Art in my luggage

Just back from installing Stowage at the Barnaby Festival in Macclesfield. It's been an interesting challenge to take a show developed for a series of active retail premises in Exeter and re-make it for a single disused shop at the other end of the country. But Stowage was designed to be portable, so it's finally realised its full potential.

It was a busy few days, but we managed to fit in a flying visit to another Barnaby visual arts show: Save Us at Christ Church. Curated by Karen Gaskill, it features work by artists with links to Macclesfield, including Ian Davenport, David Shrigley, Nick Crow & Ian Rawlinson, as well as Stowage artists Hilary Jack and Ben Cook.

Stowage Shackleton & Sons, 2-4 Church Street, Macclesfield SK11 6LB until 2 July 2010
Save Us Christ Church, Bridge Street, Macclesfield SK11 6EG until 4 July 2010 (see website for opening times)

You, me and the rest of the world

Networking outside of Devon has been a big thing for me this year. I love living in the South West but, at a grass-roots level, it can be very inward-looking. So, in 2009, I got together with fellow Exeter artist Felicity Shillingford to find ways to strengthen links with practitioners in other parts of the country.

First up was Stowage, a chance for South West and North West artists to exhibit together in Exeter and Macclesfield, curated by the two of us. Then, along came an invite to help develop Nexus, an exhibition specifically about artists' networks, dreamt up by Exeter Phoenix curator Matt Burrows.

He wants to show the way Exeter connects with other locations via artists networks and has asked four local artists to invite two artists each to exhibit alongside us - one from the SW region, one from outside.

It's been hard to choose just two, but I decided to pick Rupert White, from Cornwall, who I made a connection with fairly recently via my art writing...and Sally Barker (Yorkshire via London), who emailed me out of the blue about four years ago, also on the back of a review I wrote.

Their work interests me in different ways. Rupert's seems to have strong points of connection with the nature/culture theme that's emerging for the show, while Sally builds models and other objects that often refer to landscape and/or the power structures surrounding artists.

My fellow contributors/selectors for Nexus are Felicity Shillingford, Volkhardt Muller and Francis Ives.

Nexus 16 July - 1 September, Exeter Phoenix, Gandy Street, Exeter EX4 3LS

Photos from 'Flown' at Greenway