The SMFA students from the remaining two undergraduate years and the final MA year worked collaboratively as a group together with students and staff at the Paris Centre to make and exhibit new work in response to theme and site. This has included a performance involving cheese and a derivé exploring the city around the centre.
Peter Brown commented: “It has all been going exceptionally well. There was an excellent turn-out for the Menteur launch and Medway students did the event proud with their own ‘set’ that was very well received. Thank you for enhancing our activities with your excellent students! “
Commented Year 2 BA Fine Art student Kevin Hadimadja: “The Paris trip was an amazing and enjoyable experience! Thank you very much for giving this opportunity to present my artwork as well as surrounding myself with great people. It has opened my eyes in the sense of interaction and collaborative thinking into not just the art but the journey through it.”
On Saturday 2nd June, SMFA students featured in a large-scale, outdoor screening of artists’ films and video projected on the exterior wall of The Old Neptune Pub, Marine Terrace, Whitstable, facing the seafront. Presented by 51zero/voyager at Whitstable Biennale as part of the Decreation international festival of moving image and digital arts Touring Programme. The event ran from 9.30pm – 11.30pm.
Many of the participating artists have taken part in international art Biennials, and were showcased alongside emerging talent selected from open calls and SMFA Fine Art students, including graduates Rose Sizer and Nicola Baxter, and Alfie Killick (Little-Blood) (3rd Year), Jordan Colbert (3rd Year), Constanza Marques Guedes (3rd Year), Olu Taiwo (MA)
Drawing in the snow at dockyard during MA. Photo by Gaz Bray
Matt Bray is a practising artist, freelance curator and arts consultant, who graduated from SMFA in 2012 with an MA Fine Art. He co-founded the Medway Print Festival, which is running until 24th June at present, and multimedia group exhibition Sick! More at www.mattbrayarts.com
Studio shot with work from ’Sick!’ exhibition. Photo by Rikard Österlund.
Matt kindly took time out from his busy schedule to chat with SMFA’s Marketing & Communications Officer, Jane Seaman.
How did your time at Kent prepare or equip you for the role you have now?
My time at Kent equipped me with a far richer understanding of contemporary art and its relationship to the longer stream of art history. That has afforded me a more nuanced understanding of both my own work and the work of others, allowing me to curate more mature and interesting shows, and I’ve developed confidence in my abilities as an artist and curator as a result.
What does your job involve? Is there a typical day?
There are no typical days. Networking is key though, so I can often be spotted having coffee with artists and gallerists (tough life I know). Funding is the least glamorous and most important element of putting exhibitions and festivals together, so that is something I have had to learn on the job – how is the project going to be funded? Arts Council? Local council? Paid by the artists? Somehow it needs to be paid for and that requires good clear ideas and being able to articulate those ideas well. Once funding is secured the rest of the project is normally plain sailing to a large degree.
What kind of opportunities offered at Kent were especially beneficial for your career development?
Putting on the degree show was obviously a pretty important experience, and it was such a great place to host an exhibition.
What have you been doing since graduating?
Since graduating I have been in the studio whenever possible, I have also been running several key projects like ‘Sick!’ and ‘Medway Print Festival’, both of which have been very successful and I have been lucky enough that the people I run those with are very good friends, so although it can be very hard work sometimes, it is always super fun.
What would you recommend to anyone wanting to follow in your footsteps?
If anyone wants to get involved in curation, then the only real advice I can offer is to put shows on. My first exhibition was in a bookshop with my buddy. You can start small if need be, but just put shows on, as often as possible, of your own work or other people’s, it doesn’t matter. You will learn so much from every show – like anything else, the more you do it, the more you will learn. Before you know it, the shows will have become quite sophisticated and you will have made all the obvious mistakes which you can then learn to avoid.
What is your favourite memory of studying at Kent?
Probably my favourite memory of my time at Kent was meeting my mate Billy Childish, who had a studio in the dockyard too and taught me a lot about being a painter.
What are your plans for the future?
I’d like to create the Medway Biennial.
Who or what inspires you?
My parents.
Thanks, Matt.
You can catch the Medway Print Festival until 24th June. Now in its 3rd year, the festival celebrates printmaking and fine art in Medway, with over 40 events and activities to showcase some of the best printmaking being created today as well as highlighting the fascinating local history of the medium. More http://medwayprintfestival.com/
Screenshot of KMTV interview with mural by SMFA BA Fine Art student Lalita Bailey in the background – the mural is a community collaboration with young people in Medway.
School of Music and Fine Art students Olu Taiwo (MA Fine Art) and Lynn Smith (BA Fine Art) were interviewed live on KMTV to talk about their 2018 degree shows. They spoke movingly about the value of art in today’s society. To see the interview click here: https://bit.ly/2IHUAJ3
Lynn Smith’s work explores nature and the spirit of place, investigating the landscape through sculpture, and using traditional craft within fine art.
Olu Taiwo’s work is concerned with memory – how we access and discard memories – experienced through his immersive art.
The annual SMFAPostgraduate Presentations take place Wednesday 23rd May in the Galvanising Shop Performance Space at the campus on the Historic Dockyard Chatham. The Postgraduate Presentations are an excellent opportunity for SMFA to celebrate the successes of our postgraduates and the contribution they make to the life, work and academic community of the School.
The day will run from 10:30am – 3pm (approx. finishing time) and includes a range of presentations from students studying Music and Fine Art MA and PhD programmes, as well as a participatory tour of one of a Fine Art Degree Show piece from one of our MA Fine Art students.
The schedule is below:
10.40 Alan Stumpenhuson-Payne
PhD Music (Research) Canterbury Calling
11:00 Richard Lightman,
PhD Music and Technology Mediating Culture from the Producers View: Cultural Mediation between music producers.
11:30 Georgios Kyriakakis
PhD Music and Technology Terpsichore: A Software Music Interface for People with Mental Disabilities on the Autism Spectrum
12:00 Moyra Derby
PhD Fine Art Cross Cuts and Edits: Pictorial Attention Captured, Segmented and Dispersed
12:20 Lunch – Galvanising Shop Café
13:15 Michael Bonner
PhD Music (Research) How To Hit Yourself On The Head With A Mallet Safely
13:45 Andrea Hepworth
MA Music (Research) Music-evoked Autobiographical Memories (MEAMs) and the relationship to Nostalgia
13:55 Deborah Abbott
MA Fine Art The Portrayal of Disability in Art: Brain Matters
14:20 Olu Taiwo
MA Fine Art Access Memories 2 – Degree Show Artwork Tour
Olu will meet the audience at 14:10 in the Galvanising Shop Performance Space and take them to his Degree Show artwork. The tour of the piece starts at 14:20. Please contact mfapgradmin@kent.ac.uk for information on the location of the artwork if you are intending to go there directly for 14:20.
There will be an opportunity for the audience to ask questions after each presentation and a lunch will be provided for presenting students and audience members at which further discussion can take place.
As part of Whitstable Biennale’s partnership with The Ash Project, SMFA Fine Art Lecturer and acclaimed artist Adam Chodzko is hosting the Ash Walk on Saturday 25th August from 2-4pm. He will lead a walk into the near future as part of a funeral procession for some of the UK’s last remaining ash trees.
https://www.theashproject.org.uk/ is a cultural response to ash dieback in the Kent Downs, celebrating the cultural, natural and social history of the ash tree, to present a series of artists’ walks in 2018 through ash landscapes in Kent, encouraging study and providing an intimate, conversational way to explore the landscapes.
An award winning artist, Adam Chodzko uses a wide range of media including video, installation and performance. His work is characterised by a keen curiosity, exploring the interactions and possibilities of human behaviour – the gap between how we are and how we could be. With a few surprises in store for walkers, along the way, this walk promises to be stimulating, interactive and surprising. The walk is FREE but needs to be booked in advance. To book go to https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-ash-walks-adam-chodzko-tickets-44858540101
SMFA Fine Art Lecturer and acclaimed artist Adam Chodzko is one of 13 artists commissioned to create permanent integrated artworks for the three new acres of public realm next to the River Thames. Art on the Tideway is an ambitious public art programme for London, inviting leading contemporary artists to meaningful connect with London’s past and future as the tunnel is built. With over fifty temporary and permanent commissions, it challenges artists to animate new environments and create engaging interventions for the city’s diverse audiences, marking the River Thames as a new cultural venue.
Liz Moran, Director of Arts & Culture, University of Kent
The School of Music and Fine Art presents the 2018 Graduation Shows for Fine Art and Event and Experience Design at the University of Kent, Medway, Historic Dockyard Chatham which celebrate the creative work and achievements of our talented students. The Fine Art show is We Are Here: 51°23’44.3″N 0°31’42.5″E… with the Event and Experience Design Showcase titled Fusion.
This year, we are delighted that the guest speaker for the opening preview on Saturday May 19th, 1pm – 6pm, will be Liz Moran, the University of Kent’s Director of Arts & Culture.
Comments Liz: “Kent is very fortunate to have such inspirational and creative students supported by an incredibly talented and respected staff team. I look forward to the exhibition which I have no doubt will challenge, provoke, excite, surprise and demonstrate that despite challenging times young artists prove the arts are very much alive, vibrant and thriving.”
Liz began her career working with young people in Scotland and witnessed the transformative effect that engaging with the arts has when and if young people have the opportunity. Following this, she became the first Director of the new Paisley Arts Centre which opened with artist and playwright John Byrne’s trilogy The Slab Boys. In 1991 she became Director of the MacRobert Arts Centre in Stirling and embarked on a major capital development to extend and develop the building all designed by young people working in partnership with the Architect. This included a new state of the art cinema and children and young people’s gallery space called Arthouse. Liz became Director of Gulbenkian in 2011 initiating the ART31 project designed to empower children and young people to have a voice and greater access to creative opportunities and bOing! International Family Festival. In 2014 Gulbenkian became a National Portfolio Organisation with Arts Council England. In 2017 she became the University’s first Director of Arts and Culture and her plans include an International Festival of Dangerous Ideas in 2019.
SMFA Fine Art Senior Lecturer and acclaimed artist, Adam Chodzko, is featured in Groundwork – a festival season of exceptional international contemporary art in Cornwall from 5th May through to September. With an emphasis on moving image, sound and performance, the programme of exhibitions and events in 2018 includes presentations of important new commissions and acclaimed works by internationally celebrated artists in venues and outdoor sites across West Cornwall. You can experience Adam’s work 5-7th May at St Anthony-in-Meneage, Helston and the waters of the Helford River. http://groundwork.art/programme/adam-chodzko/
Adam Chodzko’s iconic vessel Ghost will be taking passengers on voyages on Gillan Creek, near Manaccan on the Lizard peninsula, during Groundwork’s launch weekend. Ghost is a hand-made wooden kayak fabricated from hundreds of strips of different woods and is both a vessel and a sculptural object. First exhibited in the Whitstable Biennale in 2010, it has since travelled along the River Medway and the River Tamar, through The Olympic Park, London, along the Tyne and in creeks through Essex. In each location members of the public are carried in a reclining position, in a state between waking and sleeping, their passage recorded by a camera mounted on the boat’s prow.
Using a wide range of media, including video, installation, photography, drawing and performance, Adam Chodzko’s work focuses on our relationships to life’s edges, endings, displacements, transitions, disappearances and in-between states and often involves looking in the ‘wrong’ place or in the ‘wrong’ way to discover productive mis-readings and to propose alternative realities.
Fine Art Lecturer and acclaimed artist Adam Chodzko is featured in the exhibition of films commissioned from shortlisted artists by Channel 4 as part of Film London Jarman Award: A Journey Through the First Decade at London’s Whitechapel Gallery 2 from 15th May – 10th June.
The Film London Jarman Award was named in honour of visionary artist/filmmaker Derek Jarman, and since 2008, has celebrated the creative spirit of artists working today, rewarding challenging and innovative work and helping to establish the place of the moving image within the art world.
Adam Chodzko lives and works in Whitstable and has exhibited extensively in international solo and group exhibitions and projects including: Tate St Ives; Museo d’Arte Moderna, Bologna; Athens Biennale; Istanbul Biennale; Venice Biennale; Deste Foundation, Athens; PS1, New York; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Kunstmuseum Lucerne; Creative Time, New York; Hayward Gallery, London and Tate Britain.
