Work for sale

I've taken the plunge and launched a new online shop. There's a selection of work for sale including original drawings and prints, digital prints and artist publications. A few (pigeon-themed) items are available now and I'll be adding new pieces over the coming weeks and months

http://gabriellehoad.co.uk/shop.php

Seeing through the fog

I'm very pleased to announce the revival of my project with Megan Calver at Durlston Country Park on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. The Arts Council declined to fund our original proposal, Howler Chaser but, having scaled it back quite considerably, we're now able to push ahead using just in-kind support and match funding. 

Ever since my degree show back in 2006, I've been a bit obsessed with plotting objects in space and time. So finding myself making work about Oboe, a revolutionary World War II aircraft navigation system, is no surprise. Developed by Alec Harley Reeves and Francis Jones over the course of less than two years, Oboe relied on pulse-code modulation to remotely guide aircraft to bombing targets over mainland Europe from two ground stations on the English coast. Allowing 'blind' bombing at night, and through dense cloud or smog, it was often accurate to within 150 yards or less. Some of the development work for Oboe took place at Durlston, and one of the Oboe ground stations used for directing bombers on D-Day - 'Tilly Whim' - was located on the site of the current Durlston Learning Centre.

There's a personal connection with this project too. My father did part of his National Service training at nearby RAF Worth Matravers, a centre for top-secret radar development during World War II and a radar station long after that. Though originally from North London, he returned to live in the area when he retired and I can remember walking across Renscombe Farm with him, looking for traces of the former station.

Photo of Chain Home masts: A-site at Worth Matravers: purbeckradar.org.uk

Short memory

I start the year with a small grumble about the deteriorating quality of online archiving from arts institutions.  I rely on their web pages not only for research, but also to validate my own work and track-record.  After all, if a CV entry isn't verifiable, I might have just made it up. When you work hard for arts organisations, often with limited financial reward, you do hope they will at least maintain good documentation for you.

Not funded by ACE, and a little foggy why

Howler Chaser - Fog at Durlston | June 2021

With budgets stretched to the limit, I am just one more disappointed artist who didn't get her Arts Council funding, but I still want to talk about it. Because I feel there is something wrong with arts funding when so many people put in so much effort that fails to materialise into money -- and all they get back is a curt one-liner.  

In my case, it was a Project Grant of £12,579 to work with Megan Calver at Durlston Country Park & National Nature Reserve in Dorset on a self-directed residency, working title: Howler Chaser. We were planning to look at the architectural and archival traces of a radar signalling system called OBOE, pioneered at Durlston and used in blind-bombing during World War II. This was to be used as a new lens for audiences to view the rich array of wildlife on the site, particularly those aspects that are ephemeral or concealed. Our outcomes included a four-week on-site exhibition and a participatory public event.

Overall, we worked (mostly unpaid) towards this application for about 12 months, building relationships, doing preparatory research and figuring out how to get the best possible results for us, our partner organisation and our audiences. All while dealing with the difficulties and restrictions of a pandemic. Although not all of that work is wasted, much of it is. Rejection always had to be factored in as a possibility, but its impact on my practice, my career and my livelihood is nonetheless considerable. Here's why:

1) In the final stages of applying, I gave up the equivalent of 15-20 days to research and write the application, time that I could have used to earn money to support myself and my practice. 

2) I had to pass up on other opportunities for 2022 that looked interesting but would have clashed. 

3) I wasted the time of friends, colleagues and potential partners enlisting their support.

4) Most disappointing of all, I put my heart and soul into shaping a really good project that I genuinely believe would have generated new knowledge and awareness, and new opportunities for people to engage with art. And now it can't happen.

Perhaps if you fund-raise for a living, you can decode ACE's feedback effectively but, as an independent artist, their decisions process remains almost opaque to me. I can't even say I've learned from this rejection. Despite immersing ourselves in pages and pages of guidance and several webinars, and utilising detailed cheat sheets, we can only guess what it is about our public engagement and marketing that the Arts Council found so lacking. When reapplying after one knock-back, we did our very best to cram all of our enhanced plans into the 1000-character limit, but apparently ACE still needed more detail. Oh, and second time around they revealed we possibly should have included a marketing partner (even though our project partner Durlston has its own well-established marketing and engagement programme, and a dedicated member of staff to deliver it). I am sure there were rational reasons for our rejection; it's just that I'm genuinely puzzled about what they were.

I refuse to see this as a failure. Our ambitions for this work clearly do not fit the funding criteria of a particular government organisation, and we would be wrong to bend too far to do so. But there are other things about this rejection that evoke a real a sense of loss.  

This project cannot now happen at Durlston with Megan. The timeline we had plotted and the events we had scheduled start rolling in mid-January 2022, so there is no chance to re-apply again in time. Neither do we have the possibility of rescheduling for 2023. Both Megan and I now face pressing personal commitments that will make major collaborations such as this very difficult for at least a few years. 

So that's it. We will make use of the material and research we've generated so far to create some kind of more modest work, maybe even a small exhibition. But the project will lose its deep connection with the site and community that inspired it. 

And I will start the new year trying to fill a giant hole in my income, my plans and my practice. 

Unfunded logo from flaneur.me.org

Limited edition 'Salt-cat' print on sale

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Salt-cat (keeps them at home) | 2021 | Limited edition screen print

This newly released screenprint draws on a site-specific installation I created with Megan Calver for 'Open-Up' at Hestercombe Gardens (2020-21).

Salt-cat was a type of cake made by pigeon breeders to entice their birds to stay or return home. Our installation included 16 fragments of text relating to this historic practice. They were drawn from Hestercombe’s archive, as well as sources such as The Sportsman's Dictionary of 1800. We've combined three of these texts in a new limited-edition print. The colours reference the plumage and feet of Columba livia domestica, the homing pigeon.

This edition of 30 was screen-printed for us by George Barron at Double Elephant Print Workshop in Exeter. They are hand-pulled three-colour prints on Fabriano 300gsm paper and measure 49cm x 36cm (a little smaller than A2). Individually signed and numbered, they are priced at £60.00 each unframed including UK postage & packing.

The print will shortly be available from the Hestercombe Gallery shop and also direct from my Instagram as part of the Artist Support Pledge.  Alternatively, contact me or Megan via our websites.

Correspondence 01 extra

 
While Savinder Bual and I were working on our individual submissions for Correspondence 01, we made a shared piece of work: Time Travellers. 

As artists, we have common interests in art and science, and the measurement of time and space. As a starting point, Savinder shared the animations of Al Jarnow with me. We started thinking together about shadows and sundials, and looking for ways to physically experience the movement of the Earth in relation to the Sun. We also wanted to make simultaneous work together that would span time and distance. 

At an agreed time, we started walking towards each other from our separate locations, she in Hitchin near Letchworth, me in Exeter. We kept going for the duration of the time difference between us by the Sun (as opposed to our shared official time of GMT+1 / British Summertime).

We later documented our action as a more formal score that can be performed by people anywhere in the world.

Correspondence 01

Photos by Corey Bartle Sanderson from the Correspondence 01 install at Broadway Gallery, Letchworth

 

Savinder Bual | Sundial, True Time, Letchworth | 2021 

Savinder Bual | Sundial, True Time, Letchworth | 2021
Gabrielle Hoad | Two-handed timekeeper | 2021

Correspondence01, curated by Kristian Day and Matt Burrows

17th August - 5th September 2021

Broadway Gallery,  2 The Arcade, Letchworth Garden City SG6 3EW

Exeter Phoenix, Gandy Street EX4 3LS

Alexis Soul-Gray Oliver Kirkham Gabrielle Hoad Andy Cluer Adam Garratt Molly Rooke Janet Sainsbury Tobias Francis Jackson Sprague Will Luz Abi Freckleton Anna Fairchild Maria Meyer Jessica Wetherly Magdalena Gluszak-Holeksa Liz Harrington Jack Anthony Taylor Helena McGrath Freya Pocklington Savinder Bual