Art has left the Building
Re:Call Interview
1) When were you at Bournville School of
Art?
2002 - 2005
2) What course did you study here?
BA Art and Design by Negotiated Study
3) Who were your tutors?
Kevin Harley, Bob Jardine and Alf
Pendleton. Tutorials with Nigel Prince, Kelly Large, Tom and Simon Bloor.
4) What area did you specialize in?
I experimented throughout the course
really, but mostly worked with traditional and digital photography,
installation, and in my final year, interventions.
5) What memories do you have of your
first day at Bournville School of Art?
I don’t recall my first day exactly, but
I do remember my first visit to Bournville School of Art for my interview very
well. I was 17 years old and at a delicate point in my education, ready to give
it up altogether due to not suiting an academically driven sixth form college.
I was the last to be interviewed that day and was surprised to be met by seven
interviewers. I had a lively and friendly conversation with them about my work
and artist influences and remember leaving very high spirited.
6) What memories do you have of your
final show at Bournville School of Art?
Preparing for the final show I remember
lots of trips to Wickes and Express Polythene in Digbeth, chatting and smoking
roll-ups with my tutor and chasing fellow students for their postcards for the
catalogue.
7) What piece did you do for your final
show at Bournville and could you describe it?
Information Point Service was a functional, yet fictional
information point constructed in IPS: International Project Space. The
seemingly authentic construction was situated near the entrance to the gallery
space, where an information point is typically situated, however the
construction was left un-painted, hinting to its inauthenticity. Originally it
intended to create a space in which the audience could encounter books made
capturing a series of observations and interventions in Birmingham. It later
became much more interactive with the site, other graduates and audience.
Throughout the weeklong exhibition I added information to the installation and
interacted with gallery visitors – offering fictional tours of the final show
exhibition and hand-made exhibition catalogues.
8) Could you give just five words to
describe your experience at Bournville School of Art?
Experimental,
playful, supportive, self-motivated, valuable.
9) Could you indicate what creative
activity you have done since your time at Bournville?
I studied MA Interactive Art and Design at
University College Falmouth and after graduating undertook a period of
practice-research as an associate artist at University of Worcester as part of
the National AA2A scheme, supported by CHEAD and Arts Council
England. During this period I participated in the temporary pubic art exhibition
Two and a Half Hours of Oxygen in Birmingham.
After moving to
Nottingham in 2008 I began working at Surface Gallery, an independent art gallery supporting
early-mid career artists and later joined the committee (2008-2011) to develop
the exhibition programme, artist studios and residencies. In 2009 I began a
practice-as-research PhD in the School of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent
University.
I am currently based between Nottingham and Worcester; working from an
artist studio and a member of the board of directors at Primary, an
artist-led space in Nottingham that exists to support creative research and to
develop new ways of engaging with audiences, and teaching New Media and
Professional Practice at University of Worcester.
I archive my practice and exhibitions on
my website.
10) Could you describe your current
creative practice/ideas/work?
I would say that my work operates in the practical and theoretical
sphere of interactivity, bringing into play modes of social exchange, audience
engagement, and participatory performance. I work site-responsively and
approach urban and online spaces as my playground and stage, intervening with
tactics, actions and games.
In my
current practice-as-research, the convivial mode of hospitality is tested as an
artistic methodology to activate audiences in participation and radical
investigation. Using a playful, participatory and performative practice, I am
researching how we live, relate and interact in virtual environments while
addressing the theories, ‘tactics’ and ‘constructed situations’ of Michel de
Certeau and Guy Debord. This practice-as-research has so far included a
speed-dating event with avatars between a physical and virtual café, an
experimental dance workshop using the gestures menu from Second Life, and
performative interventions as Mariela, my digital avatar.
11) Could you say a little about the
work you have chosen to include in the Re:Call exhibition?
I have chosen to share the traces and
documentation of a live intervention as my digital avatar Mariela, which took
place in a café during an art festival in Nottingham, Mariela: cmd, click, control. The piece followed a series of practice-led research into how we
communicate online, focusing on the virtual world of Second Life in which
avatars communicate mostly through a menu of gestures.
Mariela: cmd, click, control intends to question the increasing
familiarity of modes of online communication through re-framing and
re-performing them in a physical everyday space. During the live event café
customers could place an order with a waiter from the menu of gestures to
instruct Mariela’s movements, performed one-to-one at tables. It becomes a
digital performance work without any technology present, where the audience
determines the movement and duration of the live one-to-one performances.
This is the first time I have shown this
material (video documentation, hostess trolley, the menu, order tickets,
left-over tea and biscuits) as a piece of work in an exhibition context and
intends to consider the role of the document in live artistic practice.
12) What are you working on at the
moment?
I am currently living in the Library
working on my PhD thesis.
13) What are your creative plans for the
future?
To play, to travel, to collaborate...
14) Is there anything else you would
like to add?