meantime, the management company has asked us to vacate the studios we’ve been using, and move to another space in the same building, but they haven’t told us when. And I’m in the midst of making work that doesn’t lend itself to being moved. And they haven’t given us dates yet for access to the new space, because the council is meant to be clearing it out first, and that hasn’t happened yet. Hmmm…

I heard back from Creekside Discovery Centre. They ARE interested in giving my structure a new home!

As a bug hotel for the kids to clamber upon and observe from all sides. I love that idea! Why not? More and more I find that I want my sculpture to have an interactive, participatory element to it, and I definitely want to kids to feel free and be safe to climb on it… I find myself thinking: maybe I should move into designing playgrounds…

Anyway, back to the here and now, I need to reinforce the structure to make it safer and sturdier and more weatherproof, and that was why I called upon the services of my bf, who came to the studio today to help with the concrete canvas – physically moving it from one space to the next is backbreaking work, even for two able-bodied people – help in brainstorming innovative and off the wall architectural/designery possibilities/applications for future projects (mine and his own), and troubleshooting how to reinforce and improve this ladder structure I’ve already made. It’s great having him around to collaborate with, not least because the studios are so lonely and dead whenever I go there (where is everybody on a Tuesday???) but, luckily, in addition, I also like his company.

While he got on experimenting with ways to seal the cut edges to stop it hemmoraging concrete dust, I got on with building a support to hold my stitched fabric ‘performance plinth’ form in place so I could pour in some plaster and see what happens. No idea if it will work. I suspect it won’t do what I want it to do, but that I will find a way to work around whatever accidentally happens somehow. Even if it is a plaster disaster, I have a feeling I’ll figure something out. Take the fabric skin off and carve into the plaster perhaps? I’d like to be able to leave the fabric on though. But we’ll see. Also started reworking the melted plastic bag ‘performance plinth’ structure, re-filling it with foam. It’s going to take several more cans to fill it and I don’t know if it will work, but I’m happy to keep winging it, following my curiosity and intuition, and seeing what comes of it.

Glad to have the extra couple of months to continue to play before exhibiting and moving out and on.

Back in the studio, I felt a little disillusioned to be the only one there. It seems that the artists who are left on the residency are there when I’m not and we only see proof of each other’s existence by the changes to the space and progress on the art we’re all making.

I also was hating working with the concrete canvas and sick of my performance plinths which weren’t satisfying the part of me that wanted them to be made of marble or solid wood, or welded steel, rather than insulation foam, or melted plastic bags!

And I was itching to write, not online, not this blog, but freehand, literally putting pen to paper, in stream of consciousness style, emptying my brain of chatter and concerns, and doing it not just on a couple of sheets of A4, but directly onto the wall of my studio. I began, “Dear Diary,” and every time I went in to the studio, I wrote. I made it my mission to go in, even if I didn’t want to, whenever my schedule allowed. Since that’s didn’t turn out to be that often, I’ve only filled one large swathe of paper, and the option is there for me to fill 4 more, if I want to, time permitting.

It’s an exercise to get over this creative block I seem to have, a la ‘The Artists Way’ book (if you haven’t read it and done the exercises, keep it in the back of your mind for next time you feel ‘blocked’ – Ursula Martinez reminded me of it on the D.I.Y cabaret workshop I did with her at Soho Theatre several months back, and I recalled that the last time I did it, there followed one of the most prolific creative periods of my life). The wall writing might lead to other work or become the work in itself later on, if I’m brave enough to let it be read by complete strangers. I might decide to let it go down with the building, I might throw it in the skip, I might ritualistically burn it, I might exhibit it. I honestly don’t know. But writing it has helped clear whatever block I had to getting back to work on the performance plinth project that I started. And that’s not a bad thing, taking stock and consolidating what I’ve got so far, and finishing off what I set out to do at the beginning of this residency, and then set my attention to gathering it all together for a show at its end.

Having a kid in the studio to remind me of the fun these scuptures are meant to embody was supremely helpful, too! :D