Gallery II
Legacy - heritage, tradition, gift, inheritance, repercussion, result, fruit, consequences
Gallery II | Spring Summer 2012 Exhibitions and Events
As a programmer the questions I am always asking when developing ideas are: how does this relate to the context I’m working in, how will it contribute in a new way and what will be its legacy? As a Fellow at the University, it is imperative to respond to this learning environment by developing new ideas and fruitful collaborations through research and experimentation. The process of making work necessarily involves experimentation, absorption, reflection and response. Often the nature of collaborations means that something new and vital can occur, new or different audiences are developed and fresh ideas can be generated through this participatory process.
We start the season by presenting our project developed in partnership with men and women with dementia, NO LIMITS Re-imagining Life With Dementia to the Alzheimer’s Disease International conference in London. It’s been an amazingly productive project and we are currently looking at ways to take it forward. Perhaps the best measure of its legacy and the resultant consequences, comes from one of our key team members: I found it almost impossible to function creatively or to respond emotionally and it quite literally took me hours and hours in our art sessions to break down the defences I had erected to expressing myself openly. Now the floodgates have been opened and I can't seem to stop the ideas from pouring out. Think back to when we first met, and compare that functioning of that Larry Gardiner to the functioning of the Larry Gardiner I was able to be during the last few days; I think that you will be clearly able to see the difference that I can feel.
We continue the season with a two day installation and projection event at Gallery II and Theatre in the Mill which forms part of the Snapshots - new scenes for theatre programme by Freedom Studios. Snapshots shows new work in development by some very exciting artists and storytellers. It is an opportunity for artists to experiment with work in progress and gauge audience response – a really important part of the making process.
Active Stillness brings together new work by photographer Claire McNamee, which reflects on her process of image-making. We will also be showing the latest work by poet and Hawthornden Fellow, Liz Almond, who has collaborated with Claire through reflecting on this theme. It is traditional for us to programme in an exhibition in March that corresponds to the annual Peace Jam Conference, organised by students and staff from the Peace Studies Department. Claire’s calm and reflective work in combination with Liz Almond’s keenly observed and felt poetry will provide an inspirational and still space for visitors to the gallery and conference. We have also planned a series of related events programmed to coincide with this exhibition. These include three film salon sessions, curated by Ania Draniewicz, a 24 hour collaborative music event with Andy Abbott, new Fellow in Music and a poetry reading evening with Liz Almond and Amanda Dalton.
Earlier in the year, we had the opportunity to update our records with the help of an internship, created through Fabric’s Move On Up scheme. We were fortunate to get artist Bridget Hayden, who has photographed and documented all the original works of art in storage from our Permanent Art Collection. This exhibition will showcase work that has been “rescued” from the stores and re-framed, ready to be loaned out after this exhibition, to University departments for display and appreciation.
Finally, in May, we end the season with an experimental research project and new commission of work by Sorrel Muggridge, called Change Spaces, a term used in conflict transformation to indicate a space where change can happen. Sorrel will respond to this idea by creating an interactive installation where visitors can literally change the space by stepping into the work. We hope to use the space for group work involving staff, students, schools and local groups, as another way of looking at how we can communicate and share a transformative space within which often difficult and opposing viewpoints can be expressed.
Caroline Hick, Fellow in Visual Arts