Students from the MA in Curating, run by the Department of Art History, will open a new exhibition entitled ‘Catching Flies’, on Friday 7 June 2019 at the Studio 3 Gallery at the University of Kent.
‘Catching Flies’ will be an immersive exhibition exploring the theme of distractions. It will raise the questions; what are the consequences of being constantly distracted? Can we function efficiently whilst simultaneously being distracted? How much does the omnipresent internet have to do with this and is a lot of what we see on the subject scaremongering? How great of an escape do distractions provide? And, is it even possible to find respite in such frenzy?
Each artwork in the exhibition explores different narratives surrounding the theme of distractions, whether it is in regards to the distractions we face through social media, the use of art as a distraction from reality or simply a musician being distracted from his practice.
Vanessa Giorgo, who is studying on the MA in Curating, explained the background: ‘This exhibition is the result of the collaborative and team effort of four Curating students, each one coming from completely different backgrounds, who managed to raise the issues regarding technology and aesthetics, and how habitual these have become within our collective consciousness.’
Elaborating on the theme of the exhibition, she said: ‘The invention of the Internet has been the one of the epochal shifts of late modernity. Its social, cultural and economic advantages? Immense. Children born after the new millennium cannot even imagine their life without it. Everything is made so easy, just with the touch of a keyboard and the hidden search algorithm. However, the Internet can also be something frustrating, distracting, something dark. Being part of the last generation which experienced the initial stages of our lives without the Internet, all four of us as a group have observed the differences of lives lived before and after.’
The artists featured in the exhibition will include: Alexander Benjamin, Maria Bogatyreva, Megan Boyle, Flora Bradwell, Benedict Drew, Martyna Pisorkz, Cristián Fernández Ocampo, Michal Raz, Connor Sansby, Ross Sinclair, Orfeo Taguiri and Magdalena Zoledz. The resulting collection will include an array of artworks from historic prints to video art, mixed media canvases and Social Media art.
‘This exhibition would not have been possible without the invaluable contribution of our artists,’ said Vanessa.
The exhibition will be open on Mondays-Fridays, 9am to 5pm, and will run until 31 July 2019.
There is an Instagram page for the exhibition here
