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Here is a selection from MOULD MAP 6 — TERRAFORMERS showcasing parts of the screening programme and the #MounldMap6 competition.

#MouldMap6 COMPETITION: Design your own Terraformers Armour

Mould Map and Landfill Editions invite NTU’s current students, staff, alumni and visitors to the exhibition, Mould Map 6 – Terraformers at Bonington Gallery, to design your very own Terraformers armour and enter into our online competition.

From Saturday 21 September – Friday 21 October, Bonington Gallery plays host to over 50 artists and designers whose work demonstrates a diverse array of comic and narrative art. Mould Map 6 takes the form of an exhibition / walk-through magazine and will include talks, film screenings, performances and open workshops.

What does it look like, what it is made from, what does it protect you from, and what world do you wear it for? Is it decorative? Is it utilitarian? Is it symbolic? What does it say about you and your world?

To create your armour you can use any materials of your choosing, it can be two or three dimensional, the choice is yours.

Everyone needs armour sometimes, and we want to give prizes for the most exciting, imaginative armour out there.

Judged by Hugh Frost and Leon Sadler, the winning entrant will take home the following prizes:

If the winner is 15 years and over:

A limited edition copy of Mould Map 5, Black Box; and either a copy of Mould Map 4 or Jaakko Pallasvuo’s Pure Shores.

To enter, begin by following The School of Art & Design and Bonington Gallery on Twitter and/or Instagram (see below for details).

Use your wildest imagination, design your own armour and show us what it would look like by posting it on using Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #MouldMap6. Entrants are welcome to include a short description about their design (no essays please!).

The competition is open to entries from 10 am on Saturday 17 September until 12am (midnight) on Wednesday 19 October 2016.The winner will be announced on Friday 21 October via Bonington Gallery and NTU School of Art & Design accounts on Twitter and Instagram. Good luck!

#MouldMap6 Competition… some inspiration:

Feeling inspired by the Mould Map 6 — Terraformers exhibition? We’ve teamed up with Landfill Editions to offer you the chance of winning Mould Map goodies…

If you had your own armour, what would it be like? What does it look like, what it is made from, what does it protect you from, and what world do you wear it for? Is it decorative? Is it utilitarian? Is it symbolic? What does it say about you and your world? Everyone needs armour sometimes, and we want to give prizes for the most exciting, imaginative armour out there.

Check out this great entry from bethanyhkelly on Instagram. What does your Terraformers armour look like?

Terraformers Lunchtime Screening 1: You the Better (1983), Ericka Beckman

Join us on Wednesday for the first Terraformers film screening event, featuring Ericka Beckman’s 1983 film, You the Better.

DATE: Wednesday 5 October
TIME: 1.15 pm – 2.45 pm
LOCATION: BON 002, Bonington building

Ericka Beckman (b1951) is an American filmmaker who began to make films in the 1970s as part of the Pictures generation. Her films are concerned with the relationship between people and images and how images structure people’s perception of themselves and of reality. Represented by Mary Boone Gallery.

Terraformers Lunchtime Screening 2: Writ Stink (2015), Bedwyr Williams

DATE: Wednesday 12 October
TIME: 1.15 pm – 1.45 pm
LOCATION: BON 002, Bonington building

First shown as part of Williams’ debut exhibition at Limoncello, and taking the form of a series of animated monochrome ink drawings, the video weaves a morose fable of a 39 year old man, The Big Scholar, who backs up his secrets to a hard drive in a cave for no-one to find. Probably ever.

Mould Map 6 — TERRAFORMERS Saturday Special

FRIDAY – TERRAFORMERS / Landing Strip Bar with L-v-L at Syson Gallery 8 pm – 1 am.

SATURDAY – Exhibition open 10 am – 8 pm – Table selling books from Landfill Editions / Mould Map / Famicon Express and others all day.

10 am – 4 pm: Mould Map Workshop 2 — World Making in Visual Story Telling with Jon Chandler and Joseph Kelly.

4.15 pm – 5 pm: Rhys Jones & Ben Price – Post-Capitalist Architecture. Room Bon 002. Discussing projects undertaken as part of their 3rd year studies at NTU, Rhys and Ben will present speculative proposals for post-capitalist built environments followed by a Q & A.

5 pm – 5.45 pm: Hui-Ying Kerr – Magazines of The Japanese Bubble Economy. Room Bon 002. Going into further depth on the issues of hyper-consumerism and representation touched upon in her article within the Mould Map exhibition itself, Hui-Ying will be drawing upon her PhD thesis undertaken at The Royal College of Art and in collaboration with the V&A.

6 pm – 6.45 pm: Dr David M. Bell and Dr Miranda Iossifidis – World-building and Utopianism. Room Bon 002. David M. Bell is interested in the possibilities of utopia(nism) as a form operating within, against and beyond this – and any – reality. He has explored such utopia(nism)s in and through art, fiction, music and education; and currently works on the ‘Imaginaries of the Future’ network at Newcastle University. His first book, Rethinking Utopia, will be published by Routledge in 2017. Miranda Iossifidis is a Lecturer in Contextual and Theoretical Studies at LCC. Her current research interests are at the intersection between urban studies, audiovisual culture and utopianism.

7 pm: Cocktails with Furgastro Bonington Gallery. Join celebrity chef and star of Stefan Sadler’s Dinnerplates, Furgastro for a refreshing drinks-based lucky-dip.

A School for Design Fiction: Department of Pataphysics: In Photos:

Yesterday James Langdon and Peter Nencini ran a workshop for visitors on the mysterious science of Pataphysics, in connection with Mould Map 6 — Terraformers.

Below are a few photos from part of the afternoon, where participants were reorganising an existing text using alternative methods of paragraph blocking, led by James Langdon:

Where it started…

Earlier this morning, Hugh Frost of Landfill Editions gave NTU Art & Design students an introduction to the Mould Map series.

Mould Map 6 — Terraformers: In the Press

Hugh Frost and Leon Sadler’s magazine-turned-exhibition has been featured in Frieze and AIGA’s Eye On Design!

In the reviews you can read more about the origins and ideas behind the show, including: Hugh and Leon’s approach to editing and curating Mould Map, tying together such a diverse group of artists, tackling heavy social political issues, and possible plans for future editions of Mould Map.

It’s Nice That take a look at Mould Map 6 — Terraformers

For your Friday – here’s a great little review of the Terraformers exhibition over on It’s Nice That.

Don’t forget to enter our #MouldMap6 competition. Design your own Terraformers armour to be in with a chance of winning Mould Map / Landfill Editions goodies.

Mould Map 6 — Terraformers continues on Monday. Open weekdays from 10 am – 5 pm.

Everything is better when it’s walk-in

For an exhibition that doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, my response to Mould Map 6 — Terraformers follows in the same vein. Not to say I haven’t found the work intellectually valuable (I actually found a lot to take from it), but the aspect of Terraformers I have found myself contemplating most is the description of the exhibition. Or really just one line of it; that for this show the Gallery contains a “group exhibition / walk-in magazine”.

There was once a time, before I came to Nottingham and began studying Fine Art, when I thought a publication had to be on paper. I thought it had to have lines of words. I thought it had to be carried in hands and found soggy in the rain. I thought it had to fit a category. Soon after my arrival in the city, and upon crawling out from the rock I had apparently been living under, I discovered zines. This opened up my world to self-publication and all the practicalities of the printed word that is no longer essential there. Ever since, for me, the confines of “a publication” have ebbed away in to the peripheral. Still, Mould Map 6- Terraformers, has once again been a revelation.

I never thought a publication could BE an exhibition. I never thought it could be this colourful, have a film piece, and a computer game. But the thing that stuck is I never thought a publication could be walk-in.

I was left considering the words “walk-in” above all else. To me, “walk-in” is a domestic term. You get walk-in showers, walk-in pantries. As a girl growing up having a walk-in wardrobe was a thing of envy. But never a walk-in magazine. The bright colours of the exhibition against the stark white walls of the gallery space remind me of the early 1990’s computer graphics, of the episode of Goosebumps when the protagonist was sucked in to the computer, and the stretching 3D shapes of early screensavers. It is as if a magazine was sucked in to a void and dissected but then frozen, suspended for us to encounter. As I walk around the exhibition and traverse the different surfaces of visual information I agree with those wardrobe ready preteens, everything is better when it’s walk-in.

For the opening of Krísis, several artists were invited to perform by Something Human. The opening performance was Tuan Mami’s In/Visible Borderline Project II: The Act of Ceremony & Game.

Tuan Mami welcomed guest to the preview, before handing over to Kittipanyo and Ven. Tuan, who led the audience in a moment of meditation, followed by a group reading of a prayer.

Tuan Mami then invited audience members to interact with a drawing on the wall, which he had prepared earlier. Now that the act of “ceremony” was complete, the “game” could take place.

Visitors and fellow artists took turns to shoot water at the drawing using water pistols, which began to erode and run down the wall – creating a visual parallel to the previous act of pouring water over the sculpture. The drawing / game remains in the Gallery as part of the exhibition, alongside work from Aida Silvestri, Dictaphone Group and other work by Tuan Mami.

To find out more about the artists involved in the show take a look through Something Human’s guest posts here on the blog.

Viktor Hachmang

Terraformers opens in two weeks’ time. Starting from today – we’ll be showcasing a selection of the 40+ artists and designers involved. First up is Mould Map regular, Viktor Hachmang:

“The woodblock prints of Edo-era Japan depict a floating world, closed off to foreign influence. By contrast, while often informed by the formal elements of these masterpieces, the graphic world of Viktor Hachmang is anything but closed, drawing lessons from and gleefully combining visual vocabularies spanning the boundaries of time and space.

His skill as an illustrator lies in an ability to synthesize these references with succinct visual communication. His energy as an artist flows from the sense of universal human experience and culture his imagery invokes – at once contemporary but timeless – how does he do that?” – Hugh Frost, April 2015

Alexandre Bavard

With a background in traditional graffiti writing as member of the PAL crew (going under the name Mosa), Alexandre Bavard has expanded his practice to include video and performances pieces and large-scale airbrush paintings similar to distant galaxies – and frequently reappearing as Mosa in a silk hood with sunglasses on top.

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Alexandre Bavard, from Mould Map 4 — Eurozone Spezial

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Antwan Horfee

Today’s featured Terraformers artist is Paris-based Antwan Horfee. Horfee, like Alexandre Bavard, is a graffiti writer and artist based in Paris. Pushing away from letters and tags, Horfee’s studio practice carries the same signature style, but pulls in observations and cultural reflections – giving the viewer a glimpse into the world as he sees it. See more of Horfee’s work here.

Daniel Swan

Daniel Swan is a visual artist who creates often creates worlds in the form of animations – producing music videos for Jam City, RL Grime, Django Django, and more – as well as exhibiting work in a gallery setting.

Swan’s animations are built up around slick, futuristic worlds, which gradually shift and change throughout the song to create very distinct moods:

Although a little different from the majority of his work, this found footage montage / mashup is well worth the watch – combining clips from well known movies to create a completely new universe and story:

C.F.

C.F. is a cartoonist (and musician) best known for his comic series Powr Mastrs, which weaves together complex characters and bizarre story lines in a deceptively simple looking drawing style – all set in the fantasy world of “New China”.

Ed Fornieles

Ed Fornieles (b.1983, UK) makes work that charts the osmosis between online and oﬄine realities. His role-play driven scenarios explore the psychology of behaviour and limits of subjectivity. Fornieles uses a Fox persona that smudges the line between fantasy and reality – a cartoon character who channels the artist’s point of view as well as operating as the face of his practice via Fornieles’s Instagram account.

G.W. Duncanson

G. W. Duncanson is a native of New York. Along with a dozen self-manufactured limited edition art books, his work has been published by Kniv Komix out of Copenhagen, Tiny Masters out of Leipzig, Kuš! in Latvia, and by Landfill Editions in the United Kingdom. His work has been published and exhibited extensively in the United States most notably by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in their Best American Comics of 2014 where it stands as an exemplar of avant-garde picture story.

Along with being a creator, Duncanson organizes and acts as public relations officer for Brooklyn’s Ditko! Exclamation ‘zine library housed at the not-for-profit arts space The Silent Barn and co-curates the PaperJam Festival, its associated bi-annual small press event.

Mould Map 6 opens this Saturday (between 10 am – 3 pm), and we can’t wait! Stay tuned for more updates throughout this week.

Hannah Bays

Hannah Bays is a painter (b. London, 1982) who studied at the Royal Academy Schools. Interested in human drives and the construction of meaning in our lives, recent work has focused on desire – both as motivational force and something also open to manipulation. Bays’s work has a Pop lineage yet is insistent also on spontaneous painterly gesture, or ‘affirmation’. Colour is used seductively yet often to the brink of nausea. There is a push and pull between the abstract and figurative, the symbolic and the purely formal, with a personal iconography including elements such as plasters and puncture repair kits.

Bays has work in the Jerwood, Hiscox and Soho House collections, was awarded a Jerwood Purchase Prize in 2014 and the Agnes Ethel Mackay travel award in 2015.

Jacob Ciocci

Jacob Ciocci is a US-based artist, most well known as a member of art collective Paper Rad (2001-2008). His work is concerned with the relationships between popular culture, technology and notions of transcendence. In his paintings, comics, performances, net art and videos, contemporary and recently forgotten cultural symbols confront one another inside a frenzied cartoon universe that is simultaneously celebratory and critical.

In the run up to the opening of Mastered, we’ll drawing your attention to just a few of the artists and designers who will be exhibiting their work in the show – bringing together the best work from across Nottingham Trent University’s School of Art & Design postgraduate courses.

Fiona Nugent, MA Fashion Knitwear Design

“Anxiety is a lasting feeling of unavoidable doom. Anxiety is a state of tension and expectation of disaster.” [1]

The MA project ‘Distorted Lines: An Investigation into Anxiety’ looks at the subject of anxiety and the ways in which it can be translated through the medium of knitwear. The project takes the contrasting ideas of restriction and comfort, contorting and altering the surface of knitwear to reflect the ways in which anxiety binds and restrains, creating physical and mental suffering. Against this, comfort is juxtaposed as a means of lessening these negative effects, brought through in the softness of the lambswool and the oversized, engulfing garment silhouettes.

The work incorporates handcrafted, dubied machine knitted techniques and crochet to create pieces that are at once unique and high quality. A huge importance is placed on sustainable design practices, from the careful sourcing of premium, organic yarns to the fully fashioning of all pieces to eliminate unnecessary waste.

[1] (Ed) Wolman, Benjamin B/(C0-ED) Striker, George, Anxiety and Related Disorders, A Handbook, New York, John Wiley & Sons, INC, 1993.

Tong Zhang, MA Photography

Tong’s series of self-portraits explore the differences between oriental and western women in social status – the old society and the new society. The photos can be divided into 3 groups: playing the part of celebrities, self-expression and regional culture.

As an international student, Tong hopes to make oriental feminist culture known to more people through her works based on her experience and study overseas.

The composition is important too: the photos are all taken from the same angle, and there is a large space left above the top of the heads of the characters. This not only endows the photos with a sense of space, but more importantly, Tong hopes to express that there is a large space for women to improve their social status and pursue freedom in the future.

Yi-Ying Chen (Ellen), MFA Fine Art

Ellen is an artist who is intrigued with the colour grey. She is inspired by traditional black Chinese ink, which when diluted and applied to rice paper, produces a variety of shades of grey – soaking into the paper layer by layer.

Ember- Floating space’ is a performance piece, in which Ellen attempts to make invisible space visible, through wax formations in water.

Something unpredictable and uncontrollable emerges in the process of conflict; and beautiful, mountain-like spaces are created as the liquid wax cools and solidifies in the water.

Testimonial on the journey after graduating from BA Fine Art Student, Reece Straw, exploring the opportunities they encountered during their time at NTU:

Tunnel Vision

Foxall Studio have extended Publishing Rooms out into the city of Nottingham – presenting a selection of scanned portraits from the show in Tunnel Vision, a new digital exhibition space in the Broadmarsh bus station:

oneiroi infiltrating the publishing rooms

Publishing – whether that be images or text – is now an inherent part of social media. Tweeting 140 characters or posting pictures of your cat is fundamentally a decisive act of self-publication. Once published, you relinquish control over what it is the post truly does. Even now in the workshop run by the Foxall brothers, conversation steers towards ideas of branding and promotion. All public activity on social media is an act of branding – branding yourself in the way in which you want to be perceived and building a digital collage of who you are (see Reece Straw’s earlier blogpost, ‘Adidas or Nothing’, for more on this). What is it you are trying to say or be? How decisive can you be in these acts?

The transmutation between digital and physical is of particular interest to me. As an artist, writer, and curator, I cannot escape the intrinsic necessity of using both formats. While the lean towards digital (tweets, posts, e-books…) is getting a more apparent lean in ideas of successful circulation, like many people, I cannot help but relish in handling a physical object. What Publishing Rooms highlights is the possibility for a more succinct dialogue between the two.

Having paid witness to the evolution of social media in my teenage years, of course I know how impactful the digital is – so why wouldn’t I use every opportunity for self-promotion? With the exhibition being such a delightful and useful self-publication tool how could I not try to promote my other work of self-publishing?

Beginning as an exercise in curation and extending from my own interests in creative writing, oneiroi is now almost ready to launch.

Starting with the first issue – entitled ‘withholding’ – oneiroi aims to showcase creative writing that shows unique and original flair. Curated, designed, edited, printed, and hand-bound by myself, ‘withholding’ contains writings by 12 young artists and writers from around the country. The original intent of the zine was to create a casual yet polished surface for people to put their writing out to the world. As a young creative it is often hard to know where to place work in the wider landscape, and often not have the confidence to put it anywhere at all. Being on a visual arts course creative writing is not often looked at with great scrutiny, but it was clear to me that artists are writing regardless. After all, writing is inherently a visual thing, whether it be a meticulously organised piece of concrete poetry, or a simple paragraph on Word. As an extension of aural language, humans have constructed the written word to help convey messages, and now most of us are taught (potentially brainwashed) to understand characters and symbols. Even while reading this you cannot avoid decoding the sequence of letters to understand their symbolic meaning.

For my own practice, creative writing and poetry is a great enabler in making messages that I find difficult to convey in other visual forms. Writing has the potential to create an infinite combination of images, emotions, ideas, tones etc. A picture can say 1000 words, but a word can create a million images, purely because a word is an absolute construction of human knowledge. Every individual has their own experiences and inevitably, this has a knock-on affect on their perception of particular words and phrases. It is for this reason, I thoroughly enjoyed reading through the submissions for oneiroi‘s first issue. Each piece chosen has that certain quality of withholding information, making it hard to avoid not wanting more. Personally, I tire easily when presented with a narrative that gives information too willingly – I enjoy the game of a teasing chase.

Alongside this, I was also particularly interested in the eclectic range of styles and formats in the submissions. Each writing has a clear personality to it and a definitive message to voice. The launch of the zine will be coming soon, with a launch party to be hosted in Nottingham, with some of the featured writers doing reading of their work. For more info, follow oneiroi on social media sites listed below.

Previous work with scanners

As a studio, Andrew and Iain have worked with scanners a few times in the past years. Here are two examples:

The 243 windows of four big buildings on New Bond Street were the canvas. Vacated during Crossrail work, we were commissioned to make a feature of their facades during the construction.

Sizing up for the scanner walls, some thoughts on zines and instagram

With just two weeks to go until Publishing Rooms opens here at the Gallery, Iain and Andrew Foxall have been busy working on tests for the scanner wall installations.

You can see more from behind the scenes of Foxall studio by following them on Instagram, and using the #PublishingRooms on Instagram and Twitter.

Publishing Rooms: Coming Soon

In the run up to Publishing Rooms, Iain and Andrew of Foxall Studios introduce us to the project, giving you a glimpse into the scanner camera tests and some of the plans for the exhibition:

Currently we are surrounded by 103 flatbed scanners with cables and computers everywhere. Living with the flatbed scanners, and testing various configurations and optical adjustments, and involving good minds and hands has uncovered a lot. The collective, innate curiosity to see what will happen once we collide the variables seems to be the main driver for our daily work.

The main events so far that bring us to today have been; finding a palette of flatbed scanners in a recycling plant, rewriting the scanner drivers so that they can be called through a web browser remotely, having 4 scanners running concurrently from one computer, etc.

Please be in touch with anything that you think would be relevant. We are promoting resourcefulness with this show. We reconfigure simple, everyday, ubiquitous elements to enable inventive expression. So please keep an eye out for anything that we can utilise. That could be a box of old magazines for a library, or a roll of fabric that you’re not using.

For the show, our intern Marion (photographed on a scanner camera test, below) will be keeping the outside world up-to-date on progress.

Taking place on Thursday 19 May, this screening will be held in the middle of the Publishing Rooms exhibition – which will also be open to view before the films begin.

Also – don’t forget that our new series of talks, Bonington Lunchtimes, starts tomorrow with Printed Matter?. Join guest speakers Matt Gill, Alex Smith, Andrew & Iain Foxall for an informal discussion examining the importance and relevance of print, chaired by Tom Godfrey. From 1 pm – 2 pm.

Here are a few images from the preview of Imprints of Culture: Block Printed Textiles of India last night. Thank you all for coming along, and if you missed it, don’t worry, this exhibition will be open until the 24th March

Here you can find a selection of blog posts about the exhibition Performing Drawology

John Court: Durational Drawing

RECAP DAY ONE
Taken from Monday 8 February: John performs ‘durational drawing’ in the space, using charcoal and a black marker.
Join us from 2 pm – 3 pm today in the Gallery, for an open discussion with John.

West Bridgford Infant School respond to Performing Drawology

Last week, 80 five and six year old’s from West Bridgford Infant School contributed to a collaborative drawing, inspired by our current exhibition, Performing Drawology. Led by Holly Mills, Ana Souto and Anja Bendix (academic staff from the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment at NTU), there were three drawing sessions, consisting of 20 minutes each and approximately 25 children.

The first class used black pen to draw on four pieces of paper four metres long. Classical music was also played, which some of the pupils responded to:

The second class then used oil pastels to colour in some of the shapes drawn by the first class, and the third group used paint sticks to colour in the shapes and add more lines:

These drawings will be exhibited in the Atrium Space at the Performing Drawology closing event on Thursday 11 February 2016 from 5 pm – 8 pm, along with drawings created by Architecture and Interior Architecture students from NTU. If you’d like to attend the Performing Drawology closing event, simply RSVP via email to confirm your attendance

Over

Recently, we invited our invigilators (who are all current students here at NTU) to contribute to the blog. Here’s the first piece – written by third year BA (Hons) Fine Art student, Reece:

This corrugated ceiling, belonging to the fine art studios at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) has seen many things.

Realisations, celebrations, accidents, reflection, tears, conversation, break downs, friendships, relationships, hard labour, scolding, disaster, enjoyment, perseverance, triumph… All connected to the OVERarching landscape of Fine Art.

Each individual journey, of each student, each member of staff, each technician and each visitor has been charted by this roof.

Due to the cycle of presenting work throughout each of the years on the course, artwork remains very temporary when in the studios. Any work that survives the annual degree show set up, becomes rather special, dodging the fresh paint, the wood filler and sandpaper. These hidden works are reminders of the past students’ expedition through their practices’, mirroring my own current exploration here at NTU as its end draws ever closer.

I have had three years to solely explore my concepts and discover contexts, constantly working alongside other artists working in every different media and area available. This adorned light enclosure, and the ceiling it hangs from has housed this voyage, watching OVER us, each struggle, each encounter, each accomplishment. To that I owe it something.

Asking the question of why we instinctively look up for answers, towards something higher. In this case this is interrupted by the ambiguity of the ‘OVER’ light shining down from the lofty heights of the Fishbowl (a nickname for a space that stuck, its origin also forgotten). A relic of an artist’s legacy that has long left the nest, spread their wings and took flight onto the next journey.

Gallery walls used as a blank sheet for live drawing exhibition

Artists will work to an open brief and create a unique and unplanned artwork in a novel drawing exhibition here at the Gallery.

Performing Drawology – which takes place between Friday 15 January and Friday 12 February – will see the creative process unfold live as eight artists undertake separate residencies to create a collaborative drawing on the gallery walls.

The exhibition – which will evolve from one practitioner to the next – is curated by humhyphenhum, a collaboration between Nottingham Trent University lecturer Deborah Harty and Phil Sawdon, an honorary fellow of Loughborough University.

“It’s very experimental, and we have no way of being able to foresee what’s going to happen,” said artist Harty, a researcher in what drawings say about a person’s mind and movements, who also works on her own projects.

“Phil and I asked each artist to bring their drawing toolkit with them, but have left it completely open as to how it manifests in the gallery.

“It could be a major success or a complete disaster – that’s the risk we’re taking. We’re not sure what’s going to be left behind when it’s all finished.”

The artists include Deborah Harty and Phil Sawdon (as humhyphenhum) Lorraine Young, Catherine Bertola, Maryclare Foa, Andrew Pepper, Martin Lewis and John Court. They were invited on the basis of being open minded to collaborating in an experimental way.

The drawing will be initiated and completed by humhyphenhum. There will be a closing night celebration on Thursday 11 February during which visitors can view the final artwork.

“It’s an incredibly exciting project and we hope that the entire space is engaged in some way,” added Harty.

“In many ways it could be daunting to be faced with what is essentially a considerably large blank sheet of paper. But we’re sure it’s going to be a great success.

“We’re hoping that people will enter the space once the project is completed and see it as a walk-in drawing.”

Reflecting on Performing Drawology – Dominique Phizacklea

Sitting in the Gallery today I have had time to reflect on the evolution that has occurred here over the last few weeks. As I had to be knowledgeable when on shift, I made time to visit and revisit the exhibition, and have watched the changes, which at first seemed subtle, explode outwards.

For me what began as simplistic has become anything but. I was unsure how I would feel when returning to the space each time. The first few weeks, I remember wanting, craving almost a mark to be made upon the clear skin of the white gallery walls, a blemish to appear on the pale rolls of paper. I had enjoyed the feeling of wonder when stumbling on the snail shells and small drawings pinned to the walls like an insect in a specimen tray. But despite this, I have struggled with feelings that the activity was too stuffy or reserved for such a large open space.

I understand the title of the exhibition “Performing Drawology” to mean the actions or performance of drawing, the strokes and movement. Like a dance. With the marks made the evidence of the action. As a Fine Art student we are always reminded to question: “what is the work? Is it the drawings? Or the act of making them?”

I feel my stance on this issue shifted during the continuation of the exhibition. I at first saw the appearance of the sculptural snails and the miniature drawings as the work, only now realising that in the later weeks, I found watching the workings of the artists to be the work and the results almost a by-product.

When returning to view Joe Graham in residence in the exhibition I had the chance to not only be part of the work by assisting him but was able to observe the decisions being formed. Despite what I felt to be a fast-paced approach to the space, I could see each movement made with his body as calculated; each mark made, each incision, each drip. When turning up for my shift, I first felt uncomfortable as the level of change from the almost sleeping state of the exhibition over the weekend of rest had awakened in to a very big and playful scene. I did not think I would like the changes, as someone who does not like change I felt almost anxious seeing the carefully folded concertina paper installations altered, cut up and strewn across the floor.

I did not think I would like exhibition after this but I was wrong. I quickly got in to the groove of Graham’s work and left my shift with a smile on my face, having enjoyed having fun in the gallery.

I return to the act of reflecting. Actively absorbing and thinking. Adjective, doing word. Today, on the last day of the exhibition, I see the finished gallery and conclude that I am among a stage set, an active space. I feel it is impossible to do nothing here now, my eyes wonder around the space in continuous movement. I watch the time-lapse video, noticing the moment where I am present. The sped-up movement return my thoughts to dance. I spin around to look at more of the room, more of the projection.

I take away my conclusion as to what the work is. For me, ultimately, I was the work. The way I now move around the Gallery in response to the performance of the artists is almost as if they had written the play and I am the dutiful performer.