Looking inward and looking outward

Finding the common threads in our practice, Gabrielle Hoad with Amy Shelton and Bettina Amtag   Preston Street Union  | Photo: Martyn Windsor/Spacex

Exeter is an isolated city that tends towards the parochial. It needs an outward-facing, internationally focused contemporary art gallery -- far more than it needs another local arts organisation. And it used to have one in Spacex. But since Arts Council England axed Spacex's regular (NPO) funding, they've had to work with what they've got.

In some ways, this shift in focus has been good news for local artists. In the old days, because of that international remit, local artists were very much the audience. Now we are participants: direct beneficiaries of the new programme of community engagement and education that has - for now - replaced the rolling exhibitions programme.

The most recent and exciting manifestation of this was the crowd-funded residency of Birmingham-based artist and curator Trevor Pitt. His Preston Street Union (PSU) was an affiliation of artists from in and around Exeter that came together over a five-week period (13 October – 7 November 2015) to explore collaboration as a strategy. It drew on and extended elements from Trevor's earlier experiment in alternative education, the Cannon Hill Art School, and referenced the work of influential artist and educator Josef Albers. It gave participants the opportunity to hear from artists such as Juneau Projects and Clare Thornton, and explore their approaches through short, super-intense practical exercises. We were also invited to participate in Cathy Wade's Shaun Ryder Beermat Show. The final full-day session was run by Emily Warner as a more extended opportunity to examine and respond to the context of the Spacex building at 45 Preston Street.

My personal practice is very focused on research and reflection, which meant I found PSU tough, tiring and occasionally bewildering (as with the Kaleider Ideas Lab a couple of years ago). But being driven to make live work with others, and with very little time to think, opened up some new freedoms for me, and also a chance to experience some of the more positive aspects of artistic collaboration. (On which, more in a later post.)

If I have any reservations, it's that the doors were never fully open to the public. Local school and community groups attended workshops with Trevor, alumni of Exeter's now defunct College of Art & Design came together for a reunion evening, and those who helped to fund the residency were invited to a social event with Trevor where he talked about the project.

But if you're someone who knew and loved the Spacex of old, but wasn't involved in PSU, it must feel like a very long time since Spacex was part of your life. Those golden days when you got to wander into the gallery at a time of your choosing and reflect quietly on some interesting contemporary art -- ideas from the world beyond Exeter.