Stanley Picker Gallery

Juneau Projects were formed  as a collaborative practice  in 2001  by  Birmingham based artists Ben Sadler and Philip Duckworth.  Their work engages with people and folk histories, bringing together live work and installation in new interactive combinations.

Created specially for their Stanely Picker Fellowship at Kingston University,  The Principalities constituted a series of intricately designed stages each with a specific theme or genre, akin to the arrangement of stages and tents at music festivals.

An evolving programme of live events saw Juneau Projects collaborate with a number of other artists, groups, students and members of the public, drawing upon traditional customs of public performance, such as Mummers Plays and Morris Dancing, and adapting these customs into a contemporary format and aesthetic.

Programme:

Exhibition Launch 6.30-8.30pm Wednesday 3rd December
with Juneau Projects Live
Preceded by artists’ talk at 5.30pm

Comedy & Spoken Word Night 7pm Thursday 4th December
with a special line-up of International Artists, Performers & Comedy Acts

Music Nights 7pm Wednesday 14th January & Thursday 15th January
with Local Bands, Fans & Specially Formed Student-Super-Groups

Pub Nights 7pm Wednesday 4th February & Thursday 5th February
with Quizzes, Karaoke & Open-Mic Sessions

Curated by Deborah Smith, In the Space of Elsewhere presents the work of nine international contemporary artists and collectives working in a range of media including sculpture, architecture, video, sound and photography. The exhibition explores the ways that we locate, navigate and determine our relationship with the nature, structure, and qualities of internal space.Your neural networks will be stimulated physically and psychologically, as your own internal space is confronted and refined: Office for Subversive Architecture (EU) and David Moore (UK) explore the broader themes of architecture and its social and political function; Vernon Ah Kee (AU) and Graham Gussin (UK) investigate the internal relationships between the body and its surrounding environs; Rachel Whiteread (UK) and Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro(AU) record the physical manifestations of the spaces we inhabit; and Sandra Selig (AU), Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard (UK) and Ann Lislegaard (D) guide us through a labyrinth of physical, sensory and psychological space.

Commissioned for this exhibition, Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro’s Absent Referent 2008 explores the theory that a tree’s annual rings pertain to differing solar conditions, providing a record of their immediate environment. Rachel Whiteread’s poetic sculptures Untitled (6 Spaces) 1994, give form to empty spaces that provoke a tangible sense of absence. Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard’s Walk with Nauman (Re-Performance Corridor) 2006, acts as a material manifestation of a physical and psychic space, creating ‘an environment of controlled response’. The new commission by Sandra Selig, Light gets used to our form 2008, a delicate webbed construction, is both atmospheric and spatially dynamic, heightening our awareness of the object and our surroundings. I-You ­-Later-There 2000 by Ann Lislegaard provides a sensory journey of the everyday allowing the visualisation of both the imaginary and the real. Vernon Ah Kee uses the body as a metaphor for his exploration and critique of Australian racial politics, his autobiographical text work borninthisskin 2008 uses language to reveal the crucial role of physical experience on aesthetic encounters. From the psychological to the physical, Graham Gussin’s Dark Corner 2008 brings our attention to the temporal relationship between the object and the gallery’s architectural space. David Moore’s documentary photographs The Last Things 2008 provide compelling insights into the unfamiliar functionality of the underground bunkers of the Ministry of Defence. Office for Subversive Architecture intervene and contribute to the spatial foundation in which all of the artists’ works are presented in the Stanley Picker Gallery.

In the Space of Elsewhere is accompanied by a dedicated publication designed by Valle Walkley with commissioned essays by Penelope Curtis, Anthony Elms, Chris Frith and Rob Wilson and contributions by Lars Bang Larsen, Glenn Barkley, Ilsa Colsell, David Falkner. Hannah Mathews, Sophie Raikes, Alexandra Stara, Deborah Smith and Jonathan Watkins. Copies available at £9.99 from the Gallery.

EVENTS

Wed 1 Oct 5.30pm Exhibition Tour with the curator and exhibiting artists

Wed 1 Oct 6.30-8.30pm Exhibition Launch

Weds 8 Oct & 5 Nov 12.30-1.30pm Lunchtime Talks

Wed 19 Nov 6.30-8.00pm In the space of elsewhere Publication Launch

In the Space of Elsewhere is a Stanley Picker Research Fellowship Project, Kingston University: funded by The National Lottery through Arts Council England; assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; The Henry Moore Foundation; The Stanley Picker Trust; and supported by the Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London; the Queensland Government, Australia, through the Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency (QIAMEA) and the Australian High Commission, London.

The School of Panamerican Unrest is a public art project initiated by the artist Pablo Helguera in 2003, and carried out over the following years with the ambition to generate connections between the different regions of the Americas through discussions, performances, screenings and civic events.

The project’s principal component is a “nomadic forum”, or think-tank in the form of a moveable schoolhouse structure, that travelled by land from Anchorage to Tierra del Fuego. Along the way, Helguera sought to involve a wide range of audiences and engage them at different levels, offering alternative ways to understand the history, ideology, and lines of thought that have significantly impacted political, social and cultural events in the Americas. Responding to the need to support inter-regional communication amongst English, Spanish and Portuguese speaking America, the School received the logistical and intellectual support of more than 40 organisations and more than 100 affiliated artists, curators, and cultural promoters in the Americas. At nearly thirty stops along his journey, Helguera organised town-hall meetings and workshops to encourage the writing of a collective address that would articulate the current challenges faced by local communities in their respective cities and countries. The workshops took place inside or beside a collapsible tent, in the form of a schoolhouse, that would fit inside a van..

For this exhibition Helguera brought together, for the very first time, a series of documentary-based works that focused on different aspects of the journey. The Panamerican Diary is a series of 120 panels narrating a day-by-day account of each one of the 120 days of the artist’s journey, using photographs and texts based on the diary entries added every day in the artist’s blog. The Panamerican Suite is a group of 200 collage works produced after the journey was completed. Made of found images and words from used textbooks and pedagogical materials, the fragmentary and abstract statements and images seek to serve as a complementary narrative to the straightforward travelogue film and photographic documentation. Helguera also collaborated with an invited group of London residents to devise and present The Panamerican Address of the People of London, performed at the exhibition launch, accompanied by his Panamerican anthem.

Helguera has become interested in the process by which local culture is washed away, particularly through the phenomenon of dying languages. Helguera commenced and ended his epic journey interviewing the last speakers of two native American languages: Marie Smith Jones in Alaska, the last speaker of Eyak, and Cristina Calderón, in Puerto Williams, the last speaker of Yaghan. The Conservatory of Dead Languages compiles interviews and voices of languages and communities on the verge of extinction. The recordings are made on phonograph wax cylinders, the earliest recording device and, in itself, a medium in extinction.

Pablo Helguera (b. Mexico City, 1971) is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in New York. His work engages areas such as pedagogy, history, utopian thought and cultural issues. Helguera is the author of four book projects including The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style (2005) and The Boy Inside the Letter (2008). He has exhibited at various biennials and museums internationally and has performed at MoMA and Performa 05 (New York) and HAU (Berlin). Helguera is Visiting Professor, Curating Contemporary Design, at the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Kingston University.

International Orange marks the first exhibition of the solo work and new collaborative projects of Ben Kelly, award-winning founder of Ben Kelly Design (BKD) London.

Kelly cemented his reputation through his design for Manchester’s legendary night-club The Haçienda, since when he has continued to produce high-profile and innovative spaces including flagship fashion stores, hotels as well as a new chain of fitness clubs.

International Orange features works inspired by The Hacienda club: a training shoe specially commissioned by Adidas; a collaborative poster with Peter Saville; and a virtual rendering of the club’s original interior created in collaboration with Morph.

The use of already existing objects, designs, techniques, and approaches from his own past, and that of others, can be seen at play in this exhibition.  Kelly and his fellow collaborators have come together on projects ranging from craft to consumer product, the ready-made to the virtual. Common to these collaborative processes is an ongoing interest in design, colour and form; something evident in the work of Warhol and Duchamp, to whom Kelly pays homage in the use of images and objects pertinent to his own creative processes.

A limited-edition signed A1 digital-print designed by Ben Kelly and Peter Saville was produced especially for International Orange in an edition of 100. Copies can be purchased directly from the Stanley Picker Gallery at £45 plus P+P. Enquiries please contact picker@kingston.ac.uk

Wednesday 23 April 5.30-7pm
Ben Kelly in conversation at the Stanley Picker Gallery

A programme of presentations, mapping workshops, exhibition and publications, organised by the art/architecture collective public works, Stanley Picker Fellows in Design at the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Kingston University. With contributions by: Agents of Change, Alex Warnock Smith, Anna Mansfield, atelier d’architecture autogéré, Can Altay, City Mine(d), Dorian Moore, drmm architects, Elizabeth Price, Jonathan Kraut, Julie Scott, Markus Miessen, Mehrdad Seyf, Peter Arlt, Polly Brannan, Robert Mull and others.

public works are a London-based art and architecture collective with a strong interest in the co-existence of informal and formal social networks within architectural structures. Their practice includes a wide range of participatory public realm projects.

Can You Show Me the Space points to a conceptual and practical need within design disciplines, to capture, visualise and acknowledge social and informal phenomena as part of architectural production. The representation of space within design/architecture is primarily focused on the description of the built form. Everyday life demonstrates that programmes and social networks are not confined to single built structures. Instead they spread across sites, time and relationships, and create new networks of spaces that we all use but almost never acknowledge or recognise as spatial constructs. Can You Show Me the Space offers different public platforms to explore five theme-based blocks: Setting a Setting; Representation of Relational Spaces; Mapping the Centre of Useless Splendour; Architecture as Extended Social Space and Relational Mapping Tools. Each block will result in a fanzine of visual material accompanied by a commissioned essay, available throughout the exhibition and launched at the end of the exhibition as a compiled publication.

PROGRAMME: All events take place at the Stanley Picker Gallery unless otherwise stated. No booking required.

Setting a Setting with Can Altay
A collaborative set up of the physical and conceptual parts of the exhibition, before it opens to the public. The collaboration and accompanying text and visual material will be published in Fanzine 1.

Wed 28 Nov 10am – 2pm Performing Doodles
First day of a two-part work-session mapping, drawing and sewing together informal children’s narratives of the city of Qazvin, Iran. With Anna Page (Architectural Designer), Jonathan Karkut (Geologist, London Metropolitan University), Julie Scott (Anthropologist, London Metropolitan University) and Mehrdad Seyf (Director, 30 Bird Productions).

5.30pm The Mapping of Relational Spaces Talk by public works
public works introduce their research and practice-related projects such as Granville Cube in South Kilburn and Building Stories in Quazvin, Iran. With Andreas Lang, Kathrin Böhm and Torange Khonsari.
6.30-8.30pm Exhibition Opening and launch of Fanzines 1 and 2.

Tue 4 Dec 2.30pm – 6pm Performing Doodles ctd
Second day of a two-part work session, mapping and designing the spaces of performance related to children’s informal narratives of the city of Qazvin, Iran. (See above for participants)

Wed 5 Dec & Thu 6 Dec 1pm – 6pm Mapping the Centre for Useless Splendour
Two days of drop in workshops and survey of existing and speculative research spaces at Kingston University. Together with staff and students and in collaboration with Elizabeth Price (Artist and Reader in Fine Art, Kingston University). Fanzine 3 will compile the result from the survey together with texts and essays on the subject.

Wed 12 Dec 6pm Architecture as Extended Social Space
Presentations of existing architectural projects, which describe and illustrate the wider social network and space associated with the built project. With architectural practices Agents of Change (London), atelier d’architecture autogéré (Paris) and drmm architects (London).
Fanzine 4 will capture the forms of representation suggested by the different practices, with an additional essay by Professor Robert Mull, Architect and Head of Architecture and Spatial Design at the London Metropolitan University
www.theaoc.co.uk http://madeo.club.fr/aaa.htm www.drmm.co.uk www.londonmet.ac.uk

Wed 23 Jan 12pm – 5pm Mapping online – tools and concepts
A one day workshop on Urban cartography and web based software as a mapping and communication tool. The subject will be discussed in relation to existing case studies. public works will introduce their proposal for the Folkstone Triennial 2008. With City Mine(d) and Dorian Moore.

Wed 23 Jan 6pm Presentations and Round-Table Discussion on “relational mapping instruments” with City Mine(d), Christian Nold and others to be confirmed, for Fanzine 5.

Sat 26 Jan 2pm – 4pm Making Space Round-Table Discussion
Using public works’ Granville Cube project as a point of departure, the round-table will introduce and discuss ways of representing autonomous areas and objects within public spaces. With Anna Mansfield, Alex Warnock-Smith, Polly Brannan and others to be confirmed.

Tue 29 Jan 12pm – 6pm Showing the Participatory Process
A one day work session with Peter Arlt mapping ‘Platzfinden’, the participatory process and project that lead to a new public space in Linz, Austria in 2006.

Wed 6 Feb 6pm Dispersed Cultural Spaces and Research
Presentations and round-table discussion exploring ideas of dispersed spaces for research in relation to the proposed Centre for Useless Splendour at Kingston University. With Elizabeth Price (Artist and Reader in Fine Art at Kingston University), Markus Miessen (Architect, European Kunsthalle) and others to be confirmed.

Spring 2008 Launch and Presentation of Can you show me the space Publication, compiling the five fanzines produced during the programme at the Stanley Picker Gallery. Date and venue to be announced.