Galleries R Us with Preston Street Union

Presented by Preston Street Union, Galleries R Us is a modular, itinerant, wearable artspace space appearing at multiple sites during Art Week Exeter (AWE). 

Over the course of AWE, Preston Street Union will roam the streets of Exeter, constructing a temporary artspace at various points of interest and activity. We have also commissioned a series of microresidencies to take place in and around the space.  

Galleries R Us is made in response to the diminishing arts infrastructure in Exeter, specifically the loss of institutions dedicated to the teaching, production and presentation of contemporary art. 

Preston Street Union is an affiliation of artists in and around Exeter who meet to explore collaborative processes in the context of contemporary art practice. Art Week Exeter 2018 runs from 22nd to 28th May.

Details of the Galleries R Us programme can be found at https://www.facebook.com/events/950369175144360/

Reading to trees on the East Devon Way

Burned Trees - Woodbury (video still) | Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | 2018

I've been invited to create a number of public engagement activities to celebrate 25 years of the East Devon Way, a 40-mile walking route between Exmouth and Lyme Regis that runs through the East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)

Read (to) the trees is an extension of work originally made for Organic Arts -  Return by 24/09/17 - and later revisited with Megan Calver as part of Fatal Exchanges. I will be inviting the public to get to know the local trees by reading aloud to them and observing how they respond.

And in a new iteration, Turn (the) leaves, Megan Calver and I will bring together a group of people and trees for simultaneous shared reading and response. Working from a simple set of instructions, they will be part of a new, temporary work of art made by reading aloud. We'll then present a version of this work at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton, in the autumn.

Art on the East Devon Way artists include Anne-Marie Culhane, Justin Quinnell, Jenny Mellings and Tony Whitehead.

Art on the East Devon Way activity map, various locations May - September 2018.

Art on the East Devon Way exhibition, 8 September - 27 October 2018, Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Elmfield House, Dowell Street, Honiton, Devon EX14 1LX.

A celebration of rivalry

The Buffer Zone (Perching) | 2016 | Photo: Susie David

I'm delighted to be producing work in collaboration with Megan Calver for the Od Arts Festival, curated by Simon Lee Dicker (Artist / Director of OSR Projects) and Bob Gelsthorpe (Artist / Writer).

The Od is a crooked stream that meanders through the villages of East and West Coker in rural Somerset, UK. Multi-site curated exhibitions, new commissions, and participatory projects by artist-led groups - all themed around rivalry - will take place across the villages over one weekend.

Inspired by a wonky shed in the woods, Megan and I will present a series of leaning actions and invite visitors to carry out their own, using bodies and other materials to hand to create temporary sculptures. We're interested in the different meanings of 'lean on' - which can imply both coercion and a need for support.

Od Arts Festival, Somerset 11-13 May 2018
Sadie Hennessy | Tom Smith | Tim Bromage | Phil Owen | Zoe Walker & Neil Bromwich | Janet Sainsbury | Peter Chesbrough & Laura Hopes | Nicola Bealing | Melville Mitchell | Megan Calver & Gabrielle Hoad | Isobel Adderley | Andy Parker | Rachael Allain | Wassail Theatre

http://odartsfestival.co.uk

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