Here is a selection of Posts relating to the exhibition Publishing Rooms:
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:
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.
Instagram – @oneiroi_zine
Facebook – /oneiroizine
Twitter – @oneiroi_zine
Joseph Winsborrow
As a studio, Andrew and Iain have worked with scanners a few times in the past years. Here are two examples:
Bond Street Windows
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.
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.
Iain also shared some thoughts on Instagram and zine culture:
“…I liked what Simon Armitage said when asked about whether he would be a poet if poetry was mainstream, and replied a quick ‘no’, because he got into poetry precisely because it was on the edges. So it’s interesting to think how a punk zine-founder would have used instagram.”
Iain Foxall
You can see more from behind the scenes of Foxall studio by following them on Instagram, and using the #PublishingRooms on Instagram and Twitter.
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.
We’re excited to announce the next in our series of Film Nights, featuring films by Jaakko Pallasvuo, Jon Rafman, and Peter Wächtler.
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.
Stay tuned for more info coming soon…
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
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.
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
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 remnant artwork has existed OVER my head for nearly three years.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
My Fine Art degree spans OVER three years.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
It is nearly OVER.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
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.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
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.
The inanimate, unfeeling metal, I owe it.
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.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
(‘If these walls could talk’)
(‘If these walls could talk’)
Reece Straw
IMAGE: Reece Straw 2016
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.”
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.
Dominique Phizacklea
BA (Hons) Fine Art, Year 2.
In this post you can find work form the artists in residence during Performing Drawology.
humhyphenhum is the ongoing collaboration of Deborah Harty and Phil Sawdon. Since 2005, the “hums” have developed a method of drawing and research referred to as “meaningful play”. The process of drawing commences through openness and responsiveness to discovery, and a willingness to ‘play’ with marks, media and concepts. Through a dialogue between collaborators, drawings and theme – where each has a role in co-constructing consequences – the hums’ responses, deliberations and reflections are drawn, distorted, erased and redrawn.
Performing Drawology brings this research into the Gallery – allowing the public to witness and engage with the entire process. humhyphenhum will be both curator and artist in residence; the first to enter the space (starting from today), to create a three dimensional drawing. The following artists will then continue to add and respond to the drawing in turn, with humhyphenhum returning to complete the drawing on Thursday 11 February.
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS: Friday 15 – Friday 22 January (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Wednesday 20 January, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Friday 22 January 3 pm – 4 pm
Thursday 11 February
IMAGE: ]us[ (digital still), humhyphenhum, 2014
Lorraine Young is currently a University teacher in Fine Art at Loughborough University. Lorraine studied for her undergraduate program in sculpture at the Loughborough College of Art & Design (LCAD) and holds a Masters of Arts in Drawing from the University of the Arts (UAL): Wimbledon. Her practice is situated in the exploration of drawing.
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS:
Monday 25 – Tuesday 26 January (inclusive)
Summary discussion: Tuesday 26 January, 3 pm – 4 pm
More info: http://lyoung365.wix.com/drawings
Catherine Bertola’s work involves creating installations, objects and drawings that respond to particular sites, collections and historic contexts. Underpinning the work is a desire to look beyond the surface of objects and buildings, to uncover forgotten and invisible histories of places and people, as a way of reframing and considering the past.
Catherine Bertola was born in Rugby in 1976; she studied Fine Art at Newcastle University, where she lives and works. She has worked on a number of commissions and exhibitions, nationally and internationally with institutions such as; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, USA; Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany; Artium, Vitoria Gastiez, Spain; Temple Gallery, Philadelphia, USA; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK; National Museum Wales, Cardiff, UK; V&A, London, UK; The Government Art Collection, National Trust and Crafts Council, UK.
She has work in several public and private collections and is represented by Workplace Gallery, Gateshead and M+R Fricke, Berlin
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS:
Wednesday 27 – Friday 29 January (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Thursday 28 January, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Friday 29 January, 3 pm – 4 pm
More info: www.workplacegallery.co.uk/artists/6-catherine-bertola
dimensional volumes in which they are manifest.
He works with holography, projected light and installation to combine and manipulate marks, releasing them from the surface they appear to rest on.
Recent pieces attempt to question our expectations around the visual fidelity of holographic images and employ aspects of the ‘sideward glance’ the peripheral view and the vocabulary of ‘framing’ and ‘placement’.
RESIDENCE:
Thursday 4 February
More info: www.apepper.com
Joe Graham’s artistic practice engages in the production of serially developed drawing, employing processes and structures connected with seriality to ask questions about drawing across a range of media and materials.
His artistic research explores how serially developed drawing re-presents (‘records’) the successive nature of conscious experience, in order to query the assumption that ‘drawing records thought’. Scrutinising the process of drawing in close proximity to Husserlian Phenomenology, he examines ways to connect ‘drawing’ and ‘thought’ via the topic of temporality which underpins both.
In methodological terms, serially developed drawing describes a repeated form across a number of iterations. Within any given series an eidetic method searches for what the individual instance indicates is purely possible. Via this process a rhythm emerges: repetition and difference, within a temporal return.
Drawing described in phenomenological terms as: the diagram of thought.
RESIDENCE:
Tuesday 2 – Wednesday 3 February (inclusive)
DISCUSSION SESSION:
Wednesday 3 February, 3 pm – 4 pm
Martin Lewis is a Nottingham-based artist and PhD research student at Nottingham Trent University. He also teaches at Loughborough University.
Lewis’ practice explores drawing and thinking as an embodied activity with the focus of the drawing on its act rather than its outcome as an artefact. The drawings employ simple lines or marks repeated over and over using pre-determined instructions. The most recent work involves drawing directly with my fingers onto a purpose built amplified ‘desk’ employing sound as the drawings medium. participating in Performing Drawology connects closely to Lewis’ current PhD research providing a critical context for him to test out a live enquiry in conceptual and performative terms in the form of a durational performance-action exploring ideas of drawing and attention.
RESIDENCE:
Friday 5 February
John Court was born in 1969 in Bromley, Kent. He graduated from Camberwell School of Art, London in 1994 and from Norwich School of Art and Design in 1997 with a degree in Sculpture. He moved to Finland in 1997, and was awarded a three year grant by the Arts Council of Finland. He lives and works in Lapland, close to the Arctic Circle.
Court has exhibited extensively in Scandinavia, and performed by invitation at major events such 7a*11d in Toronto, Canada, DigitaLive Guangzhou, China, 2014; SpaceX Gallery, Exeter, UK, 2012; Guangzhou Live Art Festival in China and ANTI Contemporary Art Festival , Finland, both 2010; the Venice Biennale, 2005 and the Liverpool Biennial, 2004.
John Court’s performances interweave personal experiences encountered from childhood to the present day. John left school unable to read or write. He interacts with modified versions of familiar objects that featured throughout the difficult times of his formal education; objects such as desks, dictionaries, pencils and paper. He worked on building sites in and around London for many years before being introduced to art.
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS:
Monday 8 – Wednesday 10 February (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Tuesday 9 February, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Wednesday 10 February, 4 pm – 5 pm
More info: www.johncourtnow.com
Publishing Rooms is officially open!
Thanks to all who came along to last night’s preview – it was a great to see everyone interacting with the installations. Here’s a few photos from the evening, along with some of the results of the scanner cams:
During the course of Performing Drawology, we documented the gallery as it developed with additions and changes being made by the artists in residence.
In residence this week: Joe Graham, Tuesday 2 – Wednesday 3 February; Andrew Pepper, Thursday 4 February; and Martin Lewis, Friday 5 February.
You can see even more photos on the Performing Drawology blog (run by artists and curators of the project, humhyphenhum). You can also explore more of Andrew Pepper’s work from his residency here.
Join us next week for the closing event to see the completion of the exhibition: Thursday 11 February, 5 pm – 8 pm. If you would like to attend, simply RSVP via email to confirm your attendance.
John Court will be the next artist in residence, before humhyphenhum return to the Gallery on the Thursday to bring the drawing process to a close.
Ahead of the opening of our next exhibition, Imprints of Culture: Block Printed Textiles of India, Aesthetica magazine caught up with curator, Eiluned Edwards to find out more about the process and history behind block printing in this in-depth interview…
Aesthetica: The block prints produce delicate and exuberant patterns, could you explain the technique behind this?
Eiluned Edwards: The technique of block printing is highly adaptable so the variety of styles is numerous and used to reflect regional identity, religious and social status, and gender. As links between the craft, fashion and home wares industries have been established, new designs have been introduced and traditional patterns adapted to suit the tastes of urban consumers. The blocks, made of hard wood such as teak and sisam, are engraved with the design – complex patterns using several colours require multiple blocks, which are used in a specific sequence to build up the design. The block is the vehicle that carries the mordant and dye pastes to the cloth: the printer dips the block in the paste tray and then stamps it firmly on the cloth – there is a musicality to the process and you can hear a good printer by the steady percussion of his printing (the craft is a predominantly male preserve). Printing stages are interspersed with dyeing. Some dyes in use require the cloth to be boiled in order to fix the colour – madder, a natural dye that produces red is typical of this process – other dyes are used cold; indigo is a good example. Until the late 19th century all block printers and dyers worked with natural dyes – the classic Indian dyes are indigo and madder. Nowadays, the majority of production is with synthetic dyes, which are cheaper and easier to use although there are environmental issues with some categories of dyestuffs – for example, naphthol dyes, still widely used in India, are banned in Europe because of their toxicity.
A: How does this form of printmaking contribute to the cultural and social make up of India?
EE: Until quite recently, block printed textiles were key components of caste dress, reflecting regional affiliation, occupational and religious identity, social and even economic status. The block printers came under the patronage of the Mughal Empire (1526-1857) as well as the royal courts of princely India, but they served many other social groups, too. Thus they have helped to shape the visual identity of India and played an important role in its material culture – a fact recognised by Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister after the country gained its independence in 1947. From the 1950s onward, Nehru’s government implemented a programme of craft revival in which block printing played an important role. Craft was seen as central to forging a national identity; it would also generate rural employment and revenue from exports. But the impact of block printing on global material culture should not be overlooked; painted and printed cottons were amongst the most important commodities exported from India from at least the medieval period until the 19th century. Chintz, considered an icon of ‘Britishness’, was actually introduced to the UK from India by the East India Company in the 17th century – a painted and printed cotton textile produced on the Coromandel Coast of South India, it transformed British (and European) fashions of the day. Similarly, the export of Indian block prints to East and Southeast Asia has had an enduring impact on the material culture of countries such as China, Japan, Thailand and Indonesia.
A: What are the fabrics typically used and fashioned for?
EE: Block prints have been produced for caste dress, courtly attire and for export – the artisans calibrated designs to suit the tastes of a highly diverse consumer base. Certain categories of block printed textiles have also had a ritual function – for example, mata ni pachedi (cloth of the mother goddess) still painted and printed by the Chitrakar community in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, is used by marginal groups such as Rabari nomads, and Chitrakars themselves in worship of the mother goddess, a heterodox expression of Hinduism.
Since the 1970s, there has been a growth in demand for block prints from the global fashion industry. They played a big part in shaping the ‘hippy chic’ aesthetic of the late 1960s and 1970s, and were prevalent in the boutiques of swinging London. More recently, block prints dyed with natural colours have become a feature of the global ‘slow clothes’ movement whose advocates have embraced their rich symbolism, eco-friendly production methods, and rootedness in specific local communities. Delhi-based designer Aneeth Arora, whose label Pero has established a global following for its hand-fashioned garments made from classic Indian textiles, has established an enduring relationship with block printers in Kachchh district, Gujarat. While much of her work has been at the level of couture, she has also designed a collection using ajrakh, a traditional block print worn by animal herders in Kachchh as caste dress, for Indian retail giant Westside, which flew off the racks in 2014. Another advocate of sustainable fashion, social entrepreneur Charlotte Kwon, runs Maiwa Handprints in Vancouver, Canada. A highly successful retail company, Maiwa has introduced Indian block prints to large parts of Canada and North America, an expanding market that supports hundreds of artisans in India.
A: Has the traditional technique allowed for much technical innovation, or has it remained largely unchanged?
EE: The technique is largely unchanged: the artisan still stamps the design on the cloth in the same way as his forebears did going back hundreds of years. There have been changes, however, to the dyes used. By the 1950s, synthetic dyes (naphthol, azo dyes, etc) had almost entirely replaced natural dyes; knowledge of a technology that dates back over 4,500 years in India was rapidly disappearing. The appeal of synthetic dyes lay in their ease of use, cheapness and vivid colours; in comparison, natural dyes are labour-intensive. But a few block printers became concerned that they were losing their traditions – a heritage that can be traced back to the late Harappan period (2500-1500 BCE) when South Asia’s earliest urban culture developed in the Indus Valley region. One such was Khatri Mohammad Siddik of Dhamadka village in Kachchh district, Gujarat, who resumed using natural dyes in the 1970s, and taught his sons techniques that went back at least nine generations in his family. They – Abdulrazzak, Ismail, and Abduljabbar Khatri – are now among India’s foremost block printers and dyers whose work not only reaches a global clientele but is also held in the collections of the V&A, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Musee Guimet, Paris, the Textiles Museum, Washington D.C, and the Calico Museum, Ahmedabad.
Imprints of Culture will be here at the Gallery from Friday 26 February – Thursday 24 March.
Here is a selection of posts by students commenting on our exhibition Publishing Rooms.
As a photography student at NTU, it is great to see an escape from the stereotypical, orderly space of an art gallery. Through the use of projections, scanners and the ability to interact with the technology in the room (allowing you to feature in the work itself), the space becomes more of an installation over the course of the exhibition. Even with this mechanical process of mass publishing, there is something very intimate about the images produced from the body scans specifically, more so than a piece of art done by hand.
You could propose that this practice is a style of photography and a medium that I have not previously considered using as a student. However, after experimenting with the devices and seeing the results, it is something that I am looking forward to exploring further.
Just come and take a look for yourself!
Adidas or Nothing – Reece Straw
Self Expression ≡ Brand Dedication ≡ Identity ≡ Community
Living in our post-internet world we are able to define our ‘unique’ identity though various outlets online and display them for the world to see: sharing an article of a cause close to us, an image of celebrity we admire, a piece of music. Not anything new by far, we have just exhibited ourselves on a smaller scale within a more immediate community before we had the technology to instantly share it with the world.
Interestingly, social media and branding has made us less original: we are pigeon-holed into ways of expression through proxies of design, the ‘sub-culture’ is dead. A ‘sub-culture’ brings people together of similar interests, a choice has to be made, the obvious being which side of the fence to sit on, dependant on which subject the community is built around e.g. Manchester United or Manchester City, loving or hating Kanye West, being a ‘Mod’ or a ‘Rocker’. This being an old model of society; black and white being the only way to define oneself, whereas the younger generations allow themselves to invest more in the grey area of this model to include themselves within multiple outlets without quarrel. The world is still catching up with this development as ‘sides’ do still exist and there is still something important about where our fundamental choices are made as they will define who we are, something to do with authenticity one expects as we value people who remain the ‘same’. Objects in the world now are very much culturally loaded and our immediate associations reveal the owners’ assumed interests and choices. And as all good evolution goes, as a species we buy into this as it benefits the development of community.
A classic example of this is the band t-shirt. It once meant that you were an avid fan of the band; if someone else was in the same band t-shirt you had an instant friend. But when a Guns ‘n’ Roses t-shirt is seen as a (low) fashion item in Topshop, the whole culture is boiled down into that single object, appropriated and removed by people who gauge it on the aesthetic alone or false inclusion by solely knowing ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ (as you can see, sides do still exist). Our inability to think that we can create something completely original due to our extended history of culture may be the reasoning for this endless recycling of culture. Just look at the current state of the film industry: endless superhero movies adapted from over 50 years of comic book characters from the 1940’s onward; reboots, remakes and re-releases (I’m looking at you, George Lucas). Even the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens is nostalgiagasm, trapped within itself and what its fans would only let it be or become.
On the flip side, the Adidas brand, who champion themselves on reinterpreting the past and being true to their roots doesn’t seem to have the same reputation as the re-releases of the original Star Wars trilogy. If anything, to see someone in the same shoes as yourself gives the indication that they ‘know what’s up’ or equally, you aren’t as original as you once thought you were. But that all depends on the choice that was made when purchasing the shoes: in personal preference or the idea that they in some way will change one’s presence.
The Adidas NMD in the image above, created using the technology in Publishing Rooms from Foxall Studio, is a rarity in today’s sneaker culture. To own these is to be recognised by those in the know, it brings the satisfaction of taming such a rare beast with resell values now double the price. Although nothing on the Yeezy Boost range it still means something culturally: these shoes are noticed, and not just for the 4 or 5 logos on the actual shoe.
So where does this leave us? In a world saturated with everything our choices are evermore important if we care about how people view us, because as insincere and shallow as it is, the reality of the situation is that if you aren’t ‘on fleek‘ in one way or another you may be passed by. This unfortunate event in society – only caring about surface value – is tragic, but you can’t deny that you have (at one point or another) judged someone at face value. It’s instinctive, and in my opinion benefits the development of society.
‘You’d be sick if you saw my Adidas collection…you would be physically sick if you saw it. I’m not gonna say where it is.’
Ian Brown
A Student review of our exhibition Publishing Rooms from a second year BA Fine Art Student, Dominique Phizacklea
A topic of late in the studios is the idea of originality. The “I thought of it first”, or “did you know so and so is also making XY and Z in the same way I am?!”
Sitting here in the Gallery I once again hear this conversation; “turning scanners into engineered cameras has been done before, it’s not new or original”. I find all of this thought odd.
For a start artists are thieves, we all know this. That is as old as time. We steal what’s around us, pop it in the blender that is our minds and reform it. The same but new. It can’t not be new, because someone has added their interpretation. Even an ‘exact’ copy of a clay pot, made by hand will never be an exact copy, even if it’s very close. Different fingerprints will exist within the clay. The same but different. Modern technology gets us close, but we all know that faint greying caused by a photocopier or the cold starkness of mass production.
Going back to the studio, I am not surprised similar work is being produced. We are all feeding from similar (if not the same) troughs. Nottingham is after all a city, a concentration of humanness with all the things that go along with that. We are sharing the same culture, we see the same art on a daily basis. We have the same tutors. We all ‘eat’ the same, washing it down by being surrounded with each other’s ideas constantly. Similar conclusions will be drawn and similar problems faced, followed by similar solutions. I would be surprised in a course of nearly 300 students, having access to the same facilities, the same local culture and being all mixed together, if 300 completely different practices were born with 300 completely original works being produced, which didn’t even reference the work of another, just slightly.
Yeah maybe, maybe scanners have been turned in to rudimentary cameras before. Yeah maybe they have been set up in a gallery before. But never in this gallery, never in this arrangement by these artists, Andrew and Ian Foxall, from Foxall studios. Never being experienced by this exact group of people. Never with the same references behind the idea. Never with these exact scanner models, or even these exact machines (allowing for the minute differences between each resulting from teeny tiny differences in part placements). Never with the same coding, as the coding has been developed specifically for the exhibition, and is changed and becoming more efficient as the show goes on.
This exhibition is unique, and will never happen again in the same way. The idea is timeless, fed from history, pop culture and social etiquette. From technological advancement and human behaviour.
Am I saying the ideas used to make Publishing Rooms are new and never before seen? No. Am I saying they will never appear in art again? No.
I think it is not possible, or at least very rare, to have these sought after completely new ideas. In my opinion that’s just not how we learn. We build upon the work of others, the knowledge of others and each time add that next layer of thought, of research, of experience. What is new? Can anything be new? When we say we have something new, usually what we mean is it is new to us.
This exhibition is interactive, allowing you the opportunity to add to the website, creating an ever-expanding collection of faces – some of which are even added in to the room, changing the backdrop, evolving it as much as the changing code. If you want to add the experience of this exhibition (and I thoroughly recommend it) to your own brain blender then come and see it for yourself. It will be up in Bonington Gallery until the 20th of May.
Congratulations to Tim Saunders, whose entry was chosen as the overall winner by Alan Kitching!
Tim’s monogram was chosen by Alan “because it seems to be more in keeping with the spirit of the original concept, and is the simplest and the most interesting from the use of colour and textures.”
Tim, a Year Two BA (Hons) Graphic Design student, said “it was such an honour to be part of the project!”, and as his prize for winning the competition he chose a limited edition print of Alan Kitching’s Abram Games monogram.
Two runners-up were also selected to win some Monotype goodies:
#NTUMonogram runner-up entries: Jasmin Watts (L) and Wen Yee Kok (R)
Reflecting on the competition, Alan Kitching said “All have a very nice use of combination of the individual letters. The overall response to the competition was very encouraging and all entries had something worthy.”
On behalf of Alan Kitching, Monotype and the School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University, thank you to all who entered the competition – it was great to see so many creative entries appearing on the social media wall!
If you missed out on the competition or the Alan Kitching and Monotype exhibition, why not join the mailing list to be kept in the loop with news and upcoming events from the Gallery?