A network of killers and eaters

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Fatal exchanges (detail) |
Mixed-media, multi-site installation | 2017

The site-responsive work Fatal exchanges was made for 'Prospect', a group show on the Cotley Estate in Somerset.

In 1832 the hounds of the Cotley Hunt were struck by the rabies virus and the Master of the Hunt had to shoot all but one of them. Drawing on this history as well as a series of readings made to trees in Cotley Copse, Fatal exchanges examines a network of deaths resulting from instinct, accident, pleasure and necessity. A rotted beech branch falls on a human head, hunting hounds divert from the urine trail laid for them to chase a live fox, a hare slices off a growing shoot, a taxidermy specimen becomes infested with carpet beetles...

Installed primarily within two interconnecting stables, the piece included objects found on site such as a taxidermy fox, a magpie trap, a pheasant feeder, a rivet maker and wood shavings. An annotated piece of text entitled 'Murder in the Kitchen', drawn from 'The Alice B Toklas Cook Book', was enlarged and pierced with pins. Ambient sound recorded on the estate was slowed to reveal haunting noises within the everyday, and alternated with traditional hunt calls. A hidden fox, drawn in urine, was secreted in the farmyard toilet for discovery with a UV torch.

In a complementary work Read (to) the trees, visitors were invited to visit nearby Cotley Copse where the hounds are buried. There is also a 12-page publication to accompany the work.

'Prospect' Cotley Tithe Barn, Cotley, Somerset TA20 3EP  – 6-8 Oct 2017
New work by Megan Calver | Michael Calver |Alice Crane | Mich Downing | Simon Lee Dicker | Jon England | Gordon Field | Liz Gregory | Lucia Harley | Gabrielle Hoad | Nicola Kerslake | Tim Martin | Paul Newman | Andre Wallace

Reading to trees - Return by 24/09/17

Gabrielle Hoad | Return by 24/09/17 | 2017

For Return by 24/09/17 I have worked with unwanted books, stored for many years in a barn on West Town Farm.

Before the physical books are sent for pulping, exhibition visitors are invited to read their contents to trees in nearby Chillies Copse and create an alternative library. Texts, once held within the relative permanence of ink on paper, will translate to ephemeral utterances in the air.

The work is at two locations. A short video work, made alone this summer in Chillies Copse, is shown in the barn where the books are stored, along with simple instruction kits. In the nearby woodland, visitors will find evidence of previous readings, and can make their own.

4m 15s of digital video (looped) with sound, printed envelopes, labels and raffia ties.

This work in progress is shown as part of Devon Open Studios with Organic Arts.  Other artists at this venue include Felicity Shillingford, Stella Tripp, Daniel Cray and Stuart Crewes.

Saturday 16th September to Sunday 24th September 11am - 6pm

Venue 113, West Town Farm, Ide, Exeter EX2 9TG

Street Rockery featured on Axis

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver with Freefall Youth Group  | Street Rockery | 2017

Street Rockery is featured in Axis Category of the Week - Education
https://www.axisweb.org/p/gabriellehoad/workset/230712-street-rockery/

More details about the work are here
https://gabriellehoad.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/street-rockery.html

Prospect, Cotley Tithe Barn

24-hour residency - Cotley

Gabrielle Hoad  | Cotley Copse | 2017

I'm working with a loose affiliation of diverse artists from Devon and Somerset to present new and experimental work on the Cotley Estate over three days as part of Somerset Art Works 2017.

Our 24-hour residency on the 25th and 26th of August was an opportunity to eat, drink, talk and make art together as well as carry out essential planning for the forthcoming three-day exhibition and after-dark event/opening party.

The exhibition will feature new work responding to the Cotley estate, its environment and history. Artists include Alice Crane | Andre Wallace | Gabrielle Hoad | Gordon Field | Jon England | Liz Gregory | Lucia Harley | Megan Calver | Mich Downing | Michael Calver | Nicola Kerslake | Paul Newman | Simon Lee Dicker | Tim Martin

Friday 6th to Sunday 8th October 2017
Venue 92, Cotley Farm, Wambrook, Chard, Somerset TA20 3EP
More details: http://somersetartworks.org.uk/what-we-do/art-weeks/ …

Axis art highlights

The inertia of the unknown | Preston Street Union Random Art Machine | 2017

I'm very pleased to be included in the Axis survey of new work for 7-13 August. They featured an action with Preston Street Union, made as part of the Random Art Machine.

More details at https://gabriellehoad.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/safety-in-numbers.html

Return by 24/09/17

Gabrielle Hoad | Nature Parade | 2017

I've been working outdoors with a collection of unwanted books stored in a barn at West Town Farm, near Exeter. Work in progress to be shared during Devon Open Studios Venue 113, 16 -24 September 2017.

Broadcasts from the Edge of the Horizon

Volkhardt Muller & Dawn Scarfe | The Beacon | 2017

Broadcasts from the Edge of the Horizon -The Beacon:  this film gives a short account of a three-stage research project by artists Volkhardt Müller, Dawn Scarfe and Phil Smith in which they explore the idea of horizon as both a distant dream and a journey experienced.  I was lucky enough to be part of the 'pilgrimage' from Exeter City Centre to a tree on the horizon on 7th May 2017. I was surprised to hear how croaky my voice sounded in the recording, but then remembered Volkhardt had just given us all a shot of plum schnapps to celebrate the journey's end. Prost!

https://vimeo.com/224047299

Makers of the Multiverse (review)

Juneau Projects | Makers of the Multiverse pavilion, Exeter | 2017

Review by Rachel Magdeburg of the recent Makers of the Multiverse project, where I showed work as an individual, in collaboration with Megan Calver and Susie David, and as part of Preston Street Union.

https://www.a-n.co.uk/reviews/market-makers

Street Rockery

Street Rockery (downtime) | 2017 | Public action with Freefall Youth Group 

Arrive unannounced at a busy place and mingle with the crowd.

Pull out blankets large enough to completely cover 
your crouching bodies.

Hide and become rocks for while.

Score by Megan Calver and Gabrielle Hoad from an original work by Calver David Hoad. First enacted by Freefall Youth Group with Megan Calver and Gabrielle Hoad, 25 May 2017, Makers of the Multiverse, Piazza Terracina, Exeter, UK.

This collaboration with Freefall Youth Group allowed for the scaling up of an action originally recorded in the short video rock (passers by). The action of hiding in the landscape was reimagined for an urban setting and a score generated for new players to interpret.

Made with the assistance of Anna Aroussi and George Barron. Supported by Exeter Phoenix and Spacex.

Safety in numbers

Preston Street Union - The inertia of the unknown  - Art Week Exeter 2017

As I disappeared inside a giant improvised paper envelope a couple of weeks ago, I felt a real sense of liberation. I was doing it simply because someone had written 'inside the lining of a duvet' on a card I had been dealt and this was the closest me and my fellow artists could manage with the resources available. We were following instructions generated by the Preston Street Union Random Art Machine.

It may sound odd, but the responsibilities of an artist can sometimes feel onerous. For the best of reasons, you get quite locked into particular themes and particular ways of working, and it seems a little irresponsible to deviate. So the idea of submerging yourself in a group identity, then going on to make spontaneous, randomly generated, collaborative work, feels like a real holiday. Sharing responsibility for outcomes means you can take risks and play in a way you probably haven't done since before college - but you really should do all the time.

Preston Street Union is an affiliation of artists from in and around Exeter who were first brought together by Trevor Pitt during his 2015 residency at Spacex gallery. Given the wild diversity of our artistic concerns and our different career stages, it amazes me that we've continued working together, but we have - each in parallel with our own individual practices. Sometimes all we make when we're together is a mess - that's the nature of experimentation. But this time - for Art Week Exeter - I think we (mostly) got it right. We took the risk of creating works live in the gallery and involved the wider public as contributors, spectators and occasional participants.

Responses were largely positive. We were included in Maddy Hearn's survey of Art Week Exeter for a-n.co.uk and reviewed by Terah Walkup, Curator of Fine Art at Plymouth City Museum for the AWE blog. Her words are quoted below.

"Visitors to PS45 in the former Spacex gallery, hosting the Preston Street Union Random Art Machine and the exhibition, Being Human, were in for a treat. Possibly one of the most joyous collaborations during Art Week Exeter, the Random Art Machine was the modern-day inheritor of Dadaism and mid-century performance art.

One year into their association, the affiliation of artists that make up Preston Street Union came together in a project that was both risky and chaotic but whose end product was a successful collaboration that business consultants would pay oodles to replicate. These artists relinquished control of the material, concept, and even title of the works of art they came together to create. Audiences tweeted titles, visitors brought in assorted objects and materials, and participants at the Art Market jotted down concepts on dozens of note cards. After a bout with a dart gun, I witnessed the creation of a work titled Sky Grid – a response to Tolstoy’s War and Peace (one of the prompts) – that unfolded in a conceptual performance whose real value lay not in the final tug-of-war game – which a more astute reviewer could read as metaphor – but in the preparatory conversations and negotiations that make up the interpretive process of art-making."

The Preston Street Union Random Art Machine featured as part of Art Week Exeter 2017 and was supported by Spacex.

Listening to Dartmoor

I was lucky enough to join Devon naturalist and sound artist Tony Whitehead, and tracker and bushcraft expert Robin Bowman on an early morning listening event organised in conjunction with the RSPB and Art.Earth. Taking place in a private woodland near Moretonhampstead on Dartmoor, it was a chance to listen in to one of the season’s early dawn choruses and learn more about the birds and other living things that inhabit the site.

Setting out at 4.15am and navigating narrow Dartmoor lanes in the darkness and mist, we parked up at Moor Barton at 5.00am and met others by torchlight. Gathering in a tight circle in the dark we listened to the silence (it was an incredibly still night), the owls and eventually the vast sound horizon of the first passing flight. We then walked in silence down a dark woodland path and gathered around a fire to wait for the dawn chorus, which swept towards us from the east as the darkness fell away.

There was a dream-like quality to being awake when I’d usually be asleep, and to being with other people and yet not being able to see their faces or hear their voices (much). Being silent with others in such a remote place felt safe and companionable but, at the same time, offered a sense of connection to the wider, wilder environment.

Over the next few hours, we explored the woodland site in the early morning mist: spending time with a particularly lively yellowhammer, smelling otter spraint and looking closely at deer tracks. I experienced a real tension between wanting to know facts about the place (which necessitated verbal explanation) and not wanting to hear words, just the place itself.

Robert Macfarlane has quite a lot to say about the particularity - and value - you afford something when you name it and, even now, I'm hearing bird voices better as a result of those identifications. But I also walked away feeling I would have liked even more silence from the humans and more voice from the place.

This event on 15th March 2017 was part of a series of listening events leading up to the In Other Tongues creative summit at Dartington Hall, Devon in June.

Uncomfortable in our own skins

Delighted that Throw Only To Alert Catcher at Gallery 333 was chosen by Alistair Fitchett to wrap up his 50/50 series on the Unpopular blog, not least because his thoughts about the work are so perceptive.  It's always gratifying to know someone 'gets' your work. Here's a sample:

"Here is art that exists uncomfortably within its own skin. Throw Only To Alert Catcher is art for whom that very discomfort is perhaps its most important quality. For whilst this is a work that explores relationships between the human and the non-human, its ultimate message is perhaps that any attempt to define such a relationship is doomed to at best discomfort and at worst abject (but glorious) failure."

You can read the full article - and more of Alistair's wonderful reflections on art and music at https://unpopular.typepad.com/unpopular/2016/12/2016.html