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Fear of the surplus
Get PDFFear of the Surplus was the inaugural exhibition of the Tetley Art Centre in Leeds. The solo exhibition, was a collaboration between myself and artist Emma Rushton.
Responding to the context of the Tetley, which until its transformation into an art space, had been a place of work (Tetley Brewery), and current government rhetoric surrounding work and welfare the exhibition established a discursive space where conflicting ideas about labour, work systems and possible alternatives could be debated. For the exhibition, a large a hand crafted and painted ‘stage’ structure was installed in the main space. Over six weeks the stage was the setting for a programme of talks by a group of invited speakers – authors, activists, academics, theorists, organisers and campaigners, to unpick ideas of work – what it is, why and how we do it, its values and rewards and the conflicting ideas and issues which surround it. Fear of the Surplus was also understood as referring to capitals inability to address the redistribution of wealth and resources generated by all, through work, in its many different forms, waged and unwaged. The opening night of the project featured a continuous reading of Ivor Southwood’s book Non-Stop Inertia from the ‘stage’ by five actors. The following six weeks of the exhibition included talks by; philosopher Nina Power - When we say “work”, what do we mean? When we say “worker”, who do we not mean?; economist Guy Standing - The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class; academic Diane Morgan - Crisis? What “crisis”? “Living labour” NOW! ; author Lynsey Hanley – On self-improvement; sociologist Zygmunt Bauman – Dread of scarcity, Fears of abundance; anarchist Dónal O’Driscoll – When the machine took over, Ellul, Marcuse and the reshaping of work; Radical Routes organiser Cath Muller - Let’s build a co-operative society; union activist Andy Pearson – Unite the union; cultural theorist Mark Fisher – De-Privatising Stress. A new site-specific wall text Scapegoat was commissioned for the project and remained in the gallery for 6 months. The project culminated with a presentation by five actors of The Making of the English Working Class - update - readings from the classic text along with selected quotes and chapters written by speakers contributing to Fear of the Surplus
Mind the gap: an evaluation of joint development practice between further and higher education tutors within English design education
Get PDFAbstract: An English art and design college was the setting for this project which aimed to improve the transition of Access students into design Higher Education (HE). The Access course is made up of non-traditional, mature students who may have no previous formal qualifications. They come from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities and nationalities; often overcoming barriers to education in order to fulfil their ambitions to study on a design degree. Previous research had discovered that Access students were susceptible to dropping out during the first year of their degrees. In order to improve the critical thinking and resilience of Access students staff from both sectors worked together to develop the pedagogy of studio critiques. This project was based on two theoretical principles. The first was assessment for learning where formative assessment can be a very effective teaching strategy. The second was joint practice development (JPD) which is an approach to course improvement through cross-sector collaborative activities. The research used a case study methodology to identify and evaluate JPD activities across the two sectors that were both effective and sustainable. This project is situated within the changing context of Further Education (FE} where technical-managerial models potentially conflict with democratic and professional values
Wild oats group exhibition
Get PDFWild Oats brings together a group of artists who use food and the rituals of eating to comment on contemporary life, gender stereotypes and commodity culture. (curated by Dawn Woolley). Miina Hujala’s film Illallinen (The Dinner) explores the complex identification and idealization processes that take place during courtship. In the film the couple create an ideal, romantic occasion but they construct images of themselves that they believe the other wants to see – communicating a wish to be the object of the other’s desire. In Prise d’assault (Under Assault) Noemi McComber addresses issues of overconsumption, and the handling of waste while depicting unrestrained violence. The performance becomes a “…humiliating trial of judgment and soft stoning by way of food…[a] painful tar and feather-like ordeal, as if under siege by an angry mob of tots laying waste to an over-stocked kitchen.” Stephanie Bertrand (Author and Curator). Dawn Woolley’s photographs and sculptures reflect contemporary attitudes to consumerism and the commodification of human relationships through the consumption of food. The resulting still life’s comment on the gender distinctions upheld through commodity culture and the rituals of food consumption. Surreal Summer Fete is a performance by Ellen Sampson and Dawn Woolley in which they serve a variety of small edible sculptures to the (mostly unwilling) public during the exhibition opening. With shapes, and textures derived from ideas of romance, desire and gender norms, the objects will offer a surreal take on everyday finger foods. A food sculpture workshop took place within the exhibition as part of Diffusion International Photography Festival and Made in Roath Community Art Festival
Classification
Get PDFResearch process: Classification considered the relationship between class and the visual arts, exploring the relevance of class for different generations of artists & thinkers & an exploration of Class in the contemporary situation. The curated exhibition and symposium, shared the title Classification. The Symposium and exhibition, opened a dialogue to discuss ‘the importance for artists and thinkers, to talk, think, write about and make art works around the sometimes fraught, and often complex notion of class?’
Research Insights: Classification offered the opportunity of considering artworks as material critical practices and to consider class representations and creative endeavours that are outside of, or marginalized from, established theoretical conventions and definitions.
Dissemination: Classification hosted two dissemination events, a symposium and artists ‘in conversation’. They were held on Monday 15 July from 10:30 – 3:30
The exhibition, Classification was open to the public from 12 July until 17 August 2013
Readings in a rumour of the end of art
Get PDFThis book is a transcript of a roundtable discussion that took place at Leeds College of Art (now Leeds Arts University) in the summer of 2011. The remit was to respond to two texts that the group had been reading: Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx and Eva Geulen’s The End of Art: Readings in a Rumour After Hegel. Common to both texts was the topic of ‘endism’. As Art and Design educationalists, the reading group were reflecting on this as an issue not only for the production and reception of art, but also for its consequences for pedagogy. The Reading groups initially consisted of the following members of staff: Garry Barker, Annette Beaumont, James Beighton, Andrew Broadey, Susan Carter, Joanna Geldard, Andrew Joskowski, Dorothy King, Richard Miles, Madeleine Newman, Tom Palin, Debra Roberts, Marcel Swiboda and Lee Wainright. The final discussion roundtable was led by Michael Belshaw and included Garry Barker, Joanna Geldard, Richard Miles, and Tom Palin. The book contains extended references, biographies of the five authors and an introduction by Michael Belshaw
In the shadow of the hand - narrative drawings
Get PDFThis exhibition brought together four large narrative drawings, alongside small studies. The exhibition was important as it was the first time that Barker had exhibited large complex narratives in a public space and it was also the first time that critics and other art writers had had a chance to review his work. As well as bringing Barker's work to a wider audience, he was also able to see the work being used within an educational context, several groups of students using the images as inspiration for their own drawings about what life was like in the city. A catalogue based on the form of a newspaper was also produced for the exhibition, the reverse side of which opened out as a large A1 print based on one of the works in the exhibition. This was very popular and all the catalogue/prints were quickly taken away by the visiting public. All the drawings were based on conversations had whilst walking, talking and drawing on the streets of Chapeltown. The success that the exhibition had in engendering further conversations about contemporary city living reinforced in Barker's mind that this was a positive direction to take his work into
Visual pleasure: photography, illusion and the desire to be deceived
Get PDFAll of the artwork I have created over the last ten years has contained two unifying features; the use of photographic cut-out's and the use of my body. Both elements invoke philosophical questions about perception and interpretation. The body of work printed in this book forms an enquiry into the act of looking, and the experiences we have as individuals when we are looked at. This essay explores the artificiality of the way we see and the things we are shown. Consideration is given to the importance of the body, not only as an object of sight and a cultural signifier, but also as the vessel through which we negotiate the world and gather our perceptions of it.
Visual Pleasure [exhibition catalogue] brings together artwork and research completed over the past 4 years by artist Dawn Woolley including documentation from a series of performance installations, Cut to the Measure of Desire, which were specially commissioned in 2009 by Stiwdio Safle and funded by the Arts Council of Wales.
Woolley’s artwork examines her experience of being an object of sight and also considers the experience the viewer has when looking at her as a female, and as a photographic object. Voyeurism and exhibitionism intertwine in purposefully provocative scenes.
Visual Pleasure includes a critical essay by Woolley that takes modes of looking and spectatorship as its subject. The text considers the psychology of perception and illusion in art referring to seminal texts by Laura Mulvey, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Micheal Foucault and Jacques Lacan. Also included is an introductory text by the writer and psychoanalyst Darian Leader.
The publication was made possible through a production grant by the Arts Council of Wales and is published through Ffotogaller
Shades of grey
Get PDFThis symposium and exhibition set out to explore how art and artists respond to issues of ageing: in particular to expectations, perceptions and fears, loss and memory and generational boundaries. Speakers included Mick Ward and Caroline Starkey from Leeds City Council as well as three artists: Barker, Jo Lee and Geoff Broadway. As well as providing a text for the symposium, Barker exhibited two sets of work, one responding to his father’s death and the other to the death of his mother. This exhibition was important in that it was the first time Barker was able to exhibit work that responded to deep personal experiences, in conjunction with the giving of a lecture that was written to specifically relate my art practice to wider human interests, in this case how we as a society deal with death. In particular it opened a door for Barker's own research into how art and life can be usefully linked together and it firmed up his belief in undertaking projects as both a way of making allegorical images and as a way of shaping responses to life events - thus confirming Barker's decision to engage more in community events and to allow his art practice to reflect on these experiences
A History of Design and Pedagogy in Burslem School of Art
No full textThis paper is timely, as the subject is honour of the (1907) centenary of the purpose-built Queen Street site of Burslem School of Art (BSA). The paper relates to the design history strand of the conference, by sharing some insights found in the writing of Behind the Glass, and article honouring the unique achievements of the school. Commonalities with the latter and Behind the Music, a publication honouring the (1903) centenary of the purpose-built site at Vernon Street, at Leeds College of Art and Design, is apparent. Both studies focus in part on the contribution of focus in part on the contribution of the provincial school to the national system, in terms of pedagogic design. This paper follows the growth and development of a practice-based pedagogy known as executed design, developed by a former student of BSA
Wunderkammer: the female gaze objectified
Get PDFSculptor Sheila Gaffney and painter Linda Schwab made an intervention into Leeds Art Gallery’s permanent collection, creating a dialogue around that which is saved and displayed in museum culture, and making transparent the male gaze implicit within museum collections and cultures. Gaffney created a ‘Studiolo’ siting her own sculpture, informed by feminism, in the glass fronted ‘Models Room’, a formerly concealed archive alongside 25 valuable small works and maquettes from the Leeds collection. Schwab created a ‘Cavea’, enclosing an iconic marble nude with a group of dressed chairs inviting the viewing public to sit in them, look through a peephole and become voyeurs. Research process: Practice Research with museum collection-based research led this enquiry which manifested as sculpture, painting and intervention. Research insights: The practice led conceptualisation, project management and curation of the gallery based intervention Wunderkammer: the female gaze objectified, alongside its related publication Object, made an original contribution to ways in which the sculpture collections of Leeds Museums and Galleries could be viewed, displayed and understood. The intervention into the collection was the result of a curated interaction between original artworks by artists Sheila Gaffney and Linda Schwab with selected items from the collections. Whilst the exhibited display (and the design of the book Object) provided immediate encounters that embodied questions of gender and authorship in relation to representations of women, the gallery situated intervention and dissemination provoked a wider interrogation of museum ideology. The intervention made an original contribution to ways that artistic methods can introduce civic and private collections to new audiences and individual artworks can be presented as theoretical objects.Practice and theory were combined in this project in a way that gave material form to scholarly considerations of the following topics:
• female nudes in galleries and museums as made by male artists
• the presentation of works of art in galleries
• the objectivity of museum collections
• the male gaze in museum collections
• how contemporary art relates to the history of art
• feminism and figurative sculpture.
Dissemination: The output was disseminated via exhibition, press and broadcast coverage