Collection
Transcendence explores memory, loss, sentimentality and vulnerability. It investigates the act of ‘moving on’ taken from Buddhist thought. The four videos explore the four stages of grief: crying, suffering, letting go and moving on. Poon is interested in the concept of the spiritual journey - the healing process that goes beyond the experience of loss. The number four has special significance given its association in Western culture with cycles, stability and positivity. A square has four sides. There are four seasons in the annual cycle of growth. The number four is a Biblical symbol of completion.
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 09:46:18 GMT
Chalk & Flint embodies the physicality of walking and is conceptually centred around an encounter with place, shown with the selection of geographically specific materials. Two of the films show the artist passing a rope through the drilled centre of a piece of chalk, filmed from two separate viewpoints. The other two films show the artist performing the same process with a piece of flint, filmed again from the same two viewpoints. This repetitive action measures the materiality of the stones in the presence of time and movement. The cutting edge of the flint brings about the demise of the rope, while the softness of the chalk gives way as the hemp fibers are passed through it. The rope is a cutting device and a material to be cut. The layering of dust on the floor records the passing of time, while the markings on the body provide a testimony to the physical endurance of grappling with the unwieldy weight of the stones. This is a work that is very much about experience and process. The performance ends when …
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 09:46:06 GMT
This work has been developed around the contrasting images of the Atacama Desert in the artist’s native country, Chile. The sea in the west and the volcanic mountains in the east are both captured at different times and in different media and brought together. The FC2 is a digital fusion of two original art works by Acevedo: a black and white photograph taken in the Tatio Geysers in January 2017, with part of a diptych oil painting Misty Coast based on the Atacama seacoast in 2006. On describing her art, Acevedo has said: “ When I work I search for that place inside myself where I can find stillness. Once there, I connect profoundly with everything around me. Physical forms then vanish, leaving space for colours and textures. I am one with all that is.”
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 14:33:36 GMT
Recycling Surplus Factory examines how the value of urban material can relate to the fabric and lifespan of a building. Deptford Market as a source of the material becomes an integral part of the design, and rooms for processing waste are raised over the market on concrete pillars. Deptford Creek is unique in London for its post-industrial character and tidal waters that result in high flood risks. As such, the perceived value of each service provided in the building is reflected hierarchically in the floor plan. Services with less value are closer to the ground, while high value activities and archives are on the top levels – clear of the high water marks and therefore safe from flooding. This ranges from shredding paper at one level, to collecting documents of high cultural value on the highest floor. Each part of the building has a certain purpose and lifespan and this becomes apparent in relation to the use of different materials – wood has a lifespan of 30-50 years, and concrete 200-400 years. The buildi…
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 14:33:20 GMT
An architectural design for a mobile lightning research station located in Dungeness, UK, which provides a laboratory space designed to be struck by lightning in order to attempt the harnessing of its energy. Radars monitor the increased negative charge in the ground during storms and are able to detect the likelihood of a lightning strike. The whole station then moves toward the most negatively charged area to await a strike. Mid-storm, spectators are able to watch the whole process on a special viewing platform protected by a faraday cage type structure. This diverts the electricity, making lightning strike watching a safe experience.
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 14:33:06 GMT
These two digital prints are from a series called Traced by Language which were made as a result of a performance by Yip entitled Written Movement (2017). Through a series of movements and sounds the artist attempted to travel cognitively between physical and mental states. She began recording her journey via mark making, using black charcoal as a physical trace of her movement. Although the physicality of her body never changes, it is consciousness that travels between the two dimensions. Yip’s work is inspired by the poetics of consciousness explored by French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard.
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 14:32:52 GMT
This is an architectural design celebrating the teaching of angling within the Oxfordshire community. The premise of the Institute is to reduce food shortages by teaching users the self-sufficient skill of fishing. The design has taken in to account the benefits of having an amplification of direct sunlight and internal acoustics for the building's users.
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 14:32:02 GMT
Neil Armstrong is an allegorical miniature proposing commonality between scientific and creative exploration. It forms part of a series of miniatures that present classical heroic archetypes. For Burdock, astronauts and artists find themselves in comparably insupportable positions. While they inevitably want to communicate the results of their unique activities, they do so in a way that is out of touch with society, mired in intellectualism.
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 14:31:52 GMT
Trace forms part of a series of work that explores the complex relationship between absence and presence via the medium of the artist’s body. Powders are applied to the artist’s skin to leave traces of the human body, resulting in mysterious and haunting images that memorialise what was once present. Coble’s interest in the themes of loss and decay, and in particular the curious simultaneity of absence and presence, have been influenced by poetry and philosophy.
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 14:31:45 GMT
Manufacture illustrates the pressure put upon women to adhere to the modern construct of femininity. The female body is shown to be constrained, manipulated and artificial, bound by a false ideal of beauty. The artist uses her own body in her practice to explore this elaborate masquerade. She often models items of clothing designed and made by herself to highlight the strain and discomfort involved in being a woman. For Holmes, to be born a woman is to be born within an allotted and confined space. Taught to continually survey herself and persuaded to loathe what she sees, a woman can have no true freedom with her body.
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 14:31:34 GMT
Banner image: Wake. © Ella Shepard
An exploration of the many different ways in which water can abstract and distort the body, creating illusions and new textures.