studio space available

unit11studios crit on 6.30pm 20th January 2015

subjects :

1. report back / learning points from halina’s show at picture house Southampton November 2014.
2. absorbing new influences – some comments and learning points after malcolm’s trip to india.

 

halina gave an account of her recent show at the picture house. generally a great success with a well attended private view, lots of interest and good level of sales. very pleased especially because it was her first art show with an almost unique theme.

 

• discussion before the show and comments from unit11 members was very useful.
• given that the work illustrated aspects of micro biology (in a rather unique way using fabrics and hand made felt) a key issue was the value of the work as an artistic image as opposed to its value as an illustration of something living seen through a microscope. captions and explanation was ultimately included and felt to be appropriate given levels of interest in this aspect.
• take all materials needed with you when the show is being set up otherwise delays occur while materials are purchased. picture house space should have chairs and tables removed to allow space for hanging and private view.
• provide a comments book and make it easy to indentify. include space for email addresses.
• on pricing – get all the costs and make sure they are included. don’t sell yourself short.
• wine and nibbles important at private view.
• website important to support your show and provide info to interested parties.
• provide flyers in advance to create interest and help explanation.
• get a good photographer to create images of the work and make a record of the private view.
• get advertising right and undertake well in advance of the shows start date.
• think about commissions and how to respond to requests.

 

malcolm talked briefly about his trip to india in November 2014 and showed a few images he considered might influence his artistic practice. malcolm’s work already draws on travels abroad and incorporates dramatic and subtle reflections of seeing different places and people. there was discussion as to how new influences are absorbed as his work progresses.

 

• consider, research (if necessary) and discuss influences and impressions but stay ‘cool’ about the work. past experience shows that influences manifest themselves in different ways. there is no point in forcing things.
• there are two kinds of impressions. the first is about the visual. people, streets, architecture, colour. particular things such as a chaos of wires, piles of litter, land forms, camels…..the taj mahal, which might appear in work in as yet undefined ways. Also emotional reactions for example to the human condition in a very different place, to sights of wealth or poverty, to religious devotions (ganges at varanasi), and to conversations with people while away and afterwards.
• so, its just About waiting and seeing. Colours Are already changing in recent paintings. there are hints of india already!

‘support’ joint exhibition with the arches @ orb gallery 29th nov – 14th dec

unitllstudios and The Arches are pleased to announce the inaugural exhibition of their collaborative project ‘Support’. Taking place at the newly opened Orb Gallery on Northam Road, the show will run from 30th November – 14th December with a private view on Saturday 29th November, 6-8pm.

Over the past few months unitllstudios and The Arches have been exploring how to support the development of individual practice and the contribution this makes to the local artistic community as a whole. Support began with both studio groups committing to attend fortnightly critiques of each other’s work and to an on going conversation about how this could assist in the realisation of a group exhibition. Intended as a long-term collaborative project the aim was to develop a working relationship between the artists and studios located less than two miles apart. What results is an interrogation of support structures and the necessity to bring creative practice to finite conclusions.

Participating artists: Scott Bradley, Malcolm Crocker, Christopher Cudlip, Jilly Evans, Sarah Filmer, Lydia Heath, Celeste Ingrams, Liz Jones, Helen Marland, Pauline Pratt & Steve White.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

The Arches, located under the historic Central Bridge in Southampton, is one of many creative projects run by a space arts, offering local artists affordable studio space and assistance since 2004.
10 & 08 Captains Place, Terminus Terrace, Southampton
S014 3FE, http://www.archesstudios.org.uk, Tel: 023 80 338 778

Orb Gallery is a new contemporary art gallery, located on the historic Old Northam Road in Southampton, at the heart of Southampton’s grassroots cultural quarter. 90 Old Northam Road, St Marys, Southampton, SO14 0NZ
http://www.orbartgallery.wordpress.com, Tel: 07922 911 591

Support opens at Orb Gallery with a Private View on Friday 29th November, 6-8pm. The show will continue until Sunday 14th December. Gallery opening hours are Friday 3-7pm, Saturday & Sunday 12-4pm. 20% of all sales will go towards the newly formed Artists Union England. http://www.artistsunionengland.org.uk

what do we call ribbon people when we draw them?

‘hi – you don’t know us, but we did this (show pics of ribbon people on hoardings) – please can we come and take all the pictures off your cafe walls, and draw on them?’

‘yes’

‘in chocolate?’

‘yes’

‘and draw in pen and electrical tape on the inside and outside of your windows?’

‘yes’

‘there might be ukuleles’

‘great’

that is how open-minded and accommodating spencer and jade, of mettricks tea and coffee house, were. i think this already sits them apart from the average coffee house, as does the most delicious coffee and tea.

we spent a really lovely relaxed (ok, slightly frantic) sunday morning there, and revisited the ribbon people in a new format. obviously, this process was a development from the original guerrilla ribbon people – with them, we move in, do our work, and move out – no expectation of longevity, no time to think. the materials dictate the form and the aesthetic of the resulting people. this time we had a think in advance and devised a few ‘guidelines’ in an attempt to keep the relationships between the people apparent … or something. anyway, when the time came, we all did our thing, and here are some of the results:

and here is a video of proceedings  https://vimeo.com/85846036

unit11studios visit the site of southampton’s new arts centre

the ribbon people are back. 56 of them grace the hoardings around the building site of southampton’s new arts centre, collected and imaged by 4 unit11studios artists and a couple of other staple gun wielding helpers during a couple of cold and rainy hours on sunday afternoon. this time, they are rendered in videotape and wool – the intention being to respond to the large white ‘paper’ with something like a pen/pencil drawing of passers-by.

one early participant later reported on facebook that ‘I just eschewed consumerism and was instead immortalised in wool. WIN.’

once again, it was clear that this is a great way to interact with people in a novel way – we do not have to coerce, beg, ask, or even suggest to people that they become subjects – they see what is going on and they flock – wanting to be part of this drawing, this testament to their being, and this group of disparate individuals – joined by place and time and line. in short, wanting to be part of a visible community. each drawing takes up to 15 minutes, during which time, we are up close and personal, meeting and talking to each person we image. it is a joy.

thanks to all friends who came and helped with photography, drawing and emergency requirements, and, of course, to all who stopped and became part of this rather beautiful drawing.

 

 

 

 

post script – added one week later by sarah filmer:

this is how the hoarding looked less than 24 hours later:

 

from about 10.30 am onwards throughout monday i received countless messages on multiple platforms reporting that one of the construction company workers was removing the work from the hoarding. several intrepid sorts spoke directly with both him, and the site manager. under instruction from the client, the construction company were keeping the hoardings ‘clean’.

when we leave ribbon people, we leave our contact details in the form of our business cards. we appreciate that we are operating in a hinterland between legal and illegal, acceptable and unacceptable. we take responsibility for this by proclaiming these works as ours.  an ongoing theme in recent unit11studios collaborative works is the notion of negotiating boundaries. these boundaries might be physical, philosophical, metaphorical … but negotiation is negotiation. and leaving our card is an invitation to dialogue. an invitation to reconsider a situation, once the parameters have shifted slightly …

the hoardings became the canvas for a work. let’s talk about what we do now.

 

we can only talk for ourselves, but we were not alone, and we have heard no conflicting responses, so i might take a slight liberty and say:

many felt that the astoundingly rapid response to the ribbon people was thoughtless, destructive, inflammatory, aggressive, ridiculous, and without basis in anything sensible, logical or rational – it felt like an assertion of power.

 

whilst this was keenly felt, we take a position that all of these events have something positive to offer:

– removing the work did not unmake the art, the moment, the joy, the pleasure, or the genuine moments experienced by all of those involved – artists, participants, viewers alike.

– southampton’s everyperson loved the work. once again, it was shown that southampton has an art soul that explodes out when offered the opportunity

– the voices of support, outrage and empathy rang loud and clear and wide – direct approaches to the guys removing the work, twitter campaigns to councillors, emails to grovesnor, mclaren and southampton city council, bloggers chimed in, someone went the following evening and drew a dot-to-dot using the staple holes as guides, a poem was written, a letter was posted on the board in (ironic) response, and facebook and twitter were aflame with indignation. thanks to you all – you know who you are

– we have been approached by the developers of the site – we are planning to meet and discuss future art projects. inevitably, there are layers of bureaucracy enmeshed with this approach, but any dialogue that explores the potential of different groups working together has to be ripe with possibility. we are seriously considering our position with regard to how we choose to work in advance of this meeting … again, an occurrence that necessitates serious self reflection and clarification of mode of practice, context of practice and potential manifestations of practice is a gift. as an artist, it is easy to avoid these issues once you are outwith an educational framework.

i made this video about the beauty of the day, using the words of matt west, southampton’s children’s poet laureate who was moved to respond to the temporary invasion of guildhall square by some of southampton’s citizens:

sarah filmer – ribbon people

 

here are some links to other responses  (and these are just the tip of the iceberg)

http://louizahamidi.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/ribbon-people/

grant sharkey types a letter to the draconians

the letter

matt west’s poem

louise owen’s quiz

 

so unit11studios says thank you to everyone for their generosity of spirit, cementing this ephemeral beauty into the art history of our city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Open Studios

So we are opening our doors to everybody who would fancy having a look around our space full creativeness in progress. As an excuse to be nosy and help us discover our space in a new way, we ask people to take close-up pictures while they are visiting the studios. In fact, I (Léa) will be starting a photo workshop in September and I thought this was a pleasant way of speaking about it, starting with pictures of details taken in the studes, then writing a small text about the importance of details in the history of Art (available soon 🙂 ). Everybody was quite enthusiastic and I thank them for the billions of pictures I have now! I edited some for this post. Maybe you couldn’t visit us, in this case, here it is a special tour pictured by our visitors. Maybe you did visit us and will try to remember where all these details where! We had a great time discovering the photos this morning!
Enjoy! (Although I’m trying hard, I guess I’m not perfectly literate in English and I apologise for any mistakes I may have made:) )

southampton open studios trail 2013

we are excited to invite you to the second annual ‘southampton open studios trail’

“All that we make and do is shaped by the communities and traditions that contain us, not to mention by money, power, politics, and luck. And even should the artist or scientist think she as extracted herself from the world to stand alone in the studio, a tremendous array of faculties and mind-states may well attend her creativity.”
― Lewis Hyde, Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership

we will be opening our doors to the public on august 17th, 18th and 24th to share with you the internal workings of unit11studios and our resident artists. there will be a small ‘artist’s book’ exhibition. the studios will be tidied up a little, but will be working spaces, with many of our artists present and available for you to speak to, ask about their work, and perhaps even discuss prices, should anything grab your eye …

            

with your help, we will be developing a large participatory outdoor chalk drawing during both the 17th and 18th august. there will also be taster sessions of the workshop programme which we will be offering in the autumn – why not come along and get hands on.

the southampton open studios trail is a route that takes in 4 studio organisations: unit11studios, red hot press, the arches, and tower house – between the four locations, southampton’s diverse and interesting creative spectrum can be found.

maps can be found on our paper flyer – look out for one around the city, or head to fairways house, where we are located – if you start off here, we can furnish you with directions to the other venues.

we look forward to seeing you.

the blue hoarding

some of you will remember the pink hoarding. this is unit11studios’ follow up from that one, and our lead in to many others. we had completely forgotten how much fun it is to do, and what a joyful experience it is to grab people off the street and immortalise them in ribbon. thanks so much to all those who stopped and were imaged – passers-by were encouraging, enthusiastic and smiley – there are currently 49 ribbon people.

it is not purely decorative hedonism,however, with some possible rationales as follows:

1. the hoarding has been partly decorated in a slick way …. maybe this needed a little antidote
2. the turquoise is really lush and will be a lovely foil for the array of ribbon colours that we have
3. the new arts centre currently has no strategy or program that bears in mind the amazing grass roots arts culture that perfuses this town … we might like them to notice that unit11studios are around in a more imaginative way than the dryness of the odd meeting ….
4. at unit11studios, we are artists – this was real, and public facing and immediate and exciting
5. southampton ukulele jam’s 5th annual christmas cabaret took place on the sunday eve following our saturday frolicks (did i mention that they raised £750 for macmillan cancer support and southampton’s own society of st james …. ) and a couple of ukers came down and did a little impromptu gig and flyering …. two grass rooters together …

having decorated the hoarding, we then had to decide whether or not to take responsibility for it – when dancing along this line of benign illegality, one has a decision to make. on our collective endorphin high, we gaily added unit11studios contact cards to the outstretched hands of the ribbon people. so far, no repercussions …..