Delicate Instruments | Vitrine | 2023

 

Visitors to Delicate Instruments (Vibrating Stillness) at Vitrine, Exeter 2023

“A vibrating stillness like that in a vitrine”

Edmund de Waal quoting Rilke in ‘The Hare with Amber Eyes’ (2010)

Shifting between scientific and psychical thinking, Delicate Instruments suggests new ways to tune into hidden signals from the more-than-human.

Originally shared at the Devon & Exeter Institution as a public participatory event, this iteration was made specially for Vitrine, a shop display cabinet c. 1900 which hosts a series of occasional installations by UK and international artists in the Exeter home of artist and arts educator Sarah Bennett.

Obscured by a veil, the vitrine initially withholds its contents. A closer look reveals them as objects held in unstable equilibrium and sensitive to the slightest stimuli: from trembling paper cases balanced on the points of nails, to indigo carbon paper primed to register subtle touch. The cabinet also contains a number of found objects with the potential to make a sound in response to vibrations in the air – an oboe reed, a lead whistle, a tuning fork.

Some of these instruments are drawn from the realm of psychical experimentation, where they might have been placed in a sealed cabinet to isolate them from air currents and other physical influences. However, on the lowest shelf we set up a miniature electric fan that disturbed the air inside the cabinet sufficiently to cause lighter objects to tremble and spin. It also vibrated quietly, filling the room with a just-audible hum.

We took our title from a description of the famous medium Eusapia Palladino (1854 –1918). Oliver Lodge, who went to investigate her for the Society of Psychical Research, told colleagues it was better not to think of her as a person but as "a delicate instrument". The idea of “unstable equilibrium…sensitive to the slightest stimuli” comes from Richard Noakes quoting William Barratt (1867) in ‘Physics and Psychics’ (2019).

Delicate Instruments (Vibrating Stillness) was made In collaboration with Megan Calver. It was installed at Vitrine, Exeter 25th November - 21st December 2023 and shared with visitors by invitation and appointment on 25th November, 5th December, 9th December and 19th December, as well as informally with Sarah Bennett's family and friends.

What kind of an artist am I?

 

What kind of an artist are you? It’s a question people often ask me, and one I struggle to answer. These days I mostly make sound and moving image works, installations and publications - and organisations and funders sometimes even pay me for it.  BUT I have no one craft skill, no postgraduate qualifications and no studio. 

I tend to learn skills as I need them and if I can't learn them well enough to fulfil a specific project, I hire people to help me out. I did not do an MA, even though I have a research-based and critically engaged practice. Having an MA may suggest you’re more serious about your profession but, in my view, it’s an expensive and time-consuming way to make the point.

But now the question of artists and studios has come up. And that is harder to come to terms with. An artist new to my city has initiated a series of studio visits between Devon artists. It’s a great low-cost, easy-to-manage idea for self-development and networking. But what can I offer if I don’t have a studio?

The city of Exeter is well-known for its dearth of studio space, and it’s always concerned me because it makes it more difficult for artists to settle and thrive here. So, back in the day, I made a genuine effort to address it.  For two years I worked really hard with other artists on setting up a shared studio building in the city centre and a Community Interest Company to run it. But, after a strong start, the project quickly foundered and I didn’t have the energy to start over. I managed to secure space in the city’s only other dedicated studio building. But after about 7 years that was sold off and, struggling with my finances,  I decided I would have to manage at home.

Having no studio has now become normal for me. I work on location, on my computer and on my kitchen table. I’m lucky: I’m not in a tiny flat or house share. I have my own home and in it there’s a small spare room where I keep my materials, kit, research, stock, documentation etc but I have no dedicated space beyond my computer for working. 

The artist new to Exeter said ‘Why not share your inspiration shelf? Everyone has one of those, right?’ Er, no! (She was joking - kind of.) I have a folder on my PC.  That’s my workspace, my headspace.

But it made me think. Should I be content with my unconventional approaches (I seem pretty productive) or should I be concerned about disadvantaging myself?  Am I taking my practice seriously enough? Does the lack of physical space I devote to my art practice reflect the way I squeeze it in around earning a ‘proper’ living? Why do I beg other women artists to take up more space with their work in galleries when I can’t even find proper space for my own practice in my home?

Yes, really, what kind of an artist am I?

Delicate Instruments (Vibrating Stillness)

“A vibrating stillness like that in a vitrine”

Edmund de Waal quoting Rilke in The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010)

I’m delighted to announce Megan Calver and I will be showing the next iteration of Delicate Instruments in a new Exeter art space: Vitrine.

Vitrine is a shop display cabinet (c. 1900) which hosts a series of occasional installations by UK and international artists in the Exeter home of artist and arts educator Sarah Bennett.

Megan Calver and I will be making the inaugural installation. A future publication will provide documentation of the longer series.

Delicate Instruments (Vibrating Stillness)
25 November - 21 December 2023
Vitrine, Exeter (viewing by appointment only)

http://www.sarahbennett.org.uk/vitrine.html

Healing and renewal

 

Gabrielle Hoad | Interloper (Infinite Stories) | Black and white photographs and archive illustrations, shown in random sequence across two digital photo frames | 2023

I'm delighted to be part of  Under / Over, an exhibition responding to themes around renewal and transition inspired by Redruth’s cultural shift from mining town to creative centre.

I'm showing a new digital iteration of an old work, Interloper. Originally presented as a single, large-scale image for Oxford Botanic Garden, the source material has been revisited and constructed as a randomised digital work to introduce unpredictable pairings of images and cede control to the nonhuman in the final image-making.

Based on the common horticultural practice of bud-grafting, Interloper examines the perceived divide between natural and cultural, ecological and technological through images of human-plant conjunctions.

“There are almost infinite stories of strange conjunctions which urge earnestly for credit,some of incisions made upon animal bodies […] there was a Spaniard lately had a bramble that grew out of his belly.”

Robert Sharrock The History of the Propagation & Improvement of Vegetables by the Concurrence of Art and Nature (1660)

The practice of grafting dates back to the beginning of the first millennium BCE. It allows growers to combine desirable qualities in a rootstock (such as resistance to fungal disease) with other qualities (such as sweetness of fruit) which may not be found in one plant variety alone.

 
Although the processes by which the mixed plant materials co-exist are now largely understood, the phenomenon used to provoke both curiosity and anxiety. It raises questions about the boundaries of living things and speaks to contemporary thinking about ecological entanglement.

Under / Over
G12, Krowji, West Park, Redruth, Cornwall, TR15 3GE
7 October 2023 - 22 October 2023
Open Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays 11am-4pm plus Sunday 22 October 11am-4pm

Under / Over is part of the Flamm programme 21st and 22nd October in Redruth.

UNDER / OVER exhibition details

UNDER / OVER

Opening event Saturday 7 October 2023, 2pm-4pm
Saturday 7 October to Sunday 22 October 2023
Thursday to Saturday 11am-4pm, plus Sunday 22 October 11am-4pm
At G12 Gallery, Krowji, West Park, Redruth, TR15 3AJ

UNDER / OVER is a group exhibition by CAMP members riffing on themes of transformation and identity inspired by Redruth’s cultural shift from mining town to creative centre.

The exhibition has been curated in collaboration with Liam Jolly from Auction House, an artist-led project space in Redruth.

ACCESS INFORMATION
There is level access to the gallery, and an accessible toilet near the gallery, as well as next to the cafe.

Under / Over is part of the Flamm programme 21st and 22nd October in Redruth.

Under / Over

 

I am delighted to be one of the artists selected for 'Under / Over' at G12 Gallery, Krowji, Redruth in October.

 
Under / Over riffs on themes of transformation and identity inspired by Redruth’s cultural shift from mining town to creative centre.

The exhibition has been curated by Liam Jolly from Auction House, an artist-led project space in Redruth. It is supported by CAMP membership.

Exhibiting artists are:
Alice Clough
Leila Galloway
Adam Garratt
Gabrielle Hoad
Delpha Hudson
Jane Jobling
Thaïs Lenkiewicz
Patrycja Loranc
Alice Mahoney
Jess Pemberton
Teän Roberts
Laura Robertson
Stuart Robinson
Caroline Wilkins

 
UNDER / OVER
G12 Gallery, Krowji, West Park, Redruth, Cornwall, TR15 3GE
Saturday 7 October - Sunday 22 October 2023
Thursdays to Saturdays 11am to 4pm, plus Sunday 22 October 11am to 4pm
Opening event Saturday 7 October 2023, 2pm-4pm

Under / Over is part of the Flamm programme 21st and 22nd October in Redruth.

Trusting artists to do their thing

CAMP on Tour | Exeter Phoenix | Sunday 17 September 2023

Last Sunday, it was my great honour to co-present an artists' 'speed dating' (ie networking) event at Exeter Phoenix with Frankie Williams, on behalf of the CAMP membership. 

CAMP is a member-led support and professional development network for artists, arts producers, arts curators and arts writers in Devon and Cornwall. CAMP raises funds then uses them to meet the needs artists and arts professionals have identified for themselves, whether that's for residencies, research time, exhibiting opportunities, networking, professional development, skill sharing, self-care...whatever. There are some overheads to be met, but a large proportion of what CAMP raises is redistributed to artists to spend in self-organised activities. It guides and advises, sets some parameters and expectations, but basically CAMP trusts artists to know how best to deliver for artists (and their audiences).  And the results are often richer, deeper, more unexpected, more fun... and more efficient. Resourcefulness and creativity are, after all, what we're known for.

I don't want to suggest traditional arts organisations such as NPOs are the bad guys here but, too often, they are asked to deliver 'development' for artists when they'd rather be doing (in fact are designed for) other things. Large arts organisations are a vital part of the arts ecology, but top-down management of artist opportunities is a sponge that can soak up almost infinite amounts of time, energy and resources - if we let it. Arts management needs to be kept in check, both by those who do it as a job it and the artists who rely on it.  A little self-sufficiency goes a long way.