Lesions in the Landscape, 2015. Shona Illingworth, installation view, FACT, Liverpool. Photo by Jon Barraclough.
A two day symposium exploring interactions between art and clinical practices, critical thinking and neuroscience takes place on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th October, 11.30am-6pm, at the Whitechapel Gallery, London E1 7QX.
Invisible Architectures: Lesions in the Landscape, organised by SMFA Director of Graduate Studies and Reader in Fine Art Shona Illingworth, with Jill Bennett, will focus on the idea of embodied experience across diverse individual, social, political, cultural and digital landscapes. The event brings together a range of speakers – from artists and writers to scientists, cultural theorists, historians and social psychologists – and is part of Lesions in the Landscape, a project exploring the impact of amnesia and the erasure of individual and cultural memory, and the wider implications of memory loss on identity, space and imagining the future.
Sessions will focus on case studies deploying creative methods to investigate amnesia; understanding the experience of memory loss; processes and consequences of cultural erasure; haunting in computational culture; aesthetics of control in technological mediation; latency; materiality and consciousness.
Invisible Architectures: Lesions in the Landscape is supported by the Wellcome Trust and the Sound, Image Space Research Centre, School of Music and Fine Art, University of Kent.
Linked to the symposium is Shona Illingworth’s exhibition which runs until 27 November at The Gallery, Dilston Grove, London SE16 2UA – for opening times go to http://cgplondon.org/lesions-in-the-landscape/
After a screening at Shambala Festival in August, acclaimed award-wining contemporary visual artist and School of Music and Fine Art Lecturer Adam Chodzko’s Deep Above will continue its tour at Manchester Science Festivalon October 22ndat Texture in Manchester’s Northern Quarter.
The work uses moving image and sound to explore, short-circuit and abstract our slippery self-deceptions regarding climate change. Exploring the zones between the rational and irrational, and mind and body, whilst adopting the languages of meditation, hypnosis and ‘self help’ he addresses the behavioural psychology analysed in George Marshall’s book Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change.
Deep Above is commissioned by Invisible Dust, advised by Adam Harris, experimental psychologist University College London and Paul Wilkinson, Environmental Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It has been part of Bristol European Green Capital and is produced in association with Watershed and Shambala Festival and is funded by an Arts Award from the Wellcome Trust.
Exhibiting internationally since 1991, Adam Chozko works across media, from video installation to subtle interventions, with a practice that is situated both within the gallery and the wider public realm. http://www.adamchodzko.com
Manchester Science Festival is running from Thursday 20th October to Sunday 30th October. For more info go to http://invisibledust.com/
Acclaimed award-wining contemporary visual artist and School of Music and Fine Art Lecturer, Adam Chodzko, is one of the exhibiting artists in Points of Departure (part of Estuary 2016) with a new commission as part of an ongoing project which will result in a video and sculpture installation in Tilbury Cruise Terminal. Estuary is a biennial arts festival celebrating the Thames Estuary from 17th September – 2nd October 2016. The artworks presented reflect themes of arrival, departure, migration, trade, connection and nationhood via the estuary out to the wider world.
His work Ghostis described thus: A kayak; a sculpture as vessel, coffin, bed, costume and camera rig. It is designed to ferry people to the ‘island of the dead’, with a rower at the back, and the passenger lying down low and flat in the front, like a body in a coffin with their head slightly raised, travelling along the interface between water and sky. A camera, mounted on Ghost’s deck, records each unique voyage, the passengers’ point of view, from across its bows.
The video archives from multiple journeys along four previous Ghost passages (The rivers Swale, Tamar, Tyne and Thames) here joins new video footage made this summer from the Essex Ghost voyages made by a group of estuarine insomniacs, to be shown alongside Ghost itself, held suspended in the Tilbury Cruise Terminal. Read the interview with Adam here.
Chodzko’s art explores the interactions and possibilities of human behaviour. Exhibiting internationally since 1991, he works across media, from video installation to subtle interventions, with a practice that is situated both within the gallery and the wider public realm. http://www.adamchodzko.com
Points of Departure runs from 17 – 30 September – 11am – 4pm daily (closed Sat 24 September) at the following venues:
Tilbury Cruise Terminal, Ferry Road, Tilbury RM18 7NG
LV21, Town Pier Pontoon, Gravesend DA11 0BJ
Gravesend High Street DA11 0BJ
Coalhouse Fort, Princess Margaret Road, Tilbury RM18 8PB
The opening night of the Tate Film series From Reel to Real: Women, Feminism and the London Film-makers’ Co-operative includes a screening of One and the Other Time, (1990), directed by award-winning artist Sarah Turner, Reader in Fine Art and Director of Research at the School of Music and Fine Art.
The work is being shown at Tate Modern on 23 September from 18.30-21.00 as part of Collapsing the Frame.
The filmmakers in this programme, which is supported by LUMA Foundation, FLUXUS and LUX, experiment with film structure in an attempt to collapse the frame within which women are confined, both cinematic and cultural. The screening is followed by an artist discussion moderated by the series curator Maud Jacquin.
Artist Shona Illingworth, Fine Art Reader and Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Music and Fine Art, currently has work in the exhibition States of Mind: Tracing the Edges of Consciousness at the Wellcome Collection, Euston Road, London. Running until October 16th, the exhibition features a series of installations that include Shona Illingworth’s Time Present, which considers the impact of amnesia and the erasure of individual and cultural memory.
Time Present, 2016. Image by Shona Illingworth
Recently shortlisted for the prestigious 2016 Jarman Award, the widely exhibited Illingworth works across sound, film, video, photography, drawing and painting. Major works using moving image and/or sound, take the form of gallery based and site specific installation. Her work combines interdisciplinary research (particularly with emerging neuropsychological models of memory and critical approaches to memory studies) with publicly engaged practice.
Time Present, 2016. Image by Shona Illingworth
Illingworth recently chaired and presented a seminar with Jill Bennett at ICOM (International Conference on Memory) in Budapest. Perspectives on Amnesia was an interdisciplinary investigation of memory loss, combining perspectives from arts and cognitive neuropsychology and the value of creative approaches in understanding the day-to-day experience of memory loss.
Claire was 44 years old when she awoke from a coma to find that she could no longer remember much of her past, form new memories or recognise faces (not even her own). She returned to a house she could not remember as home, where she no longer knew what anything was for or how to use the objects that surrounded her. She could not recognise her children, her husband or close friends and family. Claire describes the past as “a space you can’t enter or feel – the future a space you can’t imagine”.
Time Presentexplores the very different shape of Claire’s world, and the maps and lists that Claire creates in order to structure her thinking and to ground her in time and space.
This new work developed on from Illingworth’s project Lesions in the Landscape, builds on over four years of working with Claire, alongside cognitive psychologist Martin Conway and neuropsychologist Catherine Loveday. This collaboration has led to some unique phenomenological and neurobiological insights into amnesia. Illingworth explores Claire’s personal experience of amnesia alongside the cultural amnesia surrounding the depopulated Scottish island of St Kilda, located 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides in the North Atlantic. The last communities of St Kilda were evacuated at their own request in August 1930, ending 4000 years of habitation. A powerful analogy for the neurological experience of amnesia, this sudden interruption in human occupation of the island embodies the sense of lost connection with the past. St Kilda embodies a sense of isolation. The wild weather fronts that make access difficult ultimately precipitated the decision to depopulate. Similarly Claire lives with the perpetual isolation that comes with the loss of memory. Intelligent, warm and social, she works constantly to blend into situations that most of us take for granted, rarely able to draw on the comfort of knowing where she is, how she fits in, who and where her friends are.
The two screen installation explores the dynamic role memory plays in enabling us to move through time and space. It reveals the daily feat of creativity, determination and commitment that Claire undertakes against the odds, in order to give meaning and shape to her world and to maintain connections to her past, her future, her identity and to those that are important in her life.
Milo Meacham on the explosion site at Uplees”Listening”. Photo by Tim Meacham
An exhibition in Faversham about artists’ responses to artefacts, objects and events from the first World War will feature work by Tim Meacham, Lecturer in Fine Art and Partner College Liaison Officer from the School of Music and Fine Art – and he will be discussing his work with artist Sara Trillo at 2.30pm on Saturday 20 August.
Taking place at the Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre, Localism and Legacy, curated by Christine Gist for The Faversham Society, also features work by John Dargan, Colin Priest, Sara Trillo and Charles Williams. The exhibition will be open from Saturday 6 – Sunday 28 August 2016, and is supported by Swale Borough Council, School of Music and Fine Art, Ernest Cook Trust, Heritage Lottery Fund, and the National Lottery.
Tim Meacham’s piece, titled “ It was dust…” 1916-2016 , explores the explosions at the Cotton Powder Company works at Uplees near Faversham in April 1916. The resulting sound work is an impression of what would have been heard and felt in the town on Sunday the 2nd April 1916 from 1.30 pm onwards. The work is informed through research into archival material from a number of sources including elements held by the Fleur de Lis museum.
Tim explains: “The work explores the notion of trauma remaining in landscape after violent events and the possibility of an “acoustic memory” allowing one to “hear the past” in the present through the sounds of surviving material and artefacts. The piece is constructed from sounds gathered in the present at the Uplees site, both natural; grass, trees etc.. and human through touching or “playing” the remains of surfaces and structures. It also includes recordings made in Faversham town on 2nd April 2016
These collected sound fragments were then digitally layered and mixed to reconstruct the sound of the 1916 explosions including the deep echoing rumble which followed the initial blasts, which were heard as far away as Norwich. The reported effects of an acoustic shadow are also referenced which in the case of the Uplees blast was the result of a prevailing wind from the East, allowing the blasts to be heard many miles away.
“The easterly wind took the shock of the concussion away from Faversham and swept it over the marshes. It struck Sittingbourne, 7 miles away, with terrific force. It was felt at Chatham, 17 miles away where it blew open the doors of the Naval Barracks.” Digest of Daily Chronicle April 2nd 1916.
The people of Faversham were no strangers to explosions; the manufacture of gunpowder in the area dated back hundreds of years. However, the force and devastation of the Uplees event caused by high explosive as opposed to gunpowder, was certainly outside the experience of most civilians and many military personnel. Like the First World War itself, the event marked a move towards new technologies, previously unimaginable forces and ultimately the embracing of modernity and the world we live in today.
The images of the Uplees site, censored at the time, are as if part of the western front and the imminent horror of the Somme had been transferred to the East Kent marshes.”
Exhibition Venue: Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre, 10-13 Preston Street, Faversham, Kent ME13 8NS
Opening hours: Monday – Saturday 10.00-16.00 and Sunday 10.00-13.00.
Opening reception: Friday 5 August from 18.30-20.00
Sunday August 7th sees the launch celebration event for both the first public manifestation of the Stour Valley Creative Partnership (SVCP) and new student forest commissions in Kings Wood, Challock. Fine Art Students from both the School of Music and Fine Art and the University of Creative Arts have installed temporary installations in the forest.
SVCP, formed to continue the legacy of Stour Valley Arts which closed last year after 21 years due to Arts Council England funding cuts, is a new partnership between Kentish Stour Countryside Partnership, Ashford Borough Council, Forestry Commission, Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, University for the Creative Arts and the University of Kent.
Comments Diane Comley, Partnership Office for Kentish Stour Countryside Partnership: “We are holding this, our first public event, as we want to celebrate achieving most of our first goal to secure the legacy of SVA. University students from both UCA and UoK’s School of Music & Fine Art have been visiting the woods and 4 new sculptures have been created to be on display over the summer. Please come and join us to celebrate these new beginnings and this wonderful resource.”
Tim Meacham, Lecturer in Fine Art and Partner College Liaison Officer from the School of Music and Fine Art, who will represent SMFA and the Ian Bride School of Anthropology & Conservation said: “The partnership continues the long standing relationship between the University and Kings Wood forest, ensuring that students from a variety of disciplines like fine art, architecture and anthropology, will continue to benefit from the extension of their studies and the opportunity for public engagement which activities in the forest offer.”
The event is on Sunday August 7th from 11am – 2pm, Kings Wood, Challock, Kent.
Thursday 14 July saw the first Arts Fundraising Camp in Medway at the Historic Dockyard Chatham. Organised by Fundraising UK Ltd and hosted by the University of Kent’s School of Music & Fine Art, this event for arts fundraisers was a fantastic opportunity for local and regional arts professionals and fundraisers to learn, share good practice and network.
The sun was shining at the atmospheric location, with attendees travelling from across Kent and London from a diverse range of organisations and fundraising professionals.
Howard Lake, organiser and director for Fundraising UK commented: “It was a pleasure to see so much fundraising experience being shared amongst arts and culture fundraisers at Fundraising Camp at the University of Kent in Medway. And to see so many new contacts being made. Informal and practical events like this do seem to be an effective and enjoyable way of spreading fundraising ideas, especially if you’re a sole fundraiser or about to embark on a major fundraising campaign”.
On Sunday, 24 July 2016, 1pm-5pm, at London based No.W.Here Arts Ltd, a one-day symposium called Fictitious Capital has been organised by School of Music and Fine Art Senior Lecturer and Director of Programmes (Fine Art and Event & Experience Design), Dr Andrew Conio. A writer and video artist, Dr Conio is also one of the speakers at the event, which examines the economic forces behind the decimation of artist and community spaces in the East End.
“Fictitious capital” was defined by Marx as non-productive capital that circles the world at infinite speed in the form of hedge-funds and derivatives that vampire-like suck the value out of labour and production.
Other speakers include Dave Beech, artist, writer and Professor of Art at Valad Academy in Gothenburg; Anca Carrington, economist, psychoanalyst and editor of the book Money as Emotional Currency; and Dr Emily Rosamond, Canadian artist, writer and educator, and previously a lecturer at the School of Music and Fine Art, University of Kent.
No.W.Here is a performance, residency and project space, film production studio resource and gallery in Bethnal Green. After a (fictitious) price of £3.5m was placed on the building by the owners they have successfully achieved Asset Of Community Value status and this event is part of their campaign to retain one of London’s most important arts spaces.
No.W.Here Arts Ltd – 316-318 Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 0AG
Our Host Postponed the Drinks Until After the Storm, Shimizu Ken’ichi 2015.
Acclaimed contemporary visual artist and School of Music and Fine Art Lecturer, Adam Chodzko is one of a group of 26 artists and estates selected by DACS Foundation to participate in the Art360 project – a hugely ambitious public project to support the sustainability and dynamism of artists’ profiles for future generations. Artists were chosen by a selection panel comprised of Art360 artist Liliane Lijn and artists Thomson & Craighead and Simon Callery, along with DACS CEO Gilane Tawadros.
DACS Foundation promotes visual arts for the public benefit by making grants, providing education and training, organising exhibitions and carrying out vital research. Dedicated to the physical and intellectual preservation of the UK’s cultural heritage, making artistic works and archives accessible to today’s public and to future generations, the Foundation champions a new and encompassing perspective on the value of visual art and artists to society through public participation in education, exhibitions, publications and research opportunities. dacsfoundation.org.uk
The total £200,000 award made to artists includes direct investment in each of the artists with additional investment in the production of film interviews, directed by artist and filmmaker David Bickerstaff. Over the course of three years, the action research project will work with 100 modern and contemporary artists offering each artist or estate up to £6,000 investment in obtaining the best technical services and expert advice that is relevant to their circumstances and requirements to begin securing the material and ephemeral aspects of their legacy.
Says Chodzko, “I am currently solely responsible for my own archive. I can’t delegate it to someone else because I need to be present for every aspect of its cataloguing in order to ensure the accuracy, relationships and significance of its parts through how they connect to the whole body of work.”
Chodzko’s art explores the interactions and possibilities of human behaviour. Exhibiting internationally since 1991, Chodzko works across media, from video installation to subtle interventions, with a practice that is situated both within the gallery and the wider public realm.
