Festive Greetings from Somewhere to all our friends!

Posted Monday 21st December, 2009 at 3:36 pm by Karen

An Inspiring Weekend in the Country

Had a lovely evening at Cumbria's newest film festival last weekend, run by BRICarts in Broughton-in-Furness. I showed some film clips from our work, and the little-seen Pope & Guthrie short film Little Deluxe Living shot in the Lake District and Japan. This was followed by intriguing shorts by Ben Rivers and Gideon Koppel's acclaimed 'Sleep Furiously'- a beautifully shot doc set in the rural Welsh hills - was just the right thing for the audience there on the night but for me was rather too sepia tinted and genteel though there is much to admire in its restraint, pace and cinematography.

See here for a wee review

Posted Monday 7th December, 2009 at 5:42 pm by Karen

A Weekend in the Country - Dec 5th & 6th

We're screening our short film 'Little Deluxe Living' (followed by a Q & A with Karen) on Sat 5th Dec at 6pm as part of 'A Weekend in the Country' which is a new film festival by BRICarts at the Victory Hall in Broughton-in-Furness in the Lake District.
More info here.

Posted Wednesday 2nd December, 2009 at 11:34 am by Karen

Exmoor National Dress on the catwalk in Newcastle

I'm pleased to see that my film, costume and portraits are going on show as part of 'Triparks'
at
ACAdovetail, Amy House, 61 Blandford Square (in front of the Discovery Museum),
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4HZ

Exhibition runs from 4/11/09 - end of March 2010

Opening hours: Mon-Fri 9-5pm (occasionally closed for lunch) / Entry is free

For more information: contact: Helen Ratcliffe, (01434) 685040, helenheads@aol.com

A project initiated by Aune Heads Arts

Posted Wednesday 2nd December, 2009 at 10:50 am by Karen

What's German for 'titschy'?

Our piece Titschy / Kitschy enjoys another outing as part of the show by our friends myvillages.org 'Schnucken, Elefanten und andere Gastgeschenke' at Kunstverein Springhornhof in Germany until Dec. 20th.

Posted Sunday 29th November, 2009 at 2:59 pm by Karen

Meanwhile on the other side of the world...

A belated plug for a group show that we were lately in, in Australia, with our very vintage (1999) piece 'An Artist's Impression', recently acquired for their collection by the Science Museum in London. What was nice that the curator Neil Jenkins had been an early user of the piece's MUSH (for all you Xbox generation-ers, that's an archaic kind of online game - just black and white scrolling text!) - which is still very much alive c/o our technical guru Javelin in the States.

The lovely show title (after Borges) was The Garden of Forking Paths, and broadly speaking it was an exhibition of historic and contemporary artists' computer games with such luminaries as Laurie Anderson in it!

More info here

Posted Wednesday 25th November, 2009 at 2:48 pm by Karen

Autumn is here ...

... and boy has it been windy at Abbey Gardens!

Posted Wednesday 25th November, 2009 at 12:41 pm by Nina

Can Titchy / Kitschy Save Art?

We took some time out from the rigours of the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival recently to visit our little model houses Titchy / Kitschy, currently in the Grizedale Arts exhibit in the show, Can Art Save Us?

It's at the Millenium Galleries, Sheffield, until Jan. 10th 2010 (no rush then) - more info on it here

Posted Thursday 19th November, 2009 at 12:06 am by Karen

"Atmosphere ... I love a symposium with an atmosphere"

Last week I attended the following event at Goldsmiths ATMOSPHERES OF PARTICIPATION: ART, MEDIA, POLITICS (Two talks and a discussion about presence, liveness and the importance of participation). As usual I had rather rashly agreed to participate in this event as a speaker without being entirely clear what would be asked of me. The day before I looked in more detail at the paperwork and realised the event would be a round table for invitation-only guests and that I should probably

a) Think through more carefully what I wanted to contribute and

b) Attend the evening talks the night before as one was being given by an old colleague who would also 'respond' to my presentation and the other would be by another participant.

SO I left the Royal College and tried to take a train from Victoria in the pouring rain with my bike, having failed to get on a train but by now underway I continued in the downpour arriving late, lost and soaking during the first talk. Despite being a read paper (which I always struggle with) you can't knock a talk which features "Suffragists, Trolls, and Sharon Hayes' Art of Protest". However, as I steamed dry and tried to focus on the next (again read) paper I became increasingly panicked about what might be in store the next day. Now I'm sure the speaker who we'll call Mr S is a very bright, very well read man ... but there was no possible way to gauge this from his talk. As well as reading a very dense piece of theory he simultaneously showed on a huge screen behind him a piece of work (given very little intro) which had subtitles to lots of montage protest footage. This went on at some length and after about 5 minutes I gave up trying to follow him or the subtitles (never mind both) and just sat there longing for the whole thing to be over.

Now, had I not been speaking alongside this man the next day I probably wouldn't have felt

a) Rage that I had sat through the best part of an hour of this or

b) Increasing panic about how I would engage with the other academic material on offer the following day.

In fact without this pressure I may even have indulged in some curiosity as to whether he was just being deliberately difficult or in fact had no idea that it was impossible to follow.

So we come to the next morning, I get up at the crack of dawn and write my talk without a clear guidance as to how long it should be or the availability of AV equipment. Terrified of missing the first speaker and not being seen to 'fully engage' I then take a cab to Goldsmiths to be there on time. I then spend the morning sitting round a large boardroom style table listening to more or less interesting (but again drily delivered) academic papers which to my mind seem to connect rather loosely to the questions posed by the organisers.

Along with the other two artists asked to participate we all struggle to remain engaged through these rather lengthy and specific papers as we are then to have lunch with these other guests and they will in turn respond to our ideas ... or so we think.

As the usual bolted lunch and missing AV cable anxieties subside and we settle into our allotted artists slots (approx. one third of those allowed for the academics) there are some rather obvious gaps around the table. Basically most of the morning's presenters have now made a hasty exit and we are left with a vastly reduced group of participants and for me a somewhat disappointing atmosphere of 'participation'. Each of the artists (including me) successfully cuts short their presentation in order to keep to time, as well as giving a lively, illustrated and specific talk (without reading) accurately tailored to the advertised interests of the conference.

The day is completed by a final academic from Goldsmiths. He begins with an 'apology' for his failure to attend any of the rest of the day, as he has been speed reading a newly published book apparently unavailable in translation and so (I assume he assumes) inaccessible to his audience. Rather than a generous sacrifice I take this as a rather arrogant opt out of the days event and a final nail in the coffin for the idea that it has been about participation. This impression is not helped when he corners myself and another artist in the pub afterwards and oscillates between name dropping, apologising for missing our presentations which he nevertheless tries to comment on and bleeding us for contacts.

By the end of the day I was developing a sneaky liking for Mr. S the source of all my anxiety the night before. By now I realised that the majority of the audience had failed to follow a word he said so I no longer cared about this. Plus of all the people at the event only he and a handful of the other academics made any attempt to actually engage with the atmosphere created by the people in the room and what they bought to the debate. I actually almost found myself willing him to make another comment before the day was up, I may not have followed what he was saying but we did at least seem to have a mutual respect for the 'importance of participation'!

Posted Wednesday 18th November, 2009 at 9:58 pm by Nina

Inter-seasonal wardrobe dilemma

Or a change to garden club times!

Unlike me Abbey Gardens looks wonderful and confident in Autumn (as opposed to flustered and either under or over dressed) so come down and have a look before the season is over ...

Now the clocks have changed we are tweeking our Thursday night garden club times.

Chris will continue to run the Garden Club until the end of November, Saturdays and Tuesdays remain the same but we are moving the Thursday night session forward. So until the end of November the times will be as follows:

Saturdays 10.00 am - 2.00 pm
Tuesdays 10.00 am - 1.00 pm
Thursdays 4.00 pm - dusk (at present about 5.30)

Of course the garden is now open to the public everyday so you can visit at any time, but if you want to get into hands on gardening these are the best times.

Despite the Autumnal feel there is still a lot to see in the garden (see image opposite taken last week) and in fact harvest. For anyone with an innovative tomato recipe (green or otherwise) now is your moment to visit or add to the plant database!

As Chris is on holiday this week I am running the sessions - on Thursday night we have a group of students visiting so I'll be giving a talk about the garden if anyone would like to join. On Saturday we have plenty of harvesting to do plus weeding and a few more 'choice' jobs! Hope to see you there.

Posted Wednesday 28th October, 2009 at 11:43 am by Nina