Art has left the Building
Re:Call Interview
1) When were you at Bournville School of
Art?
2001-2006 (and 2000 at Ladywood Leisure
Centre)
2) What course did you study here?
Portfolio Foundation (2 years part-time)
BA Art and Design by Negotiated Studies
(mixture of full and part time)
3) Who were your tutors?
That question doesn't make much sense to
me - I think I worked with most people at one time or another..
4) What area did you specialize in?
I didn't - that's why I chose Negotiated
Studies!
5) What memories do you have of your
first day at Bournville School of Art?
I kind of blurred in to starting at
Bournville – our first year of Foundation was taught off-site due to the
refurb, but I think I might have been doing silversmithing in the basement of
Ruskin Hall at about that time too. The refurbishments hadn't really finished
by the time we went back to Bournville, so I remember the quad at Maple Road being a big pile of earth
and diggers, plumbing not being connected, freezing cold studios and generally
having to make the best of it. Character building!
6) What memories do you have of your
final show at Bournville School of Art?
There was an Unfortunate Incident
involving a nail and some paneling that had been put up with no gap between it
and the radiator... I wasn't involved, but a valuable lesson there!
Also that I was working off-site at the
University of Birmingham trying to sort out cock-ups with contractors and
hydraulic platforms. Stressful!
7) What piece did you do for your final
show at Bournville and could you describe it?
Collectively, my piece was called 'Three
Texts'. It comprised 'untitled (testimony)', Day Science/Night Science' and
'Counsel for the Artist'. Intended to represent the year leading up to
graduation, the present, and something of a manifesto for my practice in the
years to come.
Three Texts
Three Texts
Day Science/Night Science
Three Texts
Three Texts
Day Science/Night Science
I still refer to 'Counsel...' in my
work.
8) Could you give just five words to
describe your experience at Bournville School of Art?
A lesson in self motivation.
9) Could you indicate what creative
activity you have done since your time at Bournville?
I worked almost exclusively as a
freelance artist up until the government cuts a few years ago. Now working
in part time jobs and freelancing around
that. I also started an MA this academic year.
10) Could you describe your current
creative practice/ideas/work?
11) Could you say a little about the
work you have chosen to include in the Re:Call exhibition?
I started working with GPS technology in
2008. I'm interested in it as a material – how it has a grain, how it
splinters, how it pushes back.
The drawings exhibited as part of
Re:Call are traces of many hours spent walking around one of the 'Eastside'
regeneration areas. I hold a GPS unit in each hand as I walk, recording the
positions where they think they are each second. I join both positions for each
moment in time with a line. Errors are introduced due to affects from my body
and from the landscape, resulting in different characteristics of the lines as
I'm walking through different types of surroundings: in built up areas the lines
get longer and more haphazard as the GPS signal bounces off of buildings. In
open areas, the lines are much shorter and more uniform as the effects from the
fabric of the city are reduced.
Each drawing was made at a different
time and can be read as a map. The changes in the 'fingerprint' of the area can
be seen as car-parks are built, roads closed and buildings knocked down.
19264 seconds
19264 seconds
12) What are you working on at the
moment?
A project exploring connections to
distant places. Identify those locations that resonate with you and, when you
walk with one of these pods, they will shift their weight gently in your hands
when you are walking in the direction of that location.
13) What are your creative plans for the
future?
Mostly based around survival at the
moment – trying to find a way of making an arts practice sustainable.
14) Is there anything else you would
like to add?