Staying Home

Just in the depths of the busiest week bringing the app together but my side of things in terms of handing over the content is almost done… I just hope that what seems to make sense to me, actually makes sense in app form…

Here’s the poster and press release…

Artefacts from Forgotten Places

An exhibition by artist Christina Bryant in collaboration with Townhouse Creative

Letchworth Arts Centre, Cafe Gallery

3 – 27 June 2014

“Letchworth Arts Centre is pleased to present Artefacts from Forgotten Places, an interactive exhibition by artist Christina Bryant in collaboration with local business, Townhouse Creative.

The exhibition will bring together a collection of finds for display, originally excavated as part of the Hidden Landscapes Project in 2013 and will focus on the idea of the found object as contemporary artefact. Through the use of proximity based technology (iBeacons) and a free downloadable app the objects will be presented as a catalyst for imaginary encounters and artistic exploration of the more mysterious and wild places within the Garden City landscape. The free Artefacts app will allow an audience to interact and unearth a series of hidden layers of information and illustrations as they explore the gallery and the objects on display, using their own personal smartphones.

This exhibition examines further the fascinating use of the officialdom of archaeological language as a device for unearthing the lost, ignored or forgotten within our present day landscape and can be thought of as a kind of museum of the marginal, searching out the objects and people that end up or are pushed to the edges of a town.

Please join us on Wednesday 4th June from 6.30 pm, for a special event where you can meet both the artist and Townhouse Creative (the brains behind the technology) to view the exhibition and discuss the ideas, development and application involved in creating it.

Bryant graduated from the University of Hertfordshire in 2004 and completed her MA in 2011 at Wimbledon College of Art. Her year long ACE funded research and development project, Hidden Landscapes ran until Aug 2013. More details of the project and its findings can be viewed on the website www.hiddenlandscapesproject.wordpress.com“

Currently leading up to the ‘Artefacts from Forgotten Places’ exhibition and working on five new drawings. These are quite different from previous artefact drawings and can be described more as illustrations. I’ve decided to do them entirely on the computer using a graphics tablet. This is a first for me but as they will be shown purely in digital format, I felt it was the most natural choice of medium. I love the clean separation of it, for this particular purpose.

These drawings will be archaeological style reconstructions, imagined through my findings from the sites that I studied for the Hidden Landscapes Project last year. Bringing the findings to this point is quite poignant. A chance to depict a series of scenarios and characters, that exist inside my head, in the most direct way yet. Deliberately, they are buried within an app and will be viewed only on smartphones and other such personal devices. It felt like the most appropriate way of displaying them.

They will be attached virtually to an artefact and made available to view through the free app that will accompany the exhibition.

There are a lot of unknowns. It is a first for Townhouse, whom I am collaborating with and a complete first for me. Relying on technology so heavily for an exhibition is likely to give me some serious jitters but having the knowledge and capabilities made available is such a great opportunity. Having these opportunities to experiment and work with professionals from areas I am practically clueless about is one of the things I really do love about being an artist. It sometimes feels like everyday is work-experience day!