Having listened to an expert in taking witness statements at Police HQ, I am trying to construct narratives that combine current and historic accounts. I've been reading through police notebooks from the seventies where detectives have scrupulously written every word spoken during an interview/event. Some people have 'previous'. They know what form a police interview takes and are careful with what they say. One account read like a thriller but finished before the final outcome. How do I find out how it all ended? Should I leave everything hanging in the air in my version? He had just offered him his last cigarette and asked him to stay calm...

Image from Police Museum Chelmsford archive

Critical Practice took part in the final days of 'Knot' in Berlin.

Peter Zuiderwijk's intevention into the Barcamp:

Critical Practice is participating in:

THE KNOT is a mobile platform for artistic presentation and production, traveling to Berlin, Warsaw and Bucharest in 2010. In each of the three cities, it stops for a few weeks, inhabiting different areas of public space, and offering itself as an open space of encounter, exchange and experimentation.

Through its unexpected presence in the city, THE KNOT proposes a model for social interaction, thus being not so much a container as a transformer, creating new ways in which the public space could be used and produced. The participants invited by the curatorial collective to activate THE KNOT put forward not only their professional skills, but also their physical company, their desires and imaginative will. They become temporary members of a protean and nomad crew, acting both as hosts and guests in a shared and welcoming place.

At the intersection between the real and the imaginary, THE KNOT is an initial point where a thorough examination of the relationships between the individual, the group and the place of interaction is undertaken. The project responds to the increasingly normative way in which these relationships are defined in our current societies. Envisioning alternative behaviours in the city, based on cooperation and self-empowerment is one of the main tasks of THE KNOT. Also of actual relevance is to explore what is left of collective ideals or how one can overcome the current conditions of harsh economic competition and the tendency towards national or ethnic isolation. Temporary communities are the tool of creating another notion of a “promised city”, apart from its capitalist vision.

http://www.brownmountain.org.uk/bigripoff/index.html

FAKE MODERN

A gallery of fakes forged by contemporary artists and peddled by reputable London gallerists including Graham Steele (White Cube), Sara Harrison (Hauser & Wirth), and Martine d’Anglejan-Chatillon (Thomas Dane). Includes fake paintings, inflatable ‘stone’ sculptures, aped styles, appropriated images and other desirable shams and scams:

Faisal Abdu’allah | Athanasios Argianas | Charles Avery | Nasser Azam | Sam Basu | Emma Biggs | Candice Breitz | Jessie Brennan | Mel Brimfield | Judith Brocklehurst | Matthew Collings | Michael Craig-Martin | Kate Davis | Shezad Dawood | Doug Fishbone |Michèle Fuirer | John Gerrard | Emma Hart | Jefford Horrigan | Barnaby Hosking | Abigail Hunt | Idris Khan | Lucy Moore | Annie Morris | Steve Nelson | Sally O’Reilly | Kate Owens | Tal R | Michael Raedecker | Kieran Reed | Michaela Ross | Karen Russo | Thomas Scheibitz | Daniel Silver | Bob & Roberta Smith | Alan Stott | Katja Strunz | Michael Tuck | Francis Upritchard | Jessica Voorsanger | Caroline Walker

FL∆G –

RE-TURNING THE EDUCATIONAL TURN

FL∆G will be part workshop, part social space, part lecture(s), part exhibition.

FL∆G will take place in the Triangle Gallery (FLG01) at Chelsea College of Art and Design between 27^th and 30^th of April.

FL∆G as a project aims to make visible various forms of knowledge transfer taking place within the art school institution, through a three-day intervention into the gallery as a space and Chelsea as a site.

This is an invitation to anyone interested in and/or involved with forms of knowledge exchange to contribute to the programme of events or material for the exhibition.

FL∆G is a project exploring and returning to what has been labelled ‘the educational turn’ in the art world, with exhibitions/events like Unitednationsplaza, Documenta 12, and Night School-New Museum. We will re-turn the exploration of art and pedagogy to the educational site, in this case Chelsea, as a venture between participants in dialogue with each other and the institution. We are aiming to critically build on this ‘educational turn’ as it is found in the contemporary art world, bringing this enquiry back into the art school - exploring how art students and others can claim and investigate forms of pedagogic engagement as part of their practice.

There will be site-specific spatial interventions, exhibited material, scheduled programme(s) and a two-part publication. FL∆G is in discussion with The Showroom Gallery, which is at the forefront of artist and gallery-based research into how knowledge is constructed and shared. Through various collaborations, we hope to build on and share expertise, comparing how different sites construct knowledge.

Do you make work that relates forms of knowledge exchange, to your educational experience or which has been informed by theories around pedagogy? We are looking for:

1)      Workshop proposals – do you have a proposal for a workshop relating to these themes?

2)      Contribution to publications – do you have written or image based material that relate to this theme(s)?

3)      Artworks (in any media) that deal with these ideas in some form?

In this art/research project all participants share stakes in the ownership of the goals, processes and outcome of the art and research. FL∆G will provide a collective opportunity to either consider your existing practice in relation to this ‘turning’ or to explore different ways of working in relation to pedagogy as art, individually or as group(s).

Interested? email flagchelsea@gmail.com asap.

Open Lecture - Kuba Szreder
Archaeologies of the Public: insights into the Polish public sphere

A lecture about the historical development and current shape of the public sphere in Poland; an archaeological study of the Polish public sphere, its specific cultural, political and discursive context. How does public life organize itself outside of the historical experience of core capitalist countries?

Date: Wednesday 24th February 2010, 17:15 to 19:00

Location: Lecture Theatre Chelsea College of Art & Design (Atterbury Street Entrance)
Our third collaboration with TRAIN, and part of the research for Parade: Being in Public

PARADE

We aim to embrace the disagreeable, contentious, messy, inefficient, live, improvisatory and provisional nature of Being in Public. Debt bubbles have burst, markets have seized up and states have taken control of previously private financial institutions. Energy, resources and knowledge - formerly ‘public goods’ - are increasingly subject to restrictive property claims. An exploration of the interplay between Being in Public and private interests has never been so vital.

The Vietnamese Market at the Stadion, Warsaw

Parade will be hosted in in May 2010 at the Parade Ground at Chelsea College of Art and Design, opposite Tate Britain. We are collaborating with Kuba Szreder, a freelance curator from Warsaw, on an international series of events exploring the contested and increasingly relevant topic of Being in Public or Publicness.

Parade will explore different conceptions of the Being in Public - historical, cultural, political, social, architectural and digital, as they are represented through the contrasting experiences of Poland and Britain.

For more information: http://criticalpracticechelsea.org/wiki/index.php?title=Public_Space

THE

'Them', 2007 (Still)

This exhibition is the first major UK survey of Żmijewski's work and spans his practice from 2003 to the present day.

The exhibition includes the UK premiere of his recent project Democracies (2009), which records the free, public expression of opinion, in the form of gatherings and protests throughout Europe. There will also be a chance to see a video presentation of seminal work Repetition (2005), in which Żmijewski revisits the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, where volunteers are designated either as guards or prisoners and allowed to play out the situation, and Them (2007), which documents representatives from the different factions that shape contemporary Poland and the ensuing exchanges between them.

EDUCATION OPEN EVENING

TUESDAY 15 DECEMBER 2009,

5PM-7.30 PM

FREE - booking essential

Artist Michaela Ross will explore how in certain forms of contemporary art we become active participants rather than passive viewers, in the context of the current exhibitions. Education Notes will be available on the evening and downloadable from the website thereafter.

Modern Art Oxford   30 Pembroke Street Oxford 0X1 1BP   Tel + 44 (0)1865 722733   Fax + 44 (0)1865 722573

EVENT: Reading Group

The Noit School was set up to study the theoretical ideas of artist John Latham (1921 - 2006), in particular his concepts of Flat Time and Eventstructure. The School’s reading group, the ’Know Source’, meets for detailed examination of Latham’s writings. This meeting will focus on his 1972 work Big Breather. The meeting will be attended by members of the Noit School and all are welcome.

Event in collaboration with Flat Time House, London.

For Bookings Email: rosie.burghley@tate.org.uk

Critical Practice are planning a return visit to Poland in October to participate in the:

FREE/SLOW UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW

http://www.wuw2009.pl/index.php?lang=eng

I am currently artist-in-residence at the Essex Police Museum http://www.essex.police.uk/museum/ , part of a project 'Beyond the Frame' which encourages links between artists and museums to produce new work.

PUBLICAMP
a public
GATHERING
to take place in

KENNINGTON PARK, LONDON
Former common, site of the 1848 Chartist meeting and birthplace of People’s Democracy

JULY 5th 2009
chair to be taken at 2 o’Clock

To take into consideration the urgent issue of BEING IN PUBLIC

Likewise, and amongst many other things we will discuss:
What is Public? What are public goods, services, art and servants? How are we to balance private interests and public needs? What is a public domain?

PUBLICAMP will use a BARCAMP structure. BARCAMPS are an international network of user-generated un/conferences — open, participatory workshop-events. THEY WORK LIKE THIS: presentations are proposed in advance [sign-up at http://www.criticalpracticechelsea.org] or on the day, by attendees. We then aggregate themed ‘sessions’. Every person is encouraged to present for at least 10 minutes to share knowledge and expertise.

BRING VICTUALS FOR SHARING AND BLANKETS FOR YOUR COMFORT
For more information visit http://www.criticalpracticechelsea.org

Twin Cities

An ongoing project that started in July 08, our Twin Cities project will continue when our building opens. Nottingham has some fascinating “twins” that include Karlsruhe, Minsk and Harare. We aim to develop partnerships with artists and communities in all seven. Artist Michaela Ross will be working first with an enthusiastic group of Nottingham public sector workers, who have developed genuine and productive friendships with their counterparts in Karlsruhe over many years – much of the inspiration for Nottingham’s tram and widely admired public transport system came from our German “twin”, for instance. Using the internet to communicate, we will be promoting cultural exchange, particularly with our Karlsruhe counterpart (name). The project will reinterpret traditional ideas of community arts, exploring genuine participation.

VIDA!

20 September - 9 November 2008

Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead, Wirral

 VIDA! is an exploration of an artistic community, connected through the impact, influence and loss of a unique individual, Emma Vida Stardust Burrows (1976-2004).  The artists featured came into contact with Emma in a variety of ways.  Some were her tutors; others her artistic peers or mentors, many were her friends.  They are connected not simply by knowing her to a greater or lesser degree, but by having been indelibly marked by the experience. The exhibition explores close friendships, casual acquaintances, work-related encounters and how one chance meeting or opportunity can connect a seemingly disparate group.  It creates an insight into a community of people brought together not just through geography but through association. 

VIDA! is one of the names that Emma re-christened herself, along with ‘Stardust’; a gesture that is both intentionally humorous and glamorous, characteristics personified in this young woman who lived with illness all her life yet refused to be suppressed by it. VIDA! is also a word that encapsulates life itself; it is an exhortation to live life to the fullest, as well as remember a life that has passed. The exhibition therefore evokes the wider themes of life: friendship, love, loss, memory, inspiration, passion and determination.

All the artists invited to take part will create a new work in the medium of collage, a method of working that Emma used throughout her career. As in Emma’s practice, ‘collage’ here is defined in both broad and conventional terms; it can encompass traditional cut-out and glue methods, sculptural assemblage or digital editing. The work of the invited artists will be shown alongside Emma’s own; ultimately VIDA! will be a visually rich, salon hang exhibition, mixing established artists with emerging practitioners that captures some of the creativity and dynamism of Emma Vida Stardust Burrows.

The exhibition will be documented in a limited edition catalogue with proposed essays by Lewis Biggs (Artistic Director, Liverpool Biennial), Adela Jones (artist) and Marie-Anne McQuay (curator, Spike Island).

During the period of exhibition the show will also be punctuated with artists’ talks and hands-on workshops as part of a wider education and interpretation programme.

The exhibition will be project managed by Naomi Horlock (formerly Tate Liverpool) with additional curatorial support from Clarissa Corfe (Castlefield Gallery) and Marie-Anne McQuay (Spike Island).

ARTISTS

The artists who have been invited to take part encountered Emma in a number of ways; some through meeting as peers and working on the first Liverpool Biennial 1999, others through Young Tate where Emma worked as mentor, others through more disparate routes. The exhibition therefore brings together Emma’s own generation, born 1976/7, with both older and younger practitioners. It also mixes: artists who are established in the wider art world (James Ireland, Paul Needham, Peter Blake*, Amanda Wood, Alison Jones) with those whose practice is private rather than public; artists who are North West based and artists based elsewhere in the UK and abroad; those whose practice is fine art based and those who work across other disciplines (architecture, illustration, film making, animation, writing). The ‘hang’ will therefore further blur these boundaries and decisions will be made on an aesthetic basis rather than through pre-determined categories. This will allow formal relationships to be made between individual pieces and for Emma’s own work to once more be seen as art on its own terms, rather than documents of a life lost. It is anticipated that more than thirty artists will take part, including the following, artists that are either based in the North West or initiated their careers from the region: 

Craig Andrews, James Ireland, Anitha Darla, Michaela Ross, Paul Needham, Ray Carney, Vincent Lavell, Sherilyn Hughes, Alison Jones, Adela Jones, Amanda Wood, Rebecca Reid, John O’Neill, Debbie Goldsmith, Martyn Lucas, Ross Clark.

 * Peter Blake will be invited to take part – he  met Emma when she led workshops at Tate Liverpool and was an important influence on her practice.

For more information on VIDA!, please contact Naomi Horlock: 0788 436 1846 or naomihorlock@yahoo.co.uk

Critical Practice  http://www.criticalpracticechelsea.org
has  been invited to take part in  'Vocabulatories'.

VOCABULABORATORIES

What is a vocabulary? First, it´s something that everyone has. Second, it´s something that everyone works with. Third, it´s a toolbox of concepts, which we use in order to position ourselves, move, and make sense within the world. Fourth, it´s always in the language of someone, or a group of people. Also, it´s to do with the voice; it allows us to become vocal. It´s that through which we articulate what we do, how and why we do it. It´s where a concept meets a practice.

For more info on the project

http://www.vocabulaboratories.net/

Over the Summer I will be working at firstSite Colchester. 
For details of the new-build and current/past projects : http://www.firstsite.uk.net/

CRITICAL PRACTICE http://criticalpracticechelsea.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 is taking part  in the  event  Disclosures  at  Gasworks http://www.gasworks.org.uk/exhibitions/detail.php?id=344

Disclosures is a multi-faceted project that looks at the manifestations of Open Source methodologies in fields of cultural production outside of the internet. Openness – or its technological underpinning, Open Source – here refers to situations in which the viewer, reader, listener or internet user becomes emancipated through egalitarian participation, collaborative authorship and/or the breaking down of hierarchical and social boundaries.

DISCLOSURES
Fri 27 March-Sun 18 May 2008

LAUNCH
Thursday 27 March
Location: Plastic People
Free Admission

SEMINAR DAY 1
Saturday 29 March
Location: Toynbee Hall

SEMINAR DAY 2
Sunday 30 March
Location: Common Room of Middlesex Street Estate,
Free but booking essential: moira@gasworks.org.uk

'Collection Connections' was a project with artists and teachers exploring the Towner Collections. The project will result in an exhibition and the development of resources.

 http://www.eastbourne.gov.uk/leisure/museums-galleries/towner