SERGE/SURGE

Preston Street Union | SERGE/SURGE (work in progress) | 2019

On 28 May 2019, I will be working as part of Preston Street Union to present the first of two commissions on the theme of migration for Exeter's Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM).

Through a series of brief, live actions, SERGE/SURGE considers the constant flow of people, artefacts and ideas across the city wall over the centuries. It takes Exeter’s historic wool trade as a source of inspiration and the wall itself as a site for performance and interaction.

Although the work invites its audience to think about ideas of insider and outsider, barriers and connections, its spirit is one of generosity and welcome.

There are four chances to catch it during Tuesday 28 May 2019, plus a closing event.

1315: Northernhay Gardens, Queen Street entrance, near statue of Acland
1415: Footpath below Yaroslavl Bridge leading to Quay, near Cathedral  & Quay car park
1615: Cricklepit Lane, City Wall path overlooking back of Devon Wildlife Trust
1715: Northernhay Gardens, Northernhay Place entrance, below Castle Wall
1730: Closing event, Northernhay Gardens, Northernhay Place entrance

The event lasts around 10 minutes at each location, so please arrive promptly.

More info at prestonstreetunion.wordpress.com

Moving into new territory

Preston Street Union with Pete Kingston | Galleries R Us | 2018 | Photo: Jonathan Price

I'm delighted to announce that Preston Street Union (PSU), of which I'm a founding associate, has been commissioned by the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter to make new contemporary work inspired by RAMM’s 2019 theme ‘migration’. Ten core associates from the group will be working collectively, in collaboration with the museum's curators, to create two linked pieces: one to be presented off-site in May and one inside the museum in November.

Having always worked on an informal, DIY basis with extremely limited resources, this is a new venture for PSU (although several associates have previously delivered professional commissions within their own practices). I think it's fair to say that, for many of us, PSU and its simple, improvisational approach plays a vital role in feeding and challenging our separate, independent practices as artists.

We were previously backed by Spacex (as a legacy of Trevor Pitt's residency there) and, since that organisation closed, have been associate artists at Exeter Phoenix. However, this is the first time a major institution has offered us actual funding rather than in-kind support. It's already meant certain changes to the way we work, such as opening a bank account and appointing project managers.

With this in mind, we've invited artist and coach Sovay Berriman to work with us over a couple of days during our initial research and development phase. We hope to work out how to nurture our spirit of fun and experimentation while collectively making the transition to a more organised way of working.

The RAMM commission is a very welcome development, not only because it validates the work we've done to date together, but because artist-led organisations can die on their feet with no disruption or forward momentum. However, there is also a chance that professional formalities and expectations will have an impact on the playful, open-ended nature of our interactions with each other and our audiences.

We want to hang on to the things we all value about PSU, while taking the opportunity to make more ambitious work. It's a calculated risk (for RAMM as much as us) - and one I'm glad we're taking.

RAMM press release

A question of restoration

Sarah Bennett | Pear Pond | 2018 | Silver on glass

Materiality: provisional states is the culmination of a three-year research project at Hestercombe House and Gardens in Somerset, prompted by the ongoing restoration of the estate and plans to establish it as a centre for art and landscape. Artists Sarah Bennett, Megan Calver and Philippa Lawrence worked in collaboration with Hestercombe's Curator of Contemporary Art, Tim Martin, and visiting curator Kate Best, as well as the estate's archivists and gardeners.

I was invited to contribute to the project as part of a series of dialogue sessions held during 2017 and 2018. I joined a group of artists, curators, architects, horticulturists and academics to consider issues such as what brought this garden to its current state of repair; its reclamation by nature; and the tension between maintenance and entropy. Our own writing and making on these themes has now been added to the archive and will be shared at a seminar on 15 February 2019. 

In the final exhibition, three diverse bodies of work by Sarah Bennett, Megan Calver and Philippa Lawrence criss-cross in a number of fascinating dialogues. For example, there's a thread on domestic labour (Bennett's reversed tapestries, Calver's neatly crafted fire grates, and Lawrence's French-polished logs). And another on the cataloguing and modification of nature (Lawrence's bound bonsai and enamelled tree stump silhouettes, Bennett's 'fake' cherry trees and silverpoint seed drawings, and Calver's images of scorched flowers). It's a thoughtful, thought-provoking show that quietly asks searching questions of the estate's custodians.

Philippa Lawrence | Trace | 2018

Although I've always found this slightly shabby house an eloquent backdrop to its various carefully curated exhibitions, this one seems to sit especially comfortably in the space. Materiality: provisional states acknowledges the house and its absent inhabitants and contents, reminding us of its history as the Devon and Somerset Fire Brigade HQ, and looking outwards to the Jekyll/Lutyens gardens which surround it. If there are no neat take-aways from the show, it's simply a reflection of the fragmented archives that inspired it and a future for the house and gardens that is yet to fully take shape.

Megan Calver | Spill 2 | 2018

Materiality: provisional states

Hestercombe Gallery, Cheddon Fitzpaine, Taunton. Somerset TA2 8LG

Saturday 10 November 2018 - Sunday 24 February 2019

On the other side of the table

Preston Street Union with Lucia Harley at Exeter Culture Launch - September 2018

I've just completed a two-month interim role as a Programme Delivery Consultant for Exeter Culture, an ACE-funded network of organisations that works to improve the resilience and ambition of the arts and cultural sector in my home city. Job sharing with fellow artist Paula Crutchlow, I helped to fill the gap between the departure of one director and the appointment of a new one. My particular focus was on producing day-to-day content for the organisation's website and social media.

I developed more practice- and practitioner-focused content for the website, advocated for a higher level of user-generated content and dialogue, revamped a volunteering guide, contributed to an ongoing discussion about artists' workspace, and co-authored a handover report for the organisation, which included recommendations on the future use of web and social media in achieving organisational goals.

As I usually earn my (non art) living as a writer for hire on short-term ad hoc communications projects for commercial businesses, this was an opportunity for me to work over a longer period with one organisation, doing something I feel personally invested in. But, more than that, it was a rare glimpse at what it's like to sit on the other side of the desk, as a stakeholder manager, a commissioner, an organiser, a strategist and an advocate. It was a steep learning curve and a privileged insight.

I'm also really chuffed that the role was opened up to two artists, even if only for a short period. We both have extensive project management experience but we are hardly your average arts administrators. You can't make much difference in just two months on part-time hours but I hope that, by championing the practitioner perspective, we might have left some sort of useful legacy.

www.exeterculture.com

Turn (the) leaves - now and then

Turn (the) leaves - Public participatory event and 8-channel sound installation.
Photo: Simon Tutty. Courtesy Thelma Hulbert Gallery

On 8 August 2018, Megan Calver and I brought together a group of people and trees at Woodbury Castle on the East Devon Way for shared reading and response. Working from a simple set of instructions, participants created a new work of art together by reading aloud.

Recordings made on that day were then re-assembled as a sound installation, with gallery plinths and sound equipment standing in for people and trees. These created an indoor copse through which gallery visitors were invited to wander.

The translation from live participatory work to gallery piece raised some interesting questions, with which I'm still wrestling: What does it mean to translate a public participatory event to the gallery? Who does the work ‘belong’ to? How do you give something meaningful back to participants (including the trees)? What difference does the work make?

Turn (the) leaves on 8 August was an attempt to create a space where dialogue with the nonhuman might happen. The readers and trees were not making our work but their work. The recordings enabled us to share some sense of it with a wider gallery audience, but we always saw this as a new and different iteration. Some visitors said they found the gallery installation 'austere' and 'unwelcoming' and 'not evocative of a woodland' but Megan and I were always clear about our wish to demarcate the public outdoor event from the indoor gallery work. It was the difference between something that happened on the site and in the moment -- and was simultaneously, privately and fleetingly experienced by individuals who took part -- and something mediated, reconstructed and repeatable that could be discussed and shared between different listeners experiencing it at different times.

Turn (the) leaves was commissioned as part of Art on the East Devon Way and shown at Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton (2018). Sound Recordist: Tony Whitehead Technical Consultant: Tim King

Experiencing the Landscape - Art on the East Devon Way ran from 8 September 2018 to 27 October 2018 and included work by Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver, Jenny Mellings, Angus Rutherford and Anne-Marie Culhane.

Prospecting

Image: Davina Jelley, Somerset Art Works

I attended the Prospecting Symposium on 1 November at University Centre Somerset, thanks to a bursary from Visual Arts South West. Here's my report on the event.
https://www.a-n.co.uk/reviews/prospecting-symposium-review-by-gabrielle-hoad

An Od film

Here's a wonderful short film evoking the peaceful madness of the Od Festival, of which I was part.

https://vimeo.com/277316991

'The Art of Rivalry', Od Arts Festival was curated by Simon Lee Dickerand Bob Gelsthorpe, and featured work by 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 and Wassail Theatre

www.odartsfestival.co.uk11-13 May 2018
East Coker and West Coker, Somerset