Tag: writing

“i remember / i don’t remember” for WBN2023

I made a visual text piece as my contribution to the World Book Night 2023 project organised and curated by Sarah Bodman and Linda Parr. ‘i remember / i don’t remember’ responds to the call using a sequence of childhood memories and found and generated text. The colours relate to the stories in the sequence.

For World Book Night 2023, WBN United Artists invited people via an open call, to read one or all of the following texts, and consider how they might represent a memory that could be used to create a shared experience, a coming together of voices from the past and present. I Remember by Joe Brainard / I Remember (Je me souviens) by Georges Perec / I Remember, I Remember by Mary Ruefle. 112 contributions were sent from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Mexico, Nepal, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden, UK, USA.

The exhibition will be on show at Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol, UK from 20th April – 30th June 2023, and Hong Kong Design Institute from late July – end of Sept 2023. You can view all the works received on the Instagram gallery put together by Linda Parr. WBN 2023 is curated and organised by Sarah Bodman and Linda Parr. The exhibition at Hong Kong Design Institute is organised by Jessica Ho Yuk Ching.

‘capes, folds, drapes’ with William Luz at Minerva Cafe on March 2nd

On March 2nd at Minerva Cafe in Bretonside, Plymouth, artist William Luz and I will present some outcomes from conversations and work-in-progress. Our process of working together started from a conversation about drawing, gesture, mark-making and representation. Specific details came to the fore, and prompted a gathering of material around fabric and drapery in art, and around the image of the cape in particular in superhero comics. Further thoughts clustered around queer representation of the cape, around desire as focused on the wrapped, clothed or veiled body. Our distinct practices in drawing, performance, writing and making combine in this joint presentation of early outcomes of this investigation. There will be drawings, actions, reading, words, and a free mini-zine for the audience. The event is part of the First Thursday series organised by Queer District Collective.

‘toward an emblem’ presentation video now online

The recording of the zoom live performance of the text and image work ‘toward an emblem’ is now online at the CAMP website. The slide-film with reading was presented as part of the CAMP Huddle event on 8th December. My performance runs to 25:39 on the timeline. It is followed by a short Q&A with the online audience, and then there is a presentation by artist Sarah Trotter. Follow the link to the CAMP website HERE and scroll down to watch the video.

online text/image performance on December 8th

At 6.30pm (GMT) I will present ‘toward an emblem‘, a slidefilm with live reading, as part of the Huddle series organised by CAMP. I have been interested in the concept of the emblem for a number of years, and wanted to find a way to share some of this in both textual and visual form through a performance on zoom. The Huddle project feels a good opportunity to share this work in progress, and allow space for some dialogue or discussion.

The emblem draws my attention because of its malleability, its function as a communicative device, but one that is unstable, variable, mobile. Bringing together materials or elements from diverse contexts and from conflicting sources, the emblem as assemblage sits awkwardly within categories and classification. Juxtaposing collages that strain taxonomy and poke at order with texts that bring together theory, ornament and repetition the presentation will test what can be said in the present with a worn out or junked vocabulary.

The zoom link for the event can be accessed via the CAMP website: https://www.camp-membership.org/huddle/ A recording will be posted here after the event.

page in new Devon/Cornwall artists publication

I have had a piece of work selected for a new publication of work by artists in Devon and Cornwall. ‘dublin emblem 7’ was chosen for Front Page Back Page Centrefold, a curated magazine produced by Flock South West in cooperation with CAMP as a fringe event for the British Art Show 9 in Plymouth.

My piece combines a collage produced while staying in Dublin in 2021 with text exploring some ideas around emblemata, meaning, narrative and assemblage.

The magazine is available in all BAS9 venues, or online from https://www.flocksouthwest.org/shop.