Platform residency

The Buffer Zone | 2016 | Photo: Susie David

I will be working with Megan Calver as part of Exeter Phoenix’s Platform series from 2nd to 6th August 2021 (Covid restrictions permitting). Platform offers artists opportunities to test out ideas, new work and recent developments in their practice.

During this short experimental residency, we will reconsider our site-specific practice for a gallery environment.  Expanding on our shared preoccupation with language and communication, we plan to improvise activations of space, body and matter, and explore new ways of presenting our outcomes. The residency provides us with an invaluable joint workspace to develop a new project.

We'll be working in the gallery Monday 2nd - Friday 6th August, with additional work on show through the gallery door in the evenings and during 7th and 8th August.

Exeter Phoenix Galleries, Gandy Street EX4 3LS

Immersed in Durlston

I’ve just returned from an intense but rewarding few days working with Megan Calver at Durlston Country Park in Dorset. Continuing a project we began at the start of this year, where we worked remotely with the Rangers’ Daily Diary, we've now been able to immerse ourselves completely and experience the site at all hours of the day and night. Two striking features were the spectacular wildflower meadows, ringing with skylark song, but also the dense and dripping fog that rolled in and out throughout our stay. This was only a recce to get to know the site, its inhabitants and its custodians, but we were inspired to make a few experimental photos and videos that will inform future work.

CORRESPONDENCE-01

I've been selected for Correspondence, a new project curated by Kris Day and Matt Burrows that pairs 10 artists from the Letchworth arts community in Hertfordshire with 10 artists from the Exeter area in Devon. Simultaneous exhibitions, hosted by Letchworth’s Broadway Gallery and Exeter Phoenix will take place in August. 

It's a really interesting group of artists and I'm looking forward to seeing what emerges from the different conversations and interactions. I'm particularly excited to be paired with Savinder Bual who has made some amazing work relating to early cinema and with whom I share an interest in scientific discovery.

The selected artists are:

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

Crosstalk at the Pint of Science festival 2021

Gabrielle Hoad | Crosstalk (still from digital animation) | 2021

Creative Reactions, a project encouraging collaboration between artists and scientists, launches today as part of the national Pint of Science festival. I've contributed a short digital animation Crosstalk, made with the support of Dr Rebecca M Hock, a researcher in behavioural neuroscience at the University of Nottingham. My entry in the online catalogue and a link to to the video is here.

Catalyst virtual exhibition live

I'm delighted to be part of  'Catalyst', a new virtual exhibition showcasing nearly a decade of art-science collaborations from the Environment & Sustainability Institute's Creative Exchange Programme. It's curated by Claire English in partnership with Arts & Culture Exeter, and features new work by Bram Thomas Arnold, The Art and Energy Collective, Sarah Bowler & Elizabeth Masterton, Tim Cockerill, Rosie Fierek, Hugo Glasier, Harper & Chave, Gabrielle Hoad, Josie Purcell, Rame Peninsula Beach Care, Roseberry & Slack, and Chris Thorn.

I'm showing two digital images from a photographic series called The Luminous Envelope. They were made in 2015 shortly after my collaboration with Dr Jonathan Bennie of the ESI and reflect my ongoing interest in scientific/mathematical models (ie simplified representations which are used to facilitate prediction or understanding). Jon and I used both digital climate modelling and practical fieldwork to study microclimates in southwest England to assess the feasibility of growing a banana crop. Our results highlighted the inevitable disconnect between speculative microclimate models and specific day-to-day weather data. The Luminous Envelope responds to a similar disconnect, this time between the ‘purity’ of mathematical equations describing the behaviour of light, and historic attempts to make them tangible through physical model-making.

Visit the exhibition here

Walking Bodies on sale

Walking Bodies published by Triarchy Press contains many fascinating reflections on - and provocations for - contemporary walking arts practice. It includes pigeon steps, a provocation I made in 2019 with Megan Calver, as well as essays by Emma Bush, Hamish Fulton, Sarah Scaife, Cathy Turner and many more. The book was edited by Helen Billinghurst, Claire Hind and Phil Smith, who organised the conference in Plymouth in 2019 from which it derives (and who are also contributors). Buy direct from the publisher: ebook £16.00, paperback £20.00.

Open-up re-opened

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Salt-cat (keeps them at home) - detail | 2020

Hestercombe Gardens reopen fully from 5th April and so there's another opportunity to see Salt-cat (keeps them at home), a work I made last year with Megan Calver in response to the pandemic. It's part of Open-Up, a series of outdoor artworks commissioned by Hestercombe Gallery, which features eight artists, many with intimate knowledge of Hestercombe. The show centres on a flagship commission by Richard Long Jackdaw Line. Other artists include Sarah Bennett, Jon England, Jo Lathwood, Philippa Lawrence and Lucy Soni.

Open daily, 10am – 6pm (last entry 4.30pm) until 27th June. Due to current Covid-19 restrictions, all visits must be pre-booked online.

Open-Up: 19th August 2020 - 27th June 2021

Hestercombe Gardens, Cheddon Fitzpaine, Taunton, Somerset TA2 8LG