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/

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

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